Poem By Ilham - The Hidden Danger

This poem was written by Ilham in class - Year 5 

The Hidden Danger

The water rushes over your feet,

bringing sea life to an end.

The splashing of waves againsts the rocks,

slowly peeling the moss.

The water soaks your skin,

making you shiver.

The mist blocking your view,

bringing you nowhere.

High tides starts to form,

swallowing the surfers.

Boats piercing its way through the storm,

but actually leading to suicide.

When the water pulls you in,

you will sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Diary Of A Wimpy Kid

Drawing clip from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Ever since I bought the first 3 books of Diary Of A Wimpy Kid (initially for me to read first!! then to pass to Ilham when he is bigger) just over a year ago, Ilham is hooked on the books. He simply love them. He has been rereading them for many times now, I think the first book alone, he reread 5/6 times, and everytime, he laughed just as if reading it for the first time :D Now, had he shown similar interest when reading his Muqaddam, I would feel very very happy indeed !!! I don't blame him, I enjoyed reading the books as well, they made me smile even reading the first page...

First page of the 1st book..

Anyway since then, we have bought all the 6 books available, including the latest one "The Ugly Truth". The only one we have not bought is the Diary of a Wimpy Kid : Do-It-Yourself Book. They even have a movie made based on this book and Ilham had been so looking forward to see the movie which was released in the summer, but somehow the movie was not shown here!! What a shame...

The 4th and 5th books


The latest book

Ilham has been so inspired by these books that he even has his own diary err.. journal to write, just like Greg the main character. He even draw himself exactly like Greg, just scroll to the bottom and you will know what I mean.


Initially he had been writing quite regularly, but now since summer he had been distracted by other activities because we went back home to Malaysia. Sadly to say, since he started school here at the British School, he has not been very productive in his writing. For that very reason I have been very "persuasive" in my encouragement for him to write :D And this is what happen when I did that. Instead of writing something interesting that happened to him, he wrote this.... (hope you can read)

Part 1/4

Part 2/4

Part 3/4

Part 4/4


I told him to "put your heart in writing" and that is exactly what I got - a drawing of his heart on a plate !!!

Goodbye Flat Ben...

After having Flat Ben at home for 9 days, Ilham was sad to send Flat Ben back to his flat worlds. He became quite attached to the paper friend and actually shed a few tears on that final night. So I told him to write what he was feeling in the booklet. This is what he wrote and drew...

Goodbye !!!

To make him feel better, I told him that Flat Ben was only going for a short while and that he would get Flat Ben back at the end of school year in June when the teacher gave back all the school works. That seemed to cheer him a bit, but then at the end of the school year, he didn't get Flat Ben, instead he got Flat Ilham !!!

" Never mind, I still have Flat Ilham..." he said, when I told him.

Flat Ilham

Hmmm.... young minds do easily forgets :D

More on Flat Ben

Ilham wrote quite a few entries on his adventures with Flat Ben. I tried to take more pictures of his work, but it didn't turn out good because sometimes the writings were not dark enough for my camera. I really should scan them, but we do not have one at home, and I do not want to trouble DH at work.

Some of the writings were rather funny and some were quite violent.. Oh dear, it must be the influence of all these games and fightings on TV !!! Anyway, from the way he wrote I could see that he did have all these ideas in his head but he still had trouble getting it out on paper. It is normal, according to the teacher. She said something about the young mind is still not able to send it to the hands(my understanding of what she said!!!). But he was ok, some kids are not able to write at all.

Story of him & Flat Ben in the tub. Read this "....hes like a boat at the stormy seas of the tub." I thought that was quite poetic he..he..


Story at Ajax stadium . When he came home, he realised that he would not get any presents from us because his 8th birthday fell within the 3 months period.


Such wild imagination and err violent too... In reality, Flat Ben only fell to the floor next to his feet!!!


However way he wrote them, we still treasure them nonetheless.

Spring Break With Flat Ben

Just before spring holiday started last April, the students of 2JK were buzy drawing their own pictures for the project during the holiday. These pictures, labeled with their own name, were then cut and laminated, and then given to another student to take home. Over the holiday period, the students were required to bring their "flat friend" whenever they go and write about their adventures together in a booklet.


Ilham was given Flat Ben to bring home. You can view Flat Ben here :D I think, the idea of having adventures with these "flat friends (as I like to term it)", were inspired by the Flat Stanley books as written by Jeff Brown. The students of grade 2 had been reading these books in their classes. I personally found the books interesting and full of adventure :D


This is Ilham's booklet and some of the stories as written by him during the one week holiday..

That's it for now.... will upload more Flat Ben stories later :D

The Story Of Ramses

After browsing through the suggested activities for Home Learning, I suggested for Ilham to "write a story set in Ancient Eqypt" as his first activity. It was the easiest one I could think of. What we needed was only a piece of paper and lots of brilliant ideas. It was easy !!! Or so I thought....


First, he made a list of what he thought ancient Egypt was like :

Pyramid, river nile, temple, pharoah, the boy king Tut, egyptian boat, mummies, dessert.... hmm... what else??? These things could be mentioned in the story.


Then, the story needed a plot. So what's the plot about?? Ilham didn't understand what a plot was. I had to rephrase that "what is the story about?" After thinking about it for a little while, he said it's about how a boy saved King Tut's life. Hmmm.....that sounded like a good story....


Let's see what transpired between us in the making of the "story"


"Once upon a time in the golden sand of Egypt, there lived a boy named Ramses", then he stopped.


Me : That's a nice beginning. Explain a little about Ramses. Who is he?


"Ramses was poor boy", he stopped.


Me : What did Ramses do?


"Every day, he helped his father in the field. When he finished, he would go to the river Nile to fish and to enjoy the view."


Me : That's nice, write a little bit more.


"Sometimes he would play around the pyramid"


Me : Go on...


Ilham : No, that's enough, you only need a little introduction.


Me : Ok, let's write the main story then, remember your plot.


"One day, Ramses saved King Tut's life"


Me : If you write that, your story will end in 3 lines. This is the interesting part, explain how Ramses saved King Tut's life. What happened on that day. What was Ramses doing.


"One day, Ramses was lying on the river bank. Suddenly he saw King Tut fell into the river. Then Ramses saved him"


Me : First, in your story do you want Ramses to know that it was the boy king? Second, make it more suspense. What happened when he fell.


So the sentence was rewritten....


"Suddenly he saw a boy fell into the river from a boat. There was a crocodile in the river. The crocodile came towards him. Ramses killed the crocodile. He saved the boy."


Me : That's good, but maybe you should explain a bit what did the boy do next when he fell, and how Ramses kill the crocodile. Remember, you want to make it suspense! And tell me first before you write, that way, you don't have to keep erasing.


"The boy tried to swim to the river bank, but then the crocodile came and grabbed his legs"


Me : Good, what did Ramses do then.


"Ramses took his spear and throw it at the crocodile, but it missed. Then Ramses jumped into the river. He took his knife and stabbed the crocodile until it died"


Me : Very good, then what happened?


"You saved my life" the boy said to Ramses,"come to the palace, I must reward you"


Ilham : I'm tired now, can we continue tomorrow?


That was the end of our writing on the first day. The following day, Ilham had another session of writing, with his father this time. It was easier the second day, he had more "ideas" of his own - the boy king and Ramses became friends, the Romans came, people died, Ramses defeated the Romans, they lived happily until King Tut died, Ramses became pharoah etc...


Conclusion : Writing is not easy :)

Hi !! I Am Flat Ben

" Hi !! I am Flat Ben. I shall be your friend for the whole week of Spring Break. I am very excited, we are going to have a lot of fun together."

On Friday 16th of April, Ilham brought home a new friend "Flat Ben" to spend the Spring Break with us. Ilham was very excited about it. He was supposed to bring Flat Ben whenever he goes and he would write about their adventures together in the book provided by the teacher.

So, for the first few days, Ilham brought Flat Ben wherever he goes. They slept together at night with Flat Ben under the pillow. He brushed his teeth in the morning with Flat Ben standing next to the tooth paste. They ate and watched TV together, practically everything they did together . They even swam together (against my advice) in the bath tub :) I have to admit that Flat Ben was a good swimmer and he floats well in the water. You don't have to worry that he might drown in the bubble bath... Flat Ben loved water and would not have come out of the water had Ilham not realised that his colour had started to run!!!

But then, after a few days, Ilham started to feel the responsibility of bringing Flat Ben everywhere was kind of boring. Luckily Ilham's mother always had her big bag with her, so in Flat Ben into her bag and he would only come out once in a while to play with Ilham. But it's ok because he still followed them everywhere.... to Hoorn, The Hague, Amsterdam and the Flower Parade in Haarlem. The most interesting place was the Ajax shop where he bought Ilham his favourite Ajax jersey. You don't know Ajax? Why Ajax is the most famous football club in the whole of The Netherlands!!! It is kind of like that over famous club in the UK, you know that M..M..M something, aahh MU I think.

Ilham was used to having Flat Ben around that he felt very sad when he had to send Flat Ben back to his flat world when school reopened yesterday. He was actually crying that Sunday night!!! I told him that Flat Ben will only be going for a little while, he will come back to live with him when the school closes for Summer Holiday. Only then, he quietened a bit.

I think it is amazing that a little friend like that can have an impact on a child's life. What I like is it encourages Ilham to write in the book almost every day, sometimes with a lot of persuasion by his mother of course :) When I talked to one of Ilham's friend's mother this morning, she too said that it was a good idea for her son to have a "friend" like that.

Student-Led Conference

Student-Led Conference provides an opportunity for student to show parents their learning and works which they are proud of. During the conference students are in charge, not the teacher and not parents. The students will guide and share their selected works and and talk about their learning experiences, what they think they do best and the things which they find challenging or difficult. They will also talk about their goals for the rest of the year and how they are going to achieve it. They are encouraged to speak and talk in their mother tongue or their most comfortable language.

The teacher will act as facilitator and will be there to support and guide the students and help to maintain focus on the learning and to confirm student goals for the rest of the year. Now, the role of the parents is to encourage students to talk confidently about their learning and achievements. We are asked to be sensitive to our child's feeling as sometimes their thoughts and opinions may not be a true reflection of their ability and achievements. If we have any concerns, we may talk to the teacher at another time.

Ilham's conference was on the 26th March at 2.10 pm. His EAL teacher was also there, which was a disappointment because I had already made an appointment to see him separately at 3 pm !! I had so much to ask him and the conference did not allow me to do that because time was limited. Apart from that, everything went well. Ilham said he likes Grade 2 and he likes Unit Of Inquiry the best. He thinks he is a good reader and can spell hard and difficult words :) He likes reading a variety of books and his favourite is Diary Of A Wimpy Kid. He finds mathematics rather challenging (in other words difficult). His goals are to improve his cursive hand writing (which is messy) and to practice Mathematics at home.

He showed me his "book" called "The Dragon and The King", which according to the teacher he wrote himself based on a folktale during the previous Unit Of Inquiry.

That is a very nice and long story Ilham, keep writing.... And I can see why you want to improve your handwriting !!!

Don't worry, Mama will ensure that you practice at home ok. Ms Kimura had already given me the book on "Handwriting" to photocopy :)

Class Journal

Every student in grade 2 has his/her own personal journal to write in class. They are encouraged to write any stories or personal experiences that they might think interesting. I'm not so sure how often they are required to write, but according to Ilham he writes almost every day, but sometimes he does not have time. I found him purposely misspell during the spelling time in class so that he could stop doing the spelling and write in the journal instead. It seems that every monday when they have spelling, students who have reached 7 mistakes would stop and be required to either read or write while waiting for the other kids to finish their spelling which could be up to 30 words. So one day, Ilham "cheated" on the spelling by leaving out the last alphabet and spending the rest of the time writing his journal.

I think it's definitely a good idea to encourage kids to write and try to express their feeling in the journal. I try to do the same at home, but somehow it's quite difficult to do that. After much persuasions , he did manage to write a few things :( I love one particular story, which he wrote of his own accord, without having to be asked. He was so sad by what happened that he just had to write it immediately. It's a story about his favourite ball and how he lost it, he even drew a coffin for it :) complete with the remark "RIP Ball" which he got from watching Michael Jackson funeral a few months back .

But recently, ever since Ilham read the "Diary Of A Wimpy Kid" book, he is inspired to have a "journal" of his own. I'm happy that he has been writing in it every few days :)

Diary Of A Smart Kid

A few weeks ago, I bought the first three books of "Diary Of Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney to read and was hoping that in a few years Ilham would be able to read them as well. So it's kind of like killing two birds with one stone :) I really enjoyed reading the books especially the first one. It's so funny I just couldn't help smiling and laughing from the first page. It is definitely an excellent choice for reluctant readers - as stated by one of the reviews. When Ilham saw me reading the book, he wanted to read as well, now, and not when he is in grade 4 ( I told him earlier that he could read them when he's in that grade at least). Since he insisted to read the book, I gave in. Ilham loved the book, he finished it in a few days time. Now he thinks that he is big enough to read big kids' books !!! Reading the book gives him the idea to have his own diary as well, and asked me to buy one for him. Thinking that it might be good to encourage him to write at home as well, (he has a journal to write in school) I bought one for him. He called it "Diary Of A Smart Kid" and this is what he wrote.....

He even drew himself like "Greg" the main character in the book :) . I do hope that he writes as often as possible.

A Special Card

What is a new year to a seven year old?

Each year, we Malaysians actually enjoy 3 different new years Maal Hijrah, The New Year and The Lunar New Year. Whether we celebrate them or not is another matter, but I'm sure we look forward to the new years simply because they are all public holidays!!

So, what does a new year mean to me? I have to admit that except for The New Year, I rarely keep tracks of the other 2. When The New Year approaches, I sometimes have a certain feeling of regrets, regret that another year has gone by and I have yet to become a better person. As for Maal Hijrah, even though I do not normally count how many more days to Hijrah, I make it a point to call my mother a few days before to remind her. By doing that, I remind myself as well.

I never really think of what these new years mean to my son. Not until I received this present from him on the last day of school last week. Of course I knew that I was going to get a card from him, you see 2 days before he had accidentally blurted that he was making a present for me, that it's supposed to be a secret (can't keep a secret from your mum!) . What else a 7 year old would be making, of course a card, a Christmas card perhaps because Christmas was just around the corner.

So, this is what I received from him....

A New Year is fun, happy to start a New Year

A New Year sounds like fire works exploding in the sky, lion dance

A New Year smells like yummy foods, fire work smoke

A New Year tastes like nice food, nice drinks, mandarin oranges

A New Year feels like a hot day, lion dancing on the street

Regardless of what his impression of the new year is, I treasure it all the same........