2016 PSLE Question on Carrier Crab and Sea Urchin - Check out this video

In the 2016 Science PSLE, pupils were asked an open-ended question on the carrier crab and sea urchin.

Watch this video (posted on Youtube) to see the carrier crab in action.

Science Concepts:

This is an example of symbiosis or interdependence between the carrier crab and the sea urchin. The carrier crab carries the sea urchin on its back as a spiny shield to protect itself from predators. In return, the sea urchin gets a free ride to new feeding grounds in the ocean so that it can get more food.

Good Read - Frindle by Andrew Clements

Recently, I gave my nephew, E, a book, "Frindle", by Andrew Clements as part of his birthday present. E enjoys reading the book as it is humorous.

The book is about a boy, Nicholas Allen, who has plenty of ideas. Mrs Granger, the language arts teacher, has X-ray vision and nobody gets away with anything in her classroom. To make matters worse, she is also a fanatic about the dictionary. However, when Nick learns an interesting tidbit about words and where they come from during Mrs Granger's lessons, he is inspired to invent a new word. A pen is no long a pen - it is a frindle.

Soon, the excitement about invented words spreads beyond Nick's school and town.

I would recommend this book to kids who are in Primary 3 and 4. If you have a Primary 2 kid who is an advanced reader, this book may be suitable for him or her too. In a nutshell, this imaginative tale about creative thought and the power of words will intrigue young readers.

What should you do after your kid has shown you the examination scripts?

It's the time of the year when kids take home their examination scripts or report books. After you have identified areas that your child has improved in and acknowledged the improvement, what could you as parents do?

The next step will be to identify the areas for improvement. Do not be too quick to judge your child and make comments such as "Why did you do so poorly this time round? Did you put in effort?" Yes, there will definitely be times when you  feel disappointed in your child's results. However, before you make any comments, I would suggest that you calm down and look through the examination script first. Ask yourself:
- Is the examination challenging? 
- Are there questions that are higher-order? Are these the questions that your child stumbles over?
- Are there concepts that have been taught and yet your child still gets the concepts wrong?
- Is your child weak in certain sections of the paper or certain topics?

A friend of mine was sharing with me recently how her daughter's school had incorporated a number of higher-order questions in the examination. As a school teacher, she knew that her daughter would probably not get some of these questions right as she did not have enough exposure in school. There was one Heuristic question that was taught in school but her daughter got the question wrong. She commented that it was a signal to her that her daughter had not internalised what was taught. Hence instead of reprimanding her daughter, she told me that she would work on the weaker areas during the December holidays. 

I agree with my friend's approach. I think it is important to look through the examination scripts and identify the areas for improvement. Make use of the December holidays to revisit the concepts or topics that your child does not understand. Work on the sections that he or she is weaker in. If you follow this strategy, you will realise that you can achieve much more than just doing assessment book after assessment book or paper after paper. This focused approach will be more effective given the fact that kids have little time as many still need to go to school for CCA sessions or supplementary lessons, especially the P6 kids.

There is a Chinese saying that highlights the importance of diagnosing an illness and prescribing suitable medicine after the diagnosis. I think it will be more effective if we spend time diagnosing the areas for improvement and work on them during the December holidays.