Why is the blood of the octopus blue?

The blood of a human is red as it contains haemoglobin. The haemoglobin, which carries oxygen around our body, contains iron. However, the blood of an octopus is blue as it contains the protein, haemocyanin. Haemocyanin, which carries oxygen around the octopus's body, contains copper.  

The copper-based protein is more efficient at transporting oxygen molecules in cold and low-oxygen conditions so is ideal for life in the ocean.

If the blood (called haemolymph in invertebrates) becomes deoxygenated - when the animal dies, for example - it loses its blue colour and turns clear instead.

The famous "Helen & Ivan" 2021 Math PSLE Question - We've nailed it!

At Serena's Greenhouse, the team believes that besides preparing our pupils well for the examinations, we should also impart study skills, study habits and values that will have an even more lasting impact on them.  

We always emphasise to our pupils the importance of being resilient and persevering when they face challenging questions during the classes. When the pupils first joined us, many of them would whine and give up when we assigned a challenging question. However, during their learning journey with us, they have blossomed to become confident problem solvers. We're glad that when our P6 pupils were put to the test this morning, they managed to stay calm, display resilience and perseverance during the Math PSLE paper today. 

A number of them were also very excited when they could see the similarity in concepts tested for the challenging "Helen & Ivan" question and what they had learnt in class.  They were so happy that they sent us messages after the examination. 

Teaching the Kids to "Fish" through our Writer's Craft Programme

Recently, a parent enquired about our Writer's Craft programme as a few of her friends had recommended our programme to her. She asked me, "What does the programme cover? Could you share more details with me?"

During the classes, pupils will be taught to brainstorm for ideas using a framework. Besides that, they are exposed to a wide variety of vocabulary and phrases related to the theme. Most importantly, they are taught writing skills explicitly through our in-house writing resources and writing frameworks crafted by Teacher Hayati and Teacher Serena. The pupils are taught literary devices like Magic of 3, anaphora, metaphors, alliteration, symbolism, fragmented sentences and others. We also teach writing techniques such as character description, expanding a moment and creating tension. To make learning easier for the students, we have crafted our own writing frameworks for these writing techniques. 

We also guide pupils in appreciating writing techniques and writing style adopted by accomplished writers. We do this by analysing writer's craft through the use of mentor texts during lessons. Mentor texts used are in the form of extracts from stories written by accomplished writers. Mentor texts are also in the form of model compositions crafted by Teacher Hayati and Teacher Serena. 

We're thankful that our efforts have achieved what we have set out to do - to help them blossom into more confident writers.

 

Words of appreciation from a tutee who improved from 25 marks  to 36 marks

Congratulations to K who was given a Gold Finalist Award in the 

Queen's Commonwealth Essay Competition 2021

Words of affirmation from a tutee's parent