Hi again,
Please let me know if you don’t want to receive my mass emails – easily fixed. We are also going to blog now so you may prefer to access them through that rather than the email – let me know. It’s hard to know what people like really so......

We are good here and have had a relatively quiet 2 weeks though have a few things planned and on the go in the next little while.

School is busy and I have been running workshops for parents again on supporting how they can support their children in writing. I have completed 6 sessions for parents of Grade 1 children – equivalent of NZ year 2s – so 6-7year olds. Approximately 80 parents attended. I have another 6 sessions for the Grade 2 starting next week and then I presume similar for the rest of the grades to grade 5. I presume numbers will drop off a bit towards the higher grades but who knows. I am also involved in data analysis which is identifying areas in the school reading programme that may be looked at and supporting staff in a shift to a stronger instructional reading programme. So all quite interesting. Writing research for best practices is an area I am looking at too.

As part of New Year celebrations the school had some local Chinese people come to perform the traditions lion dance. This was relatively interesting though not awe inspiring. Good to see once. The children loved it that’s for sure, and the performers did respond to them.

Basically the “lions” are 2 people – the front person has the mask and the back person is the tail end of the lion. There were times that the head or masked person went up on the shoulders of the back person and it looked as if the lion was rearing up on its hind legs. They also sat down next to the children which was pretty cool.

The dragon dance is done with a dragon – a very snakelike puppet on poles that the people controlling it move around, sweeping up and down and looping around. A little bit like rhythmic gymnasts with their ribbons only everyone is connected. This meant sometimes they were literally skipping and jumping over it.

There are huge competitions for these performances I believe.

Had a lovely time with an ex-work associate today – Barry Burgess, an adaptive equipment company owner. He had a 10 hour stopover on his way home from India. Great to see a familiar face and chat about blind or vision impaired technology. I took him to the SAVH (Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped) to meet their adaptive equipment person. I know they appreciated his introduction and being able to ask questions about equipment. They have a really limited supply of samples which is hard when you are trying to help people make decisions. We then had lunch at our local Indian restaurant which is fabulous! So the hours he was here passed very quickly.

Went to a play last night but didn’t sit it all out. It ended up being a rather amateurish production so we left at half-time. We had to try it and now we probably won’t go to another one. However the pros was that we went to another part of town – into the national library – which I think is more research based than leisure reading material and walked through the rather well known night markets at in the Bugis area. So all good. David tried some gelato which wasn’t that great but.......
Off out today to get a few cables and a curved keyboard for me at school as I am having a bit of trouble with my shoulder and I think it is the posture thing at work. Am using a couple of cushions to put me in a better position but still need the keyboard I think, especially as I can spend quite a few hours on the computer a day.

Also of course a visit to our favourite Indian restaurant and then the superb supermarket that we found.

Well better go
Cheers
Mary