Listen to the National Day Theme Songs. Which is your favourite? Post your answer as a comment to this blog entry :-)
National Day Theme Song 2001
Where I Belong


National Day Theme Song 2002
We Will Get There


National Day Theme Song 2003
One United People


National Day Theme Song 2004
Home

National Day Theme Song 2005
Reach for the Skies


National Day Theme Song 2006
My Island Home


National Day Theme Song 2007
Will You


National Day Theme Song 2008
Shine For Singapore


National Day Theme Song 2009
What Do You See


National Day Theme Song 2010
Song For Singapore

A City For You to Play In (4 Joy)

"... there is much the Republic (Singapore) is doing right and much the rest of the world can envy, but the country is falling down in one key area - it is not think small enough... Child-sized, to be precise, because cities must first be livable for children before they can be livable for all, says urban planning consultant Suzanne Crowhurst Lennard, who was here recently for the World Cities Summit." Little Red Dot, The Straits Times, Tuesday, 03/08/10

Should a city be a playground for children? Or is it better to have special areas where children can play? What do you think, and why?

Write about 3 things that make Singapore a better place for children to live in.

World Class Toilets (P5 Peace)

According to Singapore's 'Toiletman' , (LRD pg 14) "Singaporeans toilet habits remain notoriously bad" despite efforts to ptomote clean toilets in Singapore.
Singapore has achieved world class status in many areas but this is one area where everyone needs to put in some effort. Dirty toilet habits are the result of poor training at home and in school.
What is the condition of the toilet in your own home. Can you make it a nicer place ? Have you played your part in maintaining a good standard of cleanliness when you use the toilet in school and public places?
Do you agree with this statement? What experiences have you had with toilets in Singapore? How can we help Mr Toiletman, make Singapore toilets world class ?

Shopping Centre Vocabulary

Using the article on The Heeren from Page 5 of this week’s (27/7/10) LRD, we highlighted some phrases with the class pertaining to shopping centres (not malls) and made sentences together that we thought might be useful for our compositions. Do you find these phrases useful? Maybe you can use them in your next composition!

 It was lunch time last Wednesday in Orchard Road. The usually-crowded streets however, were deserted as floodwaters had covered the pavement.
 People had to squeeze through the crowd.
 People ventured into the six-storey shopping centre, but many window-shopped before walking out.
 Loud techno music blared from some shops.
 The fourth floor was occupied mostly by shops selling apparel.
 The patrons in the eateries were shocked by what they saw outside the window.

5 Charity and 5 Faith

Are you using your brains? (P5Hope)

On page 9 of LRD dated 27 July 2010, there was an article about people using only 10 per cent of their brains. If we could somehow tap on the rest of our brainpower, we would be a lot smarter! This is a myth – a story or explanation which is false, but believed to be true by many people. Our brain controls our mind and body. It is made up of billions of nerve cells. Damage to even tiny parts of the brain can seriously affect one’s health and well-being. If we want keep our brains functioning at its maximum capacity, what do you think we should do?

Money and Me

P5 Joy
Tuesday, 20/7/10 issue of LRD Pg 17

Money and Me
I am sure most of you have been told by your parents and elders to ‘spend your money wisely’. This article explains what it means and how you can spend your money wisely.
In our daily lives, it is common to buy things that we either need or want. Before you buy that thing, have you considered whether it is a need or a want? So, what is the difference between a need and a want
A need consists of the basic items that are required for your survival, such as food, shelter and education whereas a want is something that you wish to own but you are capable of living without.

How one can be a wise spender and save some money?

Flooding in Orchard Road

On Page 5 of this week's LRD, we read about the flood in Orchard Road. Amazingly enough, everyone could remember where they had been when they heard about the flood. I guess that shows that we all had been very shocked.

During our English lesson, we discussed about what could have possibly caused the flood. Some people said it might have been litter thrown in the drains while others said that the drains were not big enough. I had never heard of the Stamford Canal until today. That is the name of the canal that overflowed on June 17th, causing the flood.

From the article, we learnt that Orchard Road is known as one of Singapore's prime area. In the article, the writer described the flood as having 'swirling brown water the colour of milk tea'. Some of my friends said that that sounded delicious but I was very disgusted. We also read about how people had to scramble out of their cars and how the submerged road made it difficult to drive through as the flood water rose. There was a nice part about how passers-by helped a shop open its doors by ramming through the grilles as they had been trapped by the floodwaters. Of course, everyone had been caught off guard by this flood, as they had never been rain this heavy since 1984!!

Do you remember what you were doing when you heard about the flood?

For more pictures and videos, go to the link below:

http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/sgseen/this_urban_jungle/394710/heavy_rains_cause_severe_flooding_along_orchard_road.html

Kallang Slashings

Between May 27 to 30 last month, there was a crime spree in the Kallang area, which resulted in 1 construction worker killed in an open field.

Seven people have already been caught for gang robbery.

When we discussed this in class, we talked about how crazy it all seemed and how important it was to be careful when we walk home. It's hard to belive that this happened in Singapore.

However, a good thing that came out of this was that some Singaporeans were compassionate enough to come forward to help those who had been injured in the attacks. Some helped by donating money while others paid for their bills. I heard that one of them was a construction worker who had had his fingers cut off by the attacks. He cannot continue working now. We all felt really sad by this.

The article about how Singaporeans came forward to help the injured men can be found at the link below:

http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC100609-0000066



5 Charity 2010

MRT Graffiti

Between May 16 and 17, 2 men, Oliver Fricker and Dane Alexander Lloyd, cut a fence in Changi Depot (the place where they 'park' all the trains at night) and spray-painted graffiti on one of the MRT trains.

However, what was weird about this incident was that SMRT (the people who run the MRT system in Singapore) did not realise what had happened until a teenaged boy, who was part of a trainspotting group--- a group of people whose hobby is to follow trains--- happened to take a video of the train. He had thought that it was an advertisement. When SMRT realised that someone had vandalised the train, they started investigating and caught Oliver Fricker, a well-paid Swiss banker working in Singapore. The other man however, had left the country after vandalising the train.

This incident made the public ask how safe the MRT depots were. Some people said that it would have been very serious if the men had done something more dangerous with the train.

What do you think about this incident? Should SMRT do anything? Should the public do anything to prevent something like this from happening again?

6 Charity - In memory of Dr Goh Keng Swee (6 October 1918-14 May 2010)

The dearly missed ex-Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore not only went on to become one of modern Singapore’s pioneers, but also served terms as the Minister for the Finance, Defence, and Education ministries. In short, it is safe to say that everything we now see around us was due to his sheer brilliance, practicality, foresight and vision for the modern Singapore he aspired to create.

He was usually called in by the Minister Mentor, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, to solve many of the problems that Parliament faced, thus acquiring the nick-name “Mr Fix It”. Among the many things we are grateful to him for are: JTC, MAS, The Singapore Bird Park, The Underwater World and many more. Let us remember him and keep his legacy alive!

Do share your thoughts with us.