Amber's mental arithmetic teacher enrolled her for a district competition. I was skeptical as we've just enrolled her to UCMas 3 months ago and she had to undo what she had do-ed in her abacus program. To cut the long story short, Amber was following some Taiwanese method using only right hand and 3 fingers to manipulate the beads. She (or rather, US!!) found it difficult to manage bigger digits and tends to make mistake easily. We decided to change her to UCMas and was thankful to have met a teacher who understood why Amber kept making mistakes and she was willing to 'undo' what she has learnt and start her all over again. And so, she went... learning abacus all over again, a different method, using both hands and two fingers on each hand, the UCMas approach and which I found to be more systematic and less prone to errors.
Teacher encouraged us to send her for the district competition for exposure. It was a good experience for her, having to compete among the champions and having a feel of how it's like to ready-get set-go upon hearing the starting whistle.
Up and early at 8am, her teacher pinned ID sticker on her uniform
I didn't expect the competition to be such a big event .
Her competition slip and she has to stick on the back of her exam paper.
Hubs giving her a good luck high-5 !!!
Pasting the sticker on her exam paper. The girl seated next to her was kind to teach her what to do.
Jeng ! Jeng ! Jeng ! Competition begins !!! Parents were allowed to stay along the side of the hall and wait and fidget nervously.
The competition was over in 8 minutes. They had to complete 100 equations (or more.. and I'm not sure but heck, she's only here for the experience).
While waiting for results, we were treated to Magic Show and lucky draws. Amber batch was the last to receive prize and luckily we had our ipad and Sunday papers to keep us occupied.
She didn't win any top prize but only a consolation prize. We were very happy for she completed the competition. Initially we were worried ...
.. that her eyes will be itchy and she'll be crying
.. that her body will be itchy
.. that she'll wanna go 'shee-shee' during competition
.. that she'll feel too cold
.. that her pencils will break
.... we're just like 2 fidgety parents, worrying anything and everything under the sun ! Silly me n silly him !
After a long wait.... it was her turn to receive a consolation prize..
Amber and her dedicated teacher. She said Amber needs more time, at least a year, to compete at International Levels.
We praised and rewarded her with a gift of her choice. She went to Guardians and chose a Lip Ice lip gloss.
Competition is not all about winning first, second or third. Just being there and doing her best, she had already won :D
