school holiday

2016 School Holidays and Vacation Planning for Family

holiday

Before Edison entered primary school, I’ve no idea how important it is to plan ahead for vacation. When he was in pre-school, he could still skip a few lessons here and there to go for vacation. Now that he’s in primary school, skipping lesson is certainly not advisable and thus, we often have to pay extra for travelling during the school holidays.

Nonetheless, planning ahead helps you to save some pennies by watching out for flight and hotel promotions in advance. MOE has just released the school terms and holidays for 2016. Having said that, there are also some “no-school” days for primary school children that you can plan ahead – which I’ve listed below.

Let’s start planning for our 2016 holiday now!

1. The school year for 2016 will start from Monday, 4 January and end on Friday, 18 November 2016.

2. School Calendar 2016:

__Term I – Mon 4 Jan 2016 to Fri 11 Mar 2016
__Term II – Mon 21 Mar 2016 to Fri 27 May 2016
__Term III – Mon 27 Jun 2016 to Fri 2 Sep 2016
__Term IV – Tue 13 Sep 2016 to Fri 18 Nov 2016

3. Term I holidays:

__Chinese New Year from Mon 8 Feb 2016 to Tues 9 Feb 2016
__Term break from Sat 12 Mar 2016 to Sun 20 Mar 2016

4. Term II holidays:

__Good Friday on Fri 25 Mar 2016
__Labour Day from Sun 1 May 2016 to Mon 2 May 2016 (3 days long weekend)
__Vesak Day from Sat 21 May 2016 to 23 May 2016 (3 days long weekend)
__Term holiday from Sat 28 May 2016 to Sun 26 Jun 2016

Tips: Parent-Teacher Meeting is usually held on the last day of Term 2 (27 May 2016). If you can reschedule the meeting, you can actually fly-off on Thu 26 May evening.

5. Term III holidays:

__Youth Day on Sun 3 Jul 2016 to Mon 4 Jul 2016 (3 days long weekend)
__Hari Raya Puasa on Wed 6 Jul 2016
__National Day on Tue 9 Aug 2016
__Day after National Day on Wed 10 Aug 2016
__P6 PSLE Oral Exam – 2 days in Aug (P1 to P5 students no need to come to school)
__Teachers’ Day on Fri 2 Sept 2016
__Term break from Sat 3 Sep 2016 to Sun 11 Sep 2016

Tips: Teachers’ Day celebration at school is held one day before the actual Teachers’ Day Holiday. So, you can actually fly-off on 1 Sept evening.

6. Term IV holidays:

__Hari Raya Haji on Mon 12 Sep 2016
__P6 PSLE Listening Comprehension – 1 day in Sep (P1 to P5 students no need to come to school)
__Children’s Day on Fri 7 Oct 2016 (3 days long weekend)
__PSLE marking – 4 days in Oct (all students no need to come to school)
__Deepavali from Sat 29 Oct 2016 to Mon 31 Oct 2016 (3 days long weekend)
__End of school year holiday from Sat 19 Nov 2016 to Sat 31 Dec 2016

Note: Please refer to MOE website for more information.

School Holiday Starts!

The school holiday has arrived, and while I’ve often dreaded the idea of leaving our boy at home with TV and iPad, this time, I’m going to plan something for him.

I posted this picture on my Instagram yesterday. He was eating a leisurely breakfast in the garden while hogging on to my iPad. Bad habit, I know, but since it’s just the start of the school holiday, let’s allow him to relax a little bit.

I gotta admit that I don’t send him for any holiday program. Reason is – these holiday programs are usually expensive, I rather save the moolahs to go for a real holiday. *cheapo mode on*

First of all, for this holiday, I want him to start memorizing the multiplication table. In school, he learnt multiplication in Term 4 – just the basic concept of multiplication where he drew the groups of objects and count to find the answers. He’ll definitely need to memorize the multiplication table in P2, so it’s good time to let him start during the holiday.

Secondly, I want him to read one book every day. He isn’t a fan of books, sad to say. He’ll rather play with the iPad or watch TV during his free time. So, I need to give him a lot of encouragement to pick up a book and read for leisure. We went to the Popular bookstore last weekend, and he picked up a few books that he really like. And so, we’ll start from there.

Thirdly, at the end of this month, we’re going for a short holiday. To somewhere that I’ve always wanted to go, and I’m very sure our boy will enjoy himself to the fullest. Will share more after the trip.

Come December, I want him to start his swimming lessons. Yes, I know this is super overdue by Singapore’s standard as most kids already started learning swimming at preschool level.

Truth be told, I originally planned to start it at the beginning of P1. Then, we had this opportunity for him to learn golf (which is something that he’s passionate about). So, we enrolled him for golf lessons instead and postponed the plan for swimming lessons.

Nonetheless, swimming lesson isn’t difficult to start since there are 3 swimming instructors in our apartment that offer swimming lessons almost every day. I just need to get my butt off this weekend and find a schedule with one of them.

In addition, I also want him to learn how to ride a bicycle (two wheels). Again, most kids of his age can already ride a bicycle well. We’ve been too busy to train him on that, so it’s a good time to start this December.

Before the school starts, we will spend a week in Ipoh (Malaysia) with my parents and siblings. Edison is looking forward to this trip; he missed his cousins so much. He already marked the dates on the calendar, and has been counting down the days since then.

Last but not least, we’ll be filling our weekends with outings, trips to the beach, picnics and other fun stuff. I’m sure this holiday will be over in the blink of an eye. And suddenly school will re-open and we’ll talk about Primary 2 soon.

So savour it while it lasts! No matter what your plan is for this school holiday, I hope you’ll have a great time too.