The first few days of school

Day One

Traffic is always chaotic during the first week so we had no choice but to wake up at 5.30am to leave the house by 6.30am. The boy has no trouble adjusting since he is familiar with the school by now. It is always easier with the 2nd kid. 

The sister's class is now upstairs but quite close to the boy's class so they can wave to each other before she goes up the stairs and before he goes to class. The only problem he faces is the language problem. I saw teacher asking the kids about recess ie who brings food from home, who will buy and who has catered food. Many kids raise their hands, a sign that they understood what was being asked but my boy just sat there and stared blankly. :P

We met up the teachers of both kids. To me, it is important to meet the teachers, so we can err.... size them up. Haha. Well, it is important to establish communications... I am not sure the teacher appreciates nor welcomes that. Especially for the older kid. She's probably thinking "Get lost!" :P However if your child has some special conditions or issues, now is a good time to inform the teacher but its best not to hog their time.

The girl's teacher looks like a stern, no nonsense type. The boy's teacher seems ok but somewhat disorganised compared to some of the other teachers. The class comes out last in many instances and the children do not seem to know where to line up and wait for the teacher etc. Anyway, parents are a demanding lot when it comes to teachers. I saw some parents complaining that their teacher is new to the school and therefore very inexperienced. Teachers must be fun, kind, patient yet able to discipline. They must be experienced too. These are some of the criteria a parent looks for. It is not easy being a teacher with such high expectations from parents.

It rained cats and dogs just before dismissal. What a chaos it was. So many parents and children running around with most stranded in school with no way to get to the car. Even those who had umbrellas with them were soaked through when they made their way to the cars. Traffic was a total chaos too.

Only when we got home, my girl informed me that in my morning rush, I had given her different halfs from two different pairs of shoes. As for my boy I gave him one of his sister's old torn shoe instead of his brand new one.

Day Two

The school allowed the year one parents to stay in the school premise for two full days so we took advantage of that and lingered. Afterall, this is our second kid and we will not get the chance to do this again. Only std 1 parents are given this special privelege. The rest are strictly not allowed to be anywhere near the classroom.

The kids are given a tour of the school. I bet the boy likes that.

During recess we showed the boy where to eat, where to put his plates after eating, where to go to the toilet after that and where to wait for teacher before entering the classroom.

After recess we went off to do some errands but were back in time to tell the boy where to wait after school.

This year the sister has to stay back in school for some activities and tuition on certain days so we had to crack our heads on which activities, and whether to let the boy stay back on those days too so we could organise pick up times.

The sister started having homework by today.

The boy was happy because he won a sweet for some games they were playing at the hall.

After school we brought the girl to the optometrist because she had been complaining that her glasses is uncomfortable and giving her headaches for some time now. Being a tall girl she was put at the back of the classroom and she said she could not see. She wanted to ask the teacher to put her nearer up the front which will put her closer to the boy who had been bullying her last year so she was afraid. Her power had increased significantly in a year. Oh dear.

Back to school brings also brings with it school related anxieties like dealing with homework and bullies. To me, these lessons in life are harder to teach then academic lessons.

Day Three

I went to peep at the boy during recess and found that he was doing just fine, doing everything that he was supposed to do. He has got his act together so there is no worry. My only worry is the language barrier but children learn fast. In 2-3 months he should be able to converse in Mandarin, hopefully.

At the end of the day, I saw that he found his kindy friends who are all in different classes. Five of them stood together in a circle obviously happy to see each other. Cute.

More homework and some crying from the sister because she was unsure about what to do for some of them. It took all day and some nagging from mummy for her to complete the work and pack her bag for the next day. Looks like it is back to business as usual.

The boy is still relaxed as all he did in school is sing songs. No work yet.

Day Four

Today is Day Four. Its raining cats and dogs. I wonder how will daddy cope with two kids, two trolley bags (one which ways a tonne) and an umbrella? Well, good luck to him!

Orientation Day for Std 1

My blog posts will all be a little behind time as I simply had no time to blog. Here's my first backdated one.

The boy goes to Primary One this year. We had half a day of "orientation day". That suited us just fine. We had forgotten how it was like though. So many forms to fill. Fees to pay. We did remember to bring the cheque book along but some had to be paid by cash and we almost did not have enough cash on us.

As usual, we struggled to understand what was being said in the hall because it was all in Mandarin. I wish they would translate some important stuff in English or Malay.

The boy is fine to be left alone. He knows the school pretty well since his sister is in the same school. He did look rather serious though. When we peered at him at the classroom the first time, he was sitting straight up with a serious look. Everyone else around him was lying down with their face on their hands looking tired.  When I went to collect him home, everyone was running around but he was still sitting at his place, straight up with a serious face. He dare not even budge when I gestured for him to come. Teacher said "Wow, he must one of the attentive types later on." Well, we'll see about that. Orientation Day is not an indicator. ;)

He has 3 other friends from kindy at his school but none of them are at his class. Too bad. I know some of the mothers. That would have saved me some networking efforts. :P There are 41 children in his class. About 10 of them are non-chinese, 2 mat sallehs, 1 or 2 Indians and the rest are Malays. Very nice mix indeed. He can have friends from many races. The non-chinese, having made up their minds early on to send their children to Chinese school have made extra preparations. Some of the kids have attended 3 years of Chinese Kindy. They can converse well in Chinese. They are much more prepared than my boy who can barely understand Mandarin let alone speak it, though he can write ok.

He will be learning a new syllabus with different textbooks and emphasis compared to his sister because of the new KSSR whatever.... It is supposed to emphasize on fun learning etc. That also cuts off 4 periods of school time for the kids in Std 1 each week. About half of the class children have older siblings in school who will dismiss later. The school buses will not come to pick the kids up earlier. What to do? What about the safety and security of these kids? Hmm.... as usual, whoever who came up with this wise idea did not think about these little practical things upon implementation. The school HM said that some Heads of Schools got together and decided that they would keep the kids in school till their brothers and sisters dismiss and they will all leave school at the same time. During that time, the teachers will give them homework help etc. Everyone applauded that move. Phew!

I've got loads to write about but I've also got loads of other things to catch up on. So I will leave the writing till later. Thats all for Orientation Day.We made it. ;)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

How quickly the school holidays have flown by. Funny how much busier I am during the school holidays with the kids at home then when they are away at school. I love having them around but I also love my solitude, my me time. With school holidays and school days alternating, I get the best of both worlds.

We didn't go anywhere during the school holidays but we still have our fun nevertheless despite dad being still in hospital and all that. We did some crafts as usual, which I will post up in due time. However, I thought I better post this Christmas Craft up otherwise, I will probably only post it up next Christmas!

The following Christmas Standup Cards Craft are storebought. I'm getting lazy in my old age. :P They are lovely and very easy to do. It comes in a package with the card, and ready precut stick on little square foams in various colours and pretty, sparkly heart shaped, star shaped and flower shaped coloured stick on glass (which resemble jewels). The instructions are extremely simple. Just peel out and paste according to a colour chart, something like a colour by number chart, in this case it is paste by number. Very simple and nice to do.

The kids, who never seem to marvel me with their innocent and simple minds asked... "Wow! Mummy, where did you get those jewels? They must be very expensive."

 Here's one by the girl. Mr Santa Claus himself, with candy canes and presents and snow. :)

 And here's a Christmas tree by the boy, with pressents and snow and Christmas baubles on the tree.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2011 to everyone.

Kids are naturally creative

I believe that all kids are naturally creative. I guess it is the curiousity they have about the world around them that drives them into this creative mode. My kids love to cut, paste, fold and colour. It is amazing what they can come up with, with just a pencil, colour pencils, coloured paper, glue and scissors. They are so imaginative.

That is why I always have these items in ready stock. We have a "craft cupboard" where the kids can get just about anything they like for art and crafting. We keep recycled ribbons and gift wrappers, plastic or see through papers from hampers, construction papers, crayons, glitter glue, paints and anything else we can save for art.

"We can save this for art, mummy" the kids would often say. We don't send them for any art classes because we lack the resources of time and money. However, our "craft cupboard" makes up for that. When I have more time, I will post up some pictures of the stuff the kids came up with this holidays, all by themselves.

Our very own personalised School Holiday Program

We have our own school holiday program at home. The kids love it when I draw up a time table about what we are going to do. Sometimes we make up the time table together. For this holidays, after the first two weeks of free play, we set up our time table.

With dad in hospital, most Sundays and whenever hubby can take time off from work, I would go sit with dad at hospital while hubby watch the kids. I still have plenty of time with them during weekdays. We are trying to get some work done now so that they won't be overwhelmed when school starts. We try to spread out our learning so that it is easier on the kids. However since it is the school holidays, we have factored in a lot of playtime.

The kids love it when I add "exercise" into our time table. This means a game of badminton or kicking the ball around or riding the bicycle or scooter. We also do arts and crafts which they love. When it is time to do "work", they scramble to do it because they want to collect stars. Every page of work done gets a star. Mummy is very generous with stars. Stars can be exchanged for mummy's time ....to play anything with them. This is great motivation for them. Sometimes mummy uses computer aided learning to make learning more fun. Sometimes they are encouraged to write stories while mummy edits. The girl loves this. She is now writing Chapter 5 of her "book" She is both the author and illustrator for her book. :)

School holidays is also a time for music in the form of daily piano practise because when school starts we can't keep up the pace of daily practise. Since it is on the "time-table" and they get lots of praise from mummy and teacher and with daily practise their confidence and play improves further motivating them so they do not complain about piano practise... much. ;)

This school holidays their daddy thought them how to play the chinese chess. They are at the moment mad about the game. Just one flash of the game set will get them out of their beds in a jiffy on any morning.

We will probably not be going anywhere with their grandpa in hospital. At most, a day trip. However, during the weekends they still get to go to the movies with daddy while mummy visits grandpa in hospital. They get to eat out with daddy. Daddy thought them a new game (chinese chess) and during the weekdays mummy makes sure they have exercise, art, play, music, and a little work thrown in plus they have free time to do whatever they like. They usually choose to read or play a board game. I would say it is not a bad holiday so far.

Only, mummy is very very busy and have no time to blog. ;)