Miscellaneous funnies:
- 'Su Fei Meimei sleep awhile wake up, teacher say no talking, no wake up-ping’ (when probed for whether the teacher forces them to sleep, as I heard that another kindy teacher from another school threatened the kid that the mum would not fetch him if he did not go to sleep - she said the teacher will then bring them to the side and play quietly if they refuse to lie down).
- 'Come everybody sit down and listen to me’ as said to our neighbours’ kids as she pretended to sit down and read a book with the book facing out towards them, mimicking the teacher).
- Teacher related to me as they were watching an earthquake evacuation video, that she and another boy Jerry were talking to each other. Rosabelle: 哥哥你的脸怎么红了？Jerry: 我热了。Rosabelle: 哥哥热吗？Jerry: 嗯。 Rosabelle then leaned over, hugged and kissed him. Jerry: 我们看这个吧! (pointing to the TV). Haha!
- There was one day when she and another boy were wearing the same red Gap pants, so I got them to pose for me for a photo, and she actually hugged and kissed him, making him so shy.
- She pointed out another girl as her classmate, then said the girl beat her. When probed, we found out she hit the girl first and the girl retaliated…haiz!
Things/songs she has learnt:
- The English songs are basically a rehash of favourites she knows, like ‘Twinkle, twinkle’, ‘No more monkeys’, ‘Head and shoulders, knees and toes’, or new songs like ‘Two little black birds’
- Chinese songs like马兰花，五只小鸭、我是一个兵 (I have no idea about this song, but Nainai knows – and it contains elements of fighting the Japs – their school has a lot of Jap kids, am sure their parents will flip!)、太阳公公起得早、我是一个小司机、拇指歌、相思 (there was a difficult word to read in the lyrics and I asked Nainai – immediately, our girl could reply, as she had learnt the whole唐诗 before – clap clap!)、勤劳的蜘蛛、爸爸瞧，妈妈看、小猴子荡秋千 etc.
- Doing exercises and calling out ‘一、二、三、四、五、六、七、八，二、二、三、四、五、六、七、八’.
- Reciting ‘请你跟我这样做！我跟你这样做！’ as the teachers do certain actions for them to follow.
- Telling us ‘In school, 老师说‘立定！’，小朋友说‘一、二！’- I wasn’t sure of this and Nainai explained as the kids move in a line from one place to another, when the teachers want them to stop, they will shout the command and the kids shout back in tandem and stop. So cute! We had fun taking turns to pretend-play this marching and stopping around the dinner table…
- Playing/tossing/catching bean bags – each kid has to bring their own bean bags so every one has their own special one, this one lovingly handmade by Nainai, with her name sewn onto it (the plant was something the teacher wanted them to bring too, to get them to water every day and welcome Spring).
- What Easter is about, and bringing her own Easter basket and egg (I couldn’t find any non-breakable eggs to decorate, so I took her plastic dinosaur egg and cut out little rabbit pictures from magazines for her to paste on it) – however, I wasn’t very happy when I found out she ate egg chocs (especially when she was coughing), and one teacher even gave her one a few days later as reward for don’t know what (I made sure the form teacher knew of it and made it clear she should not be having anymore chocs, celebration or not…). Think the basket was too big, and thank goodness I did not give her a raw egg – she fell three times walking from our house to the car… but she loved it, holding onto it tightly when she came home from school, not wanting to let go of it even during play time.
Of course, the kindy also has certain areas for improvement, and I made sure the teachers know of them – I give them timely feedback, and make sure to document them in all the reports, making the young teachers so worried, calling me in for a meeting that very day to reassure me and rest my concerns, haha! They lost a pair of spare socks I brought for her, and once, they changed her shirt and forgot to put it into her bag. Another time, they kept forgetting to return me the medicine container, over two days. On another occasion, she came home wearing both diaper AND panty (and two pairs of pants over them), and on another day, she came home with no diaper nor panty, haiz…
When Rosabelle related to me about how Jerry was naughty and Xiaoxue Laoshi brought him to another classroom to bring him, I asked the teachers about this and they explained that it was a light smack on the butt, which his grandpa encouraged them to whenever he’s naughty. Haha, at least they know this little tell-tale will know to protect herself, as I always tell her nobody can beat you, and you also cannot beat anybody!
Also, they took at least a week to paste her name on her cubby (was still another kid’s name), and the last I checked, there was only the Chinese name (no English name). I reflected in my report to the English teacher that they should be more aware of lower and uppercases, as they wrote ‘rosie’ on her Easter basket – I said, if we teach them, we should start them young, if not at all. They could also be better in updating teachers of the syllables by providing us with the songs and lyrics at the beginning of the month.
But they are all indeed very nice and patient (when we are around, at least!), and there was once they changed her socks for her as she was walking around without shoes, and they did not want to dirty her shoes by putting dirty socks into them. So yes, they can be very detailed if they want to. And the school principal is very pleasant, remembering me as Shi Yue’s mummy after having met us for only about 3 days. They also organize parent meetings to discuss things like the school bus (not for us – too expensive and not on our route), and have the school doctor give health talks.
So ok, end of kindy posts. Over the week I shall update about other things – how I have been making use of my last free moments, what else Rosabelle has been up to, our outings…
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