Preschool Journey - Leg 2

Matt started a new preschool journey on the 2 June. I applied a 3-day leave for this purpose, to settle him in his new class.

Day 1 went relatively well as it was only a half day. He koala me as expected and didn't want to do anything. Hub and Principal suggested that I left him alone so he would join in the class activities. So I made an excuse about going to wash room. He didn't cry and I picked him up after his lunch.

grouchy on his way home

Summary of Day 1 - I only sat in the class with him for an hour and thereafter he was on his own. His class wasn't big and his classmates were pretty advanced with speech and toilet-trained. No formal english teacher yet so the Principal - Ms. Stacie took over the role (for almost 6 months already). Chinese teacher was on holiday so asst. teacher came over to help. Asst. teacher was not the smiley type but she did her job properly.

I asked about the chinese lesson and the reply was during school holiday, the preschool had another set of program. Well, another set program had seen all the usual enrichment classes being stopped, meaning no gourmet, no mind over gym, no creativity theatrical lessons and no reading & writing program.

Last year, the kids still had art boot camp run by Abrakadoodle, which was additional charges. This year had been real quiet. I thought it was quite strange that we were paying full price as usual but the school stopped the enrichment, plus we needed to pay extra for external vendor's activities. I got to find out how does other preschool run during school holiday season.


Back to Matt… Day 2 onwards, I only dropped him off at class and I didn't sat in like what I did with Jonathan. So I didn't have any inkling how was he in class until end of the day feedback by Ms. Stacie.

circle time

The feedback was similar.  The crying after separation lasted 5-10minutes. Thereafter, Matt got into the routine relatively easy. He participated in the circle time with songs and dance and ate his own lunch and snack.

Day 2 - Porridge for lunch

Day 2 - afternoon tea break

He knows what to pack into his bag at the end of the day and he helped in stacking back his own cot after nap.

having his milk before nap

helping to keep his stack cot

Most of the kids are off milk before nap but Ms. Stacie made an allowance as Matt was new and he didn't take to eating well. She also helped monitor his temperature regularly and filled in the temperature spreadsheet I have prepared.

playing toys

At the end of the day, I asked Matt if he's happy and whether he likes his teachers, he would nod his head. But barely a week after he started childcare, he had fallen sick. Looks like no matter how we prepared him, falling sick is going to be part & parcel of childcare life.