Parents – Teachers Day

Today is the Parents – Teachers Day at Yiu Yiu's kindy. Basically it's a say where parents meet up with the child's teacher for progress report. Upon arrival, hubby and I took a number and waited while Yiu Yiu's class teacher spoke to another parent. We also took a folder which contained Yiu Yiu's recent exam papers, a scrap book of some preliminary work that the children did in the first few weeks of enrolment prior to starting formal lessons, and lastly a progress book.

The Progress Book, with updates on aspects such as gross and fine motor skilss, work habits, innovative learning skills, language skills (English & Chinese) and Mathematics

Yiu Yiu scored full marks for the Numbers and Chinese papers, and 92% for the English paper, which including colouring. To my surprise, the mistakes she made were all on colouring. We were later told that the children were not verbally told what colours to use, but instead, they had been taught earlier to recognize the first consonant/phonic sound of the word that describes the colour, and the teacher reassured us that it's not uncommon for the children to get them wrong.

She got a B- for writing, which doesn't surprise me as her writing certainly has lots of room for improvement. She has problems especially with curvy strokes like 5 and 6 or j and s. Chinese writing is another issue, but I personally feel that the words these 4-year old are learning are way too difficult. At this tender age, they are already learning to write words with seven or eight strokes like 皂 or 坐.

And here are the teacher's observations:
The good stuff…
- Can converse well and follow instructions.
- Loves arts and crafts, and loves to mix different colours in the same object (same comment from her art class teacher.
- Loves singing, so she particularly enjoys the Super Fun Time sessions. Also, whenever the children lines up to go to the washroom/wash hands/Science lab, the teacher will get them to sing songs as they move along. And my little budding singer almost always suggest what songs to sing (I take this as a good thing, that she's not afraid to speak up and takes initiative).
- Loves listening to stories, so she enjoys and pays full attention in the morning Devotion sessions where the teacher reads Bible stories and impart moral lessons. She can also comprehend what's right and wrong and always able to answer correctly moral questions posed to her.
- The teacher asked if we speak to her in Mandarin, which we do, and she mentioned that she's among the very few in her class who can understand and reply her in Mandarin whenever she converses in Mandarin to the class. The others will either just stare blankly at her, or simply say "Teacher, what are you talking about?" Ha ha!!! So it pays for us to speak to her in English, Cantonese and Mandarin. Recently she has also taken an interest in learning Malay, and would sometimes ask us what this or that is called in Malay.

And the bad stuff…
- She's very TALKATIVE (second time I get this comment from her teacher! Ha ha!!) She'll tend to talk non-stop once she starts and once reprimanded, she'll stop. After a while, she'll start again, first in a whispering tone, which gradually grows louder and louder. But the funny thing is, even though she's talking, she can still listen to what the teacher is teaching, as she can almost always answer whenever the teacher asks her questions. Ha ha!!! Typical XX species I've got here, early multitasker.
- She's a real CILI PADI. She's the smallest (in size and maybe the third smallest in age) but she takes absolute pleasure in giving commands to her classmates. She'll not hesitate to reprimand anyone with "Do your work properly" or "Listen to teacher" or "Sit quietly" etc. As if she's the assistant teacher :-) The teacher would then advise her against doing so, and tell her that they are all friends.
- She can be moody at times, and if she wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, she'll be slow to complete her work and tend to give all sorts of excuses, like "Teacher, I'm tired!"
- She can be stubborn too, and when she doesn’t get what she wants, she'll be really unhappy and sulk.
- She's improving on her eating habits. The teacher commented that she used to stuff a big piece of food into her mouth and when she can't chew/swallow, she'll spit it out. But the teacher has constantly reminded her to take smaller bites, chew and swallow – which is the norm these days. The teacher also commented that she loves the biscuits given out during snack time. She'll open the bento box that I prepared, take few bites, and asks for biscuits. I'm not sure if she simply wants to follow her classmates in eating the biscuits but it certainly is demoralizing that she doesn't really eat the food I prepared, though she normally finishes them at the babysitter's. I really should reconsider whether it's worth the effort to wake up extra early to prepare food for her :(

Before we left, I wanted to know if she is developmentally slower compared to her peers who are months older, since she is a November baby. Thankfully the teacher said that she's very much on par with her peers, that she's a smart girl, and is progressing well in school. That's music to my ears.