February 12, 2012

One month into Primary 1

One month into Primary 1, and whenever someone asks Yiu Yiu if she likes school, her reply has been a consistent no!  When probed further, her complaint was “The school is so hot!”  Ha ha!

Her routine now is waking up in the morning and getting herself ready, before I drop her off at the daycare before going to work.  So the poor girl needs to wake up early every day, despite attending the afternoon session.  The daycare organizes tuition class daily from 9-11am, after which the children will have their lunch and shower.  She’ll reach mum’s house about 7pm daily (6.30pm on Friday) and goes for a short bicycle ride with the neighbourhood kids before having her dinner and shower.  She only comes home when either hubby or myself reaches home.  She’ll knock off between 9.30-10pm now, which is good, coz she didn’t sleep till midnight during the school holidays.

There hasn’t been much homework yet, and Yiu Yiu has also been quite blur when it comes to homework.  There were 2-3 occasions where she came home with a big “?” in her workbooks, indicating she didn’t complete her homework.  Her defend was that she didn’t know those pages need to be completed.  Haiya!  So she now carries her a homework pouch in her school bag and places her homework inside so she won’t forget.  I also taught her to pack her school bag according to the timetable, and she packs her bag daily under my supervision.

Just one month and the zip of her pencil case is torn away and a screw is missing from the handle of her school bag

She can read simple English books, though unfortunately, we’ve not been successful in cultivating a reading habit in her.  I read with envy how this boy, who’s also in Primay 1 like her, is reading such wordy and thick books.  Yiu Yiu on the other hand, still prefer Barbie dolls to books as presents and didn’t even touch a single book during the entire year-end school holidays last year.  I guess it’s the parents’ fault, as we are not keen readers ourselves L  She can only understand a smattering of Malay, and I think I need to step up more efforts to help brush up her Malay.  Her Chinese is quite alright, and being in a Chinese school environment, I think she’ll be fine with Chinese. 

I went to her school during Federal Territory Day as I wanted to get an extra PE t-shirt for her.  I purposely went close to recess time so I could “spy” on her.  After settling the PE t-shirt matter with her class teacher, I waited for her at the catering area and saw her skipping happily in with one of her classmates.  And on her way back to class, a number of friends stopped and said hi to her – ex-kindymates, children from the same daycare and some whom I don’t even know.  Looks like this girl has no shortage of friends J

As for the catered food, on most days, she’ll tell me that she only ate some/half but on several occasions, she’s been honest to admit that she didn’t eat her food, knowing full well that I’d be upset.  And to encourage her honesty and openness, I’d applaud and tell her how much I appreciate her honesty, before nagging her J  Looks like we will not continue with the catering once this payment cycle ends in February.  I can’t be packing bento for her since the food won’t last for eight hours till recess time.  So we’ll increase her pocket money for her to buy whatever food she fancies from the canteen.

10 comments:

WK Liew said...

Nowadays kids don't really know how to take care of their stuff. Then again, built quality of the things nowadays are also not as good

Unknown said...

I also got Vic to pack her own bag according to timetable, but last saturday she brought all her books to school, when daddy asked why she said she didn't know what to pack coz no sat timetable... Hahahaha... Good that YY has friends around, Vic also, but she tends to stick with only a few, haiya.

Btw, good point about re reporting my lost IC, must I do that and what if I don't? Will they have a record?

Small Kucing said...

the things nowadays are not as durable

chanelwong said...

she is adapting well...she is having good time with her friends too...

SuperMom said...

I think she's doing well in the social department :)

Is she part of the KSSR batch? I hear mixed reactions to the new curriculum.

Personally, I'd prefer kids to have a bit of homework or they forget everything they learn!

However, I do think 40+ per class is too many for small kids. I myself teach 40-60 students and already have difficulty keeping track of their names, what more with active little kids?

BoeyJoey said...

I used to pack some snacks for HQ everyday, but has been putting it off now as he prefers to buy food from the canteen (which are not so healthy :-().

About his reading habit, HQ is loving comics now... and learning some disapproving languages along the way :-(. So, do make sure to get appropriate books for Yiu Yiu ya...

A Mom's Diary said...

WK - I think it's more due to the poor quality of stuff these days.

Irene - haha, Vic is so cute, but it's true also mah, there's no Sat timetable :-)

Small Kucing - agreed, stuff these days are really not lasting.

Chanel - yup, she is.

SuperMom - since when did you change your nick? Haha!

Yes, she's the second batch of the KSSR syllabus. Haven't heard much feedback about this except that homework is a lot lesser than the previous syllabus, which to me is good.

40+ in a class is very normal for Chinese school. Some schools have up to 50! Don't think the teachers are able to give good attention to each child :-(

Boey Joey - the variety of food sold in Yiu Yiu's school canteen is quite decent but I think she'd rather eat less and use the money to buy cutesy stuff like notebooks, pins, pencils, etc. Sigh!

zmm said...

Haha.. your yiuyiu quite rough with her things..

But I guess that's how it's with kids her age.. some more she has to travel so many places with the bag daily.

She didn't complain how taxing it is to wake up so early?

zmm said...

Haha.. your yiuyiu quite rough with her things..

But I guess that's how it's with kids her age.. some more she has to travel so many places with the bag daily.

She didn't complain how taxing it is to wake up so early?

A Mom's Diary said...

ZMM - I think the screw on the bag fell off coz we always carry it by the handle and the bag is so heavy.

As for waking up early, she was pretty tired out initially but I think she has adapted to the new routine now. Good thing is she sleeps earlier too, since her battery is usually drained by 9.30pm or so :-)