Last day at kindy - Circus Party

Joe's last day at kindy was celebrated with a circus-themed party. Knowing my son, he's more concerned about his comfort than costume so that meant no face paint and no long sleeved outfit.I made him a bow tie out of ribbons and he wore a propeller cap and red-nosed spectacles borrowed from Ah Ku a.k.a. Billy the Clown.
His friends were very fascinated with both items...

I had to miss the party since I'm supposed to be in confinement.

He came home and told me, "Today I'm really walking out of JC for the last time..." Though he previously whined about having to go to school (because he's not an early morning bird), I think he's really gonna miss JC.

Before leaving, he gave a small thank you gift to each of the teachers who have taught him. He decorated Ikea frames (with my help) and wrote thank you notes to be inserted into the frame.

Three years of wonderful memories...he still remembers how he threw up on Teacher Esther in the first week in 2009. JC has given him a great foundation. Though I'm apprehensive, I'm sure he'll be fine in Std 1.

Graduating from Kindy

My firstborn graduated from kindergarten yesterday. It seems like not so long ago that I cradled him in my arms. Just like how I now cradle his baby sister in the same sarong sling that I used for Joseph.

The 6-year-olds made a grand procession down the helium-balloon lined aisle in the main auditorium. My Joseph as always, had on a very serious face. He says he has to focus!

After the welcome and speeches, the graduands went on stage to receive their awards. This year, every child got an award e.g. Most Caring, Best Helper etc. I thought it was a very nice thing for the kindy to do to acknowledge that every child is special.
Joseph got the Awesome Artist award for his class. He told me this last week and was really pleased.
After the awards, each class performed an item. I thoroughly enjoyed every item. Joe's class did a choral-speaking one about a bear hunt.

And then all the graduands came on stage to sing 2 very lovely songs. I was indeed very surprised to see and hear my 'English' son sing a chinese song!

Joseph took some photos with his good friend...

..and also with some teachers (who were all dressed very nicely!)

I'm so nostalgic, looking back at the last 3 years and reflecting on how he has grown at Tadika Juara Cerdik. He can read very well and even big words in the Bible like synagogue and Nazareth are no problems.

He's kinda sad that he has only a few days left at TJC and I can feel his apprehension about going to Std 1. But I guess that's life - where the only constant is change. He will have to adapt and we will too.

First day of Joe's last kindy year

Joseph finally went back to kindy to start a new academic year. His kindy has a practice where returning students start a week later. Joseph sure wasn't complaining about the extra holidays and neither was I.

In fact, I think he was a little apprehensive to start school again. He's just by nature very cautious and rather timid about new surroundings. Kinda like his father.

So we really had to give him encouraging words and pray for him before we left him in his new class with his new teacher.

Back home, Joy wanted to wear her uniform as well.

She has been saying she wants to go to school but makes no whining about it. I'm not sure she's serious about it.

At the moment, she's just happy wearing the uniform which is a hand-me-down from a friend who's daughter graduated from the same kindy last year.

She wore the uniform when we went to pick Joe up and lucky for her, the teachers didn't think she was a runaway student.
When we got home, Joseph was back to his usual cheery self and seemed quite happy with his new class and new teacher.
I sure am not looking forward to when he starts primary school next year. I just know it's gonna be pretty traumatic for him and there's going to be lots of crying.

Joseph's First Concert

Joe much-anticipated-First Concert finally happened last night. He had been practising it at home when he thought no one was looking but refused to dance for me. In fact, until Saturday he told me, "The concert day is very near already. You just have to be patient for one more day".

Yesterday evening, in spite of the very heavy rain, we made our way to DreamCentre at 5pm. The children had dinner in ther classrooms while parents had dinner in the Sports Hall.
After I helped Joe's classmates to touch up on their make up, I made my way upstairs where I found Joy-Anne pining for her brother.

She kept saying, "I want my brother.....I want my brother..."

After Negaraku, speeches by Pr Daniel and Teacher Stephanie, the curtains went up to reveal a most impressive backdrop.

Joe's item was the first one - Colours of Malaysia, to the tune of Siti Nurhaliza'z Warna Warna Malaysia.

The costumes were all really colourful and beautiful. Sure looked good on stage!

I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching all the dances. The children were all very good and they danced so very well.

After the concert, Joe got a photo with his classmate, Miss C - she danced really well too.

This costume will be recycled for Chinese New Year next year. Joy wants me to "please please pretty please buy me a pink costume".

In the mean time, he'll get to wear it again on Friday at their year-end party.

No egg in the book!

Joe started learning Bahasa Melayu in kindy this year. Initially, he found it really confusing because he has been learning English phonics all this while.

For example, 'a' is pronounced 'eh' as in apple or 'ay' as in ape.

But in BM it's pronounced as 'ar' as in api.

Blame my lack of patience for it but coaching him with homework really made me want to pull my hair out. I even went to school to see his teacher to learn how he's taught in school because he didn't seem to understand what I was saying.

And at 5 years old, they have weekly ejaan tests!!! I didn't want to pressure him so I just praised his effort regardless of how many chee tans (egg) he brought home.

I must also admit that I had not been too bothered to coach him at home after that one crying episode.

But this week, I resolved to help him with more patience. And it paid off. Somehow it's like a light bulb went off in his head and he understood everything I said!

He came home today and told me that he didn't have to do any pembetulan because he got everything right.

I'm so proud of him. And what makes me even more delighted is that he declined any offer of a reward. He says he already has too many toys!

Good job Joseph! I love you. And that doesn't depend on how well you do in school.

Preparing for the Wild Wild West

It's gonna be a Wild Wild West Party at Joe's kindy next month. I can just imagine the whole hall full of cowboys.

Joe said he wanted to be a cactus so that he can poke everybody. So while Daalin babysat the kids at ToysRUs...

I popped over to Kamdar to look for green fabric! After walking around the entire store, I almost wanted to purchase some dark green fabric that had subtle stripes, and was on 70% discount. But the thought of all that sewing... (and what would I use for thorns???!?!!) and knowing that it would be a white elephant after a couple of hours, I couldn't quite make up my mind so I walked back to ToysRUs and then I saw this...

The store is full of ToyStory3 merchandise. One look at Woody and I recalled that YeeYee bought Joe a star-sheriff badge with his name on it, a long time ago.

So I went home and searched the bottom drawer and..... tadaa!!!! I found it!

After sitting in that bottom drawer for about 4 years, I finally have use for it. Now all I need is a cowboy hat.

And I know just where to find it.

A ridiculous ruling

This letter I wrote to The Star was published yesterday (Sunday 4 April 2010).

You can read the letter online here.

While some kindys implemented the new ruling at the beginning of the school year, Joe's kindy has graciously delayed the implementation till 3 weeks ago, after the March mid-term break.

Needless to say, Joe has been late for school everyday. But much to my surprise, he is not the last to arrive. There are children who arrive as late as 8.45 am when school starts at 8am!

We put the children to bed at 9plus and lights are off by 9.30pm. They roll around trying to sleep and finally doze off between 10 - 10.30pm. Yup... they can roll like a cement mixer for up to an hour before falling asleep! Nine hours later, waking up at 7am is still torture.

If I had any thoughts of sending Joy to kindy next year (when she is 3 yrs old), they have now been banished to the ends of the earth! Even though class starts at 8.30am for 3 and 4-year-olds, they would still have to go with the older sibling who starts at 8am. It's too much torture for a child so young. I pity the December baby in that position. Imagine if Joy had been born merely 3 weeks earlier, she would be in the 3-year-old class NOW! Thank God she's a January baby.

Malaysia's Education System is already beyond crap. And now they have nothing better to do than to torture pre-schoolers so that they have to wake up at the crack of dawn and rush to school without a decent breakfast. I really want to give the official who came up with this ruling a huge piece of my mind because he doesn't seem to have a working one of his own.

Joe's 2nd Parent-Teacher Day

Juara Cerdik had their year-end meet-the-parent session today. We were there at our usual time, just before Children's Church.

The first thing Teacher Esther commented was that Joe daydreams a lot. When she feels that he is not paying attention (because he is busy daydreaming), she will ask him, "Joseph....what did I say?" And he can repeat exactly what she has just said. So she couldn't quite scold him for not paying attention.

It sounded almost as if she was talking about me as a student! My kindy teacher also commented that I daydreamed a lot. Well, at least Joe has yet to emulate my sleeping in class.

The other thing she commented was that he drooled on her hand, partly due to his daydreaming. Again, it sounded like she was talking about me. I couldn't help but laugh.

Seems Joe also loves to 'walk' on all fours in school! Now that must be how he picks up all the bugs and keeps coming down with fever, flu and etc. But teacher said that he moves so fast that by the time she reaches him to reprimand him, he's already back into upright position.

Joe's exam result was unexpected but not surprising.

Perfect score for Numbers...

...and Chinese!!!


He made a careless mistake for English. He was over-confident.
When I asked him about it he said, "I just looked at the 'u' ".

His writing has improved from a B- to a B. Teacher says he likes to write big, which is normal for a 4-year-old.

He certainly has learnt a lot this year. He can more or less read. Sometimes he doesn't quite know the word but he will guess by looking at the first letter. At other times, he isn't sure and he would rather say, "I don't know" than make a wrong guess. I feel he needs to learn that it's okay to make mistakes.

He also needs to work on his EQ. At times, he gets upset very easily at the slightest thing and doesn't want to forgive. But he has certainly improved on sharing and caring for his sister.

I am proud of my baby.

But he's no more a baby :-)

Party Day at Juara Cerdik

Today being the last day of this academic year, the kids at Joe's kindy had party with the theme - Garden. Joe later told me, "I thought we were going to have a garden party in a garden??!?!!"


This lazy mummy was much too lazy to come up with an elaborate costume so Joe went dressed as a gardener.

Evan was a garden and Nat was a banana. Nat's papa stayed up till 4am fixing his costume! What a dedicated dad!

They kids ran around (even though teacher kept saying, "Children...sit down!") until about 9am when they started eating.

I managed to get a picture of Joe with his teacher before eating.

There was so much food. Some parents went to a great deal of effort. But kids don't eat a lot. And the pantry is full of leftovers to reward the teachers for their hardwork.

Jasmine Class 2009

I hung around the place looking at the artwork....

These are all the kids who won the Best Dressed Awards. One from each class. There was a carrot, a pumpkin, an apple tree, Bob the tomato and Larry the Cucumber. Joe enjoyed himself. It's been a good year. Now we look forward to a good holiday!