Renzo's first day at school

Renzo started his "once a week 1 hour enrichment class" on Feb 16, 2011, when he finally turned 18 months and 4 days. Below are just some of the conversation with him before, during and after his class.

On the Way to school
Mummy: "Renzo, it's your first day and can you be a good boy? Let's go to school!"
Renzo: "Go to school!" (Well no promise from him to be a good boy...)

At the school
Mummy: "Renzo let Ms xxx take your temperature okay?"
Renzo: "不要，don't want!!" (As usual...)

Before class started
Mummy: "What's that Renzo?" (Pointing at the dust bin in the classroom and try to get him warmed up)
Renzo: "Dust bin.."
Teacher: "Wow you know that!"
Mummy: "What's that Renzo?" (Pointing at a picture of Sun on the wall)
Renzo: "Air-con" (OoooKay.. that's just above that picture...)

Class started
Teacher: "Hello everyone, please cross your leg and sit down.."
Renzo: "Moon, moon!!" (Pointing at our national flag on the front wall..)

Then, teacher checked attendance by calling the names of every kid, they raised up their little hand and said "yes", went up and grabbed their name tag one by one and wore on their necks. I had to go with Renzo and picked up his name tag from the slot, and this boy was trying all means to take it off his neck.

Thankfully, the music started in time to distract him a bit and he forgot about removing the name tag. The kids were supposed to sing along and follow the actions when songs were played. Renzo couldn't follow anything at all, while a little girl besides him who was just 20 months old and attended only 4 sessions, could follow almost 100% on her own.. (Mummy.. -_-! sweat...)

After every round of music, when teacher was preparing for the next song..

Renzo: "No more, 没有了..."

For the last song, the whole class formed a circle and Renzo was the only one refused to hold hand with others.. (Mummy.. -_-!x2 Sweat again..)

Zoo phonics time
There was a letter D and the teacher showed everyone "DeeDee Deer" (DeeDee is the name of the Deer) and when she asked if anyone knew what it was, the class was extremely quiet.. Suddenly Renzo shouted, "CAT" and made the teacher and many other parents laugh (err he knows his cat, dog, kangaroo, dinosaur, lion, elephant, penguin, fish, cow, panda, octopus, sheep, caterpillar, ladybird, butterfly, but just not.. DEER)
The teacher then carried on to explain basic solids like "sphere, cube, cone, cylinder", since the session last week covered shapes like "circle, square, triangle, rectangular".

Play time
After counting "1, 2, 3", most kids went up and got their small play mat, picked their preferred training materials and start playing (or rather say learning). Renzo tried a few items and was pretty focused, but his fine motor skill is just not well-developed enough yet. When the bell rang and everyone quickly returned their "toys", Renzo started crying out loud and I had to literally snatch his toy to return it back. There was another boy crying for the same reason which made me feel less embarrassed.

Time to go home!
We sang the final goodbye song and all kids lined up to hug the 2 teachers goodbye, Renzo refused to hug one of the teachers but when we returned home, right before he's bedtime, suddenly Renzo said "Daddy, hug hug!", "Mummy, hug hug!!!" I am so glad that we made this decision to bring Renzo for such a Montessori class once a week. It is not cheap for sure, but well... in Singapore, pre-schools are never cheap. But I could see that although Renzo has been pretty good with his linguistic skill, there are a lot other areas which we failed to cultivate him at home. So next Wed, Daddy Chan, it is your turn to experience a wonderful 1 hour with our precious little boy, have loads of fun there my darlings~!

I shall end this post with a recent video taken with Renzo singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", his first english song recorded on video...