smooth sailing into primary school life

The evening before Renzo's first day of primary school, my facebook news feed had a sudden influx of status updates, with doubts and excitements from my friends whose kids are also starting Primary School in 2016. So needless to say, the following morning, I started to see loads of pictures, of my friends' P1 kids in brand new uniforms and school bags, and of course, Renzo being one of them! In order to help him keep a distinct memory of his Primary 1 days, I feel the need to pen down what has happened in the past 3 days.

If you ask me to describe his first 3 days in Primary 1 in one word, I would say, smooth-sailing! (uh oh not "chaotic" or "madness" like many would expect)..

So parents yes I know it's a huge milestone, I know it's a big change in routine but nope, it's just another day and our kids will all be fine!

I am not sure if it's because MOE and schools worked really hard to help the P1 kids shed first day jitters, or Daddy Chan and Renzo Chan's slow-but-steady personality has rubbed off onto me well enough in the past 6 years, I did not really have too much emotions (except for the split second I let go Renzo's little hand and kissed him goodbye before he boarded the school bus), and I even suggested to Daddy Chan that maybe we should not even join the crowd and peep at school on the very first day. Well, we did in the end and honestly, I don't think it makes much difference to Renzo, or, maybe it did, at least he knows he's truly loved by his parents. hahaha.. But honestly I am glad that his school only allowed parents to enter on Day 1, even if they let us in for another 2 more days, 2 more weeks, or even 2 more months, it has to come to a point that the kids need to be on their own so I rather it comes sooner than later, so, 1 day is more than enough!

Anyway so we put Renzo on his school bus from Day 1 so that he doesn't need to readjust his routine, of course we followed him to school by public bus and wow I am so glad we decided to let him take school bus, the Monday morning + first day of school crowd is pretty amazing despite us staying 5 bus stations away from the school, and having 4 direct buses there.

Renzo didn't have any problem waking up early because for the past 2+ years, he's been waking up at 630am daily with his brother, so that Daddy could send them both to childcare before 7am and get ready for work on time after that. And when most other kids were having a 1.5 months of school holiday break during last Nov - Dec, Renzo continued to attend his childcare daily till December 23rd. So there's no such thing as post holiday blues. And in fact on the first day of school, he woke up at 6:00am although I've set my alarm at 6:15am. 

Renzo didn't forget to bring anything to school, neither did he forget to bring anything back home. We definitely do not need to visit the "Lost and Found office", at least not after the first 3 days of school.

He bought himself proper meals during his 45 minutes of recess with the help of his buddy, a P5 boy whose name was not being asked by Renzo on day 1, but being forgotten by Renzo on Day 2 after Renzo carefully checked his name tag on his uniform. We didn't stay to check out what he bought at canteen and how long he took to queue, or how fast he finished his food. But I was really glad that he remembered what I've told him before school started. He didn't  buy any snacks or drinks though he said he's aware of what's offered at the snacks stall. He chose 80 cents fish ball noodle over the 1 dollar bowl so he could get back more than 1 dollar of change from the auntie. Yes that's exactly what he told us! And he bought the exact same thing on 2nd day of school, requested fork instead of chopsticks from the stall auntie, that solved my puzzle about whether he's able to handle chopsticks as he seldom uses that at home. On the 3rd day, I packed a small swissroll and a banana for him and he ended up gulping down those during recess, and didn't bother to queue up for food at all. So after 3 days he decided to pack his lunch instead, because the recess time will be reduced to the normal 30 minutes from Day 4 onwards. And he found the queues at the canteen too long so, home cooked is the best! The only sad news is that mummy will then need to wake up earlier to prepare food for him, well, it all comes in a package when we signed up for parenthood so, I will just embrace the new routine!

Day 1, I picked Renzo up from his classroom myself because bus operator do not provide service due to change in school's dismissal time. Day 2, helper waited for him at Gate E, again there's no school bus service home because school dismissed P1 kids 30 minutes earlier, just like Day 1. And Day 3, Renzo queued at foyer for school bus home, helper picked him up at the drop off point, yay finally the dismissal time gets back to normal! And can I say it's a great relief finally because that's the one and only one thing I've ever worried about, what if he got confused about the different arrangements on 3 different days??!!

After school, he went for his piano lesson on Day 1 and came back home together with his brother because the music school is in the same building where their childcare locates. And the next 2 days, he spent the whole afternoon at home with helper. The routine is pretty simple, have a late lunch together with helper; answer a set of questions I give to him about his day in school; draw a picture of his choice; read or play; join Rynus with their preschool routine which includes dinner, shower and TV time till daddy and mummy are home. With the guidance of the time table and of course, supervision from our helper, he completed all those "assigned tasks" and truly enjoyed and adapted to this new lifestyle of his. And on Day 3, our hardworking helper decided to give him a Maths activity book to try out (yes she's really on the ball and I must give her full marks for carrying out her afternoon duty of being Renzo's guardian and coach so well). Renzo voluntarily completed 3 pages without making any fuss, well, just as expected. Obviously if it's a Chinese activity book, it would have been a whole different story!

Day 1

 

Day 2

 

Day 3

 

Family time at night were filled with lots of talks about his school life, and of course reminders about what to do, and what not. I do feel time passed too fast these few nights as there were just too much to talk about, woes of full time working parents - never enough time with kids!!

So there were only 2 small incidents happened during his first 3 days of school, which were not exactly bad but just, unexpected. One being that his neighbor spilled water on his student handbook so he had to leave it at school to dry. Well no biggie I know but my poor son will be the only one holding onto a crumbled handbook throughout the entire year. Luckily he's not bothered by that and even reminded me that his friend ACCIDENTALLY did it so it's nobody's fault.

Another incident bothered me a little bit more. Did I ever mention we have a chat group set up for Renzo's class after we met other parents during school orientation? Yes thanks to the diligent parents who volunteered to do that and it's pretty good to have contacts of other parents before school even starts. The parents there are really helpful and the topics are very relevant. But when we were told by some of them that we need to pack extra stuff out of the provided list on day 2, I verified with Renzo, he said he didn't remember teacher mentioning anything on that. But just to play safe, we decided to go with the flow and packed all the extra files and books, at the end of day 2, poor Renzo carried all of them back as teacher didn't collect them, apparently he did collected those stuff we packed which appeared on the list of thing to bring. That didn't make me feel good at all after pondering a whole day about whether Renzo was day dreaming in class and missed out those important points highlighted by teacher. So, lesson learned, trust my kid, trust anything black&white, and do not over react!

Gosh I can't believe I have this much to mention but actually it's been only 3 days and there's still a long way to go for his 6 years of journey in Primary School.

Now you can tell how overwhelmed Renzo, and indeed every other P1 kid would have felt about primary school life so far. So do not overfeed your kid with too much information, take it slow and do it one step at a time because kids are still innocent and simple minded at this age, and there's no way they could handle so many things well all at one go! So I am all prepared that once Renzo is put on "auto-pilot" mode from Day 4 as there will be no buddy system anymore, he might be giving us some "surprises" every now and then, but for now, I must say Renzo doesn't seem to have suffered any allergic reaction to Primary School, and we are immensely proud of our little man for handling his first 3 days so well in school!