School update

This year, Riley moves on to Kindergarten 1 while Reece will be moving from infantcare to playgroup later in June.

Riley's now one of the more 'senior' boys in school, having moved from infantcare through playgroup, nursery 1 and 2, and now in kindergarten. While some of the children from his class in infantcare are still with him in K1, some of them have moved off to other pre-schools.

But I'm not too worried about Riley and friends. Everyone - and I truly mean everyone, from the cleaning lady to the children from PG to K2 - knows Riley. Does he know everyone? Haha! No... Sometimes while walking with him to/from school, we meet a child in the same uniform and the child will shout, "Hello, Riley!" and I'd ask Riley who that was and he'd have no idea. ;p

This year, there are fewer children in Riley's class (compared to his class size in N2) and they share the same teachers as the K2 class. Riley was also selected by his teacher to be one of the two class leaders in K1. *beam*beam* (What's the role of the K1 class leader? Tell others to keep quiet. Haha!)

The work he does has also progressed from filling in worksheets to writing and drawing in an exercise book. Teacher Lily gets them to draw according to the theme of the week and they then write a short sentence about what they have drawn. (This weekend, Riley had to do something for Chinese New Year. So he drew an ang pow and wrote, "I like ang pows." Erm, I had to spell it all out for him, of course.)

He loves doing homework and eagerly checks his file and exercise book each time he brings it home on Friday.

What's remained the same from last year are his English speech and drama classes with Ms Rachel and Chinese speech and drama with Chen Laoshi.

And what about Reece?

He's the darling of the teachers. Apparently, some of them like to sneak over to the infant side during their breaks to play with him. Teacher Rose told me Reece makes her want to have another baby!

He's got two good friends - Mikhail and Ka Yi. Ka Yi and Reece like to hold hands and walk around the play area. Round and round and round, until the teachers tell them to stop.

However, the older children don't quite know his name and call him "Riley baby" all the time. There's also this Chinese teacher who likes calling him "xiao Riley" (small Riley).

Reece loves his teachers and is thrilled to arrive in school (most days). He easily slips from my arms into theirs and toddles off to Mikhail to hang out together. It's quite hilarious to see the both of them hanging at the little wall separating the sleeping and play areas - they stand there and smile at people who walk by. While the rest of the babies go into the playpens.

And sometimes, the two brothers meet. Especially when Riley is in his classroom and Reece walks past with his teachers to go to the bathroom (to shower or wash his bum bum after a poo). That's when Riley runs out to give Reece a big hug. And the teachers have to chase Riley back into his classroom.

That's school for the two boys - a big playground!