So Much to Say about Preschool (Chinese pre-school that is)

Well where do I start...

About 4 weeks ago Caed started at Chinese pre-school (you er yuan). 

His first two weeks were rough, really rough.

 Crying, hitting, breaking the teachers watch...

He only goes two (or sometimes 3) days a week. 

And pre-school here is WAY different then at home. First kids are there 8-5:30. Not so mush played based as it is learning based. Lots of drills, tons of choreographed dance time {don't get me started on how strange it is to make 3 year olds stand on a sticker and expect them to dance following a teacher for 25 minutes...} etc.etc. There are many other things I would add but I don't want to make you all cringe too much or fall out of your chair laughing.

The school is right across the street from our apartment. First day of school.

He loves one of the teachers named Lisa (she is the Chinese teacher who teaches English). After his first day of school he talked about her constantly. She told me once that whenever she comes to their class to teach Caed stands real close to her and wont leave her side. We do role-playing at home of how to behave at school, practicing his Chinese and stuff and he always wants to be Lisa. So cute. 

Shortly after he started there was a 'parents day' where we all came and saw what they do. I took this pic that day (they all have a uniform they where on special event days, I thought this was a special day so Caed is wearing his "Unicorn" as he called it!).

Also hilarious was that the teacher was trying to get them to copy hand movements to a song here. Caed is not at all interested in doing the movements but instead spent the whole time making sure the kids beside him were doing it right. And if they weren't he would loudly tell them, "Your not doing it right!!!!" (in English haha)

"Mom seriously I need to listen to a 15 minute puppet show about manners in Chinese while sitting still in my chair? You're kidding me right?!"

Ah the choreographed dance in action

This picture is taken from the door of C's classroom. That is our apartment building there. The 4th set of sticking out windows from the right and the second one up is our kitchen. 

Here is the zoomed view from my camera from our kitchen looking at the dance time. Notice that little kid to the left completely walking away from 'dance time'? Yeah that is Caed. I asked him later where he went and he said to the big gate to ask the guard to let him out. He is getting better though. Today i watched him and he stayed on his sticker the whole time {though he didn't dance}.

"Mom I can't make it through a day at school without my blankie, please give me a hug!"

* Caed doesn't go to school 8-5:30 (I take him home 12-3:30 to eat and sleep and then back in the afternoon)

* The food, both breakfast and lunch are served while he is there, have been an issue. He apparently hates it (though he has eaten a bit). So now I pack him 'food' for him to eat. Geez. 

* The teacher told me the other day that he has improved so much already, which was really encouraging. For the first two weeks I came home from dropping him off and cried as I looked out my window thinking, "What are we doing this for???" He went two days without hitting and she said he is speaking lots more Chinese to teachers and friends. 

* Want to know something crazy about Chinese school? BuKe (to make up class). They had a week of class then since the next week was holiday (M-F) they had a make up on Sat, the whole next week off (m-f) then class on sat and sunday and M-F. So essentially you get 5 days off then go to school for 7 straight days. Needless to say we don't do buke on weekends. And needless to say Caed had a rough day today going back after 10 days off. 

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Our funniest school story yet - 

Last week I picked Caed up and he had scratches on his neck. Teacher was super apologetic saying another boy had scratched C. I knew of course C was surely also attacking the other boy too. Anyway we get home and have a talk about it. Caed was fighting with the boy he admits. But then says, 

"He is just like a Roman that boy!"

What does that mean Caed?

"You know his hair was all cut this way with a thing like this in the back" {while making hand gestures around hair and touching different place on his head}

We still don't get it. What is a Roman Caed? Did you learn that from a tv show or movie or book?

(now getting frustrated with our lack of understanding) "No. A Roman from HX {saying the name of the city we live in Chinese}"

Okay and that is that. A "roman" type boy scratched his neck. Later after he went back to school in afternoon and I picked him up I asked how it went with the "roman" boy and he said, 

"He was nice to me, he was not like a roman."

------ humm a mystery -------