Almost 3 1/2 months in her new school, minus one full month away
(Australia) and another 1 week school holiday
(Ganesh Festival), Zo Ee is doing great in her new school. Monsoon
(raining season) is almost over and she is wearing socks and shoes to school instead of sandals. With the hot weather, seeing the sweating her,
(she sweats more than the local kids), the teachers placed her directly under the class fan. She is happy
(so far) and teachers like her especially her curious little mind with her huge knowledge to share with them. According to her teachers, she is very comfortable with them now, expressing and chatting with them on a daily basis. Opposing to the initial month, Zo Ee's very passive and preferred to observe than expressing herself like now. Zo Ee loves to share her knowledge with others and the teachers are acknowledging that, listening and asking her questions which allowed her to express more. They agreed that she is definitely special, especially seeing the way she observed and sees things/the world around her in a very different ways, much higher level than her friends. Teachers are always amazed with her little mind and doing. Last week, she was telling her teacher something about our body, that the heart is the organ that pumps blood in our body. Heart is also the center organ in our arteries system. When the teacher asked her how many kidneys are there is our body, she replied two. These are just a fraction of her huge knowledge and her teachers already showing this "WOW!" in their face.
In class, Zo Ee finished her work fast
(baby work to her - if given the chance, you can finish the whole book in less than 30minutes), and spend the time chatting and talking to her teachers while her friends are still struggling with their work. I don't mind she has to do them, especially doing them neatly, correctly and quickly. Now, she gets the idea that once she has done them and submitted them, she is free to do things. She still cannot understand why her friends refused to do their work nicely or correctly, where some even can't hold a pencil correctly yet. To her, they are just naughty and refused to listen to their teachers. When I asked her whose work is the best. Without hesitation, she replied,
"Mine." Teachers always said that my work is neat and beautiful. One month ago, her teachers even mentioned to me that they don't have to tell her anything, she'll know what to do and how to do them. I guess at that time, they have not realized that she is capable of reading the instructions yet although I have mentioned to them that she is capable of reading at high level, but they just don't quite get it especially at which level exactly.
Last year, when I took Zo Ee to see the school, we did meet the previous school coordinator, who did mention that they do have some kids joining them already reading but definitely not at Zo Ee's level. She mentioned that they allowed such kids to bring in stuff/books to do/read after they are finished their work. This year, her Nursery/Kindergarten section has a new coordinator
( they rotate every 3 years), and this new coordinator didn't know the whole story initially. She didn't see why I was anxious when Zo Ee started school 3 months ago. She and the teachers are positive all the time but they just thought that I'm just one of the many parents who boasted about their child and worries too much. I did told her that my main concern is for her to like school. I don't expect much from the school and was not sure whether she will learn much from school but I'll be very happy as long as Zo Ee is happy and enjoying school. 3 months passed, I didn't ask for any changes or specific requests since Zo Ee has been enjoying school. Learning the alphabets and numbers are just a minor part of the school days. I heard that they will learn 1- 30 this year. According to the coordinator, this school is very advanced comparing to the other schools, they do reading early, like they are teaching the alphabets with the phonics from 3 years old. They will introduce 3 words sentences next year for Nursery 2
(4 years old) and number 1-100. Ok, none of these are relevant to Zo Ee since she is already reading and knows her numbers up to thousands, she knows what is million and trillion too. Anyway, they do learn more than that; topic of the weeks etc. For example last week, they were doing water transport and the teachers took them out to the beach
(opposite the school, just crossed the road) to look at the "barge" passing by. They do a lot of art works where Zo Ee picked up new words and technics, eg.
"Blotching" which the teachers did hang this word next to their works in class. I'm not sure how much other kids are absorbing or learning but Zo Ee is absorbing everything. Her writing improves tremendously although the teacher intention is to teacher the children how to recognize the alphabet, so she has been showing them the strokes and how to write them properly. I think they are doing the letter L now. Zo Ee just grabbed the concepts and applied them in her own writing. They are learning songs and dance and most importantly oral speaking. I really like this weekly oral speaking
(public speaking) in class. Other that this, they already performed once and will be another coming this October
(poem recitation for Nursery 1) - the whole class is performing and November
(Children's day). So lots of activities to keep the children busy. Zo Ee has been assigned to play the keyboard and giving a long speech for the coming Children's Day.
On Monday, I bumped into the new coordinator, she stopped to talk to me, asking me how am I and how is Zo Ee doing? This lady that I have not talked to since the first week of school, is telling me that Zo Ee can read so well and she is such an amazing girl. She told me that they have started to pull her out of the class for higher reading and learning. I don't really know what but when I asked Zo Ee, she said there is this new teacher reading books with her. I am really liking this school. No wonder, this is the best school in Goa and parents queued long hours to get the admission forms and some even 24 hours. Dh actually queue for 8 hours last January. It's really worth the effort. Anyway, all these kids are from rich families since this is a local private school. I've seen kids coming to school in Porsche, Jaguar and fancy cars. They have very talented kids, musically talented kids and recently one 14 years old who just published an adult thriller book of 400 pages. The reason why I'm choosing this school is that it's fairly a good school with good teachers and just 5 minutes drive from our home.
Ok. this is a drama class for 3 -5 years old, I wonder how many would understand what she 's talking about.
It has never triggered me that she learned from poems cause she read the first book all by herself. Mummy bought her this second poems book which she read in one sitting just now. It's over 200 pages with 130 poems. Amazon review stated that this is a book for 9 -12 years old.
