Pre-Nursery

This photo was taken last October when Pum Pum was still attending the Pre-Nursery class at Julia Gabriel Forum. It was supposed to be a bridging programme between accompanied PlayClub and independent Nursery.

Previously, she was attending 2x/wk English and 2x/wk Mandarin Playclub - from Term 1 to 3 (2010). But towards her 29mth, I could see she was outgrowing the activities in PlayClub (she was there since 18mth) and she was no longer as interested as before. She was also becoming one of the oldest kid in the class.

Initially, I was quite hesitant to transfer her out to the pre-nursery class because there was only one term left before she joined her sister over at Pat's schoolhouse. I spoke to her Chinese teacher Yue Lin and she advised me against the transfer because she reasoned it would involved too many changes. On the other hand, her English teacher Gerry, encouraged me to move her on because she thought she was ready.

In the end, I decided to go ahead, mainly upon the advice of a mummy whose son was Pum Pum's ex-classmate. Though he was born 3 wks later than Pum Pum, he already joined the Pre-nursery class in Term 3. Another boy, her ex-classmate too, born just a few days earlier than her, also joined the class in Term 3. If they were coping well in the class, surely Pum Pum could too. Besides, Ying Ying was only 27mth when she started her drop-off programme at Pat's. Pum Pum was already coming to 30mth!

Since it was the first drop-off class she ever attended, she cried and screamed (and even threw things!) for about 20-30mins in the first two days. But by the third day, she only cried for 10mins. *phew!* From the 4th day onwards, she stopped crying completely. Amazing!

The transfer turned out to be a good decision because Pum Pum did learn a lot of things being forced to be independent. On top of that, I could finally have some me-time for the daily two hours or so while she was in class - I could enjoy leisure breakfast at Mac's or Coffeebean, shop a bit when the shops open and even dance zumba twice a week with another mummy!

I liked the pre-nursery class mainly because it was kept small - only about 10-12 kids. (Compare to 16 in her class now.) Sometimes the number would go below 10 because of sickness or going on holiday (especially the expat kids). Most importantly, her teachers - Hasanah and Zhang laoshi, were very experienced, kind and patient. Both of them were musically trained and could play the keyboard with ease - I loved the idea of having live music in class during every lesson.

Looking back, it was a term of 'firsts'. On top of her first time unaccompanied, she also wore underwear to class instead of pull-ups for the first time - underwear was easier to pull down when her teacher bring them to the toilet. Throughout the entire term, I was happy she only wet herself twice. :) She also picked up cutting skills for the first time which became her all-time favourite class activity and she would often practise cutting at home too.