Kindergarten Career Night

Flag Day at School

Chat over hot chocolate and coffee

Mama and I stopped by (surprise!) the local coffee shop on our way home from school in the morning, and we had a nice chat about my day over a full cup of hot chocolate and coffee. I'm explaining to mama how the teacher was telling Ishan (a boy) "no, no, no" and to "come here, Ishan".... although mama has her suspicions that there isn't a boy named Ishan in my class and that I actually took it from a scene of an Indian movie I've seen twice already (about a boy named Ishan who has dyslexia).

I learned a HIndi song at school!

Too Cool for School

My school

So, things have been a little irregular lately since I was sick for a while and then mama became sick... so I missed many days of school. But recently I have been attending more regularly and have slowly been starting to get used to the whole idea. Every morning we take an auto rickshaw to school... it takes about 20 minutes with traffic. The downsides? Sitting in traffic and breathing in the fumes from the cars and motorcycles and the noise factor (with all the honking and traffic zooming past). But it's OK... the school has proven to be well worth that hassle. Here I am on my way to school in the morning. We've been starting a little late.. around 10:00 so I have unfortunately been missing a big chunk of the Montessori activity time... but I get right in time for snack time, singing and song time, and then after that again back to Montessori. I love the singing time and LOVE learning the new songs and the dance moves! And snack time always proves to be enjoyable (mainly because mama puts cookies in my lunch box to entice me to stay seated and enjoy the snack time with the other children).


Before I go upstairs to my classroom, I take off my shoes and place them on a shoe rack downstairs. No one wears shoes inside the school.I sit down on one of these colorful chairs to take off my shoes :-D

Snack time... everyone brings their own food and drink. When they pass around our backpacks... I unzip my bag, take out my Barbie lunch box (which I picked out myself!), and my water bottle and a napkin and I place them all on the lunch mat (or as we call it in Persian "sofreh").


This is my teacher... Ms. Lubna.. she is so friendly and nice! All the students call her "auntie" (a custom in India... you call older women auntie and older men uncle... even though they're not related to you... it's a way of showing some relationship between everybody). I must admit though I am still a little confused... but mama is trying to explain to me why I should call her auntie and not teacher or Ms. Lubna.... hmmm...

After snack time we sing songs and dance along with the teacher! I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!! A couple of the songs are in Hindi (or Kannada, the local dialect) and I sing along just the same.
During Montessori activity time... we have learned to come to these shelves where the little rugs are.. we take them ourselves and find a place on the floor where we unroll them. We then find an activity to do... puzzles, drawing, etc... and we do it on our little rug.
This is an adjacent classroom... mama has been sitting outside my classroom out of sight while I get adjusted to the idea of her not being with me for a couple of hours. Since she didn't want to disrupt the class by taking so many pictures... she started taking pictures of the other classrooms.
Their Montessori activity shelves.... still need to learn from the teacher how to use some of them. But so far I love those yellow puzzles with the blue shapes.... each one has a variation in size and shape of the same shape... takes some thinking.. but I always get it.



Mama noticed this sweet little girl with Down Syndrome being tutored... she is so cute!

They've added my picture and birth date on the birthday poster! Can you find me???
The little playground area in the front yard of the school...
The man in the grey suit... he's very nice! He stands at the gate during the whole school day and guards it from outside people.. an added security to ease the minds of parents :-) He also has a microphone and whenever a parent comes to pick up his/her child he checks their ID (which has a picture of the student on it) and then uses the mic to call the child. An assistant to the teacher helps the child get their backpack, put on their shoes and bring them to the gate.. where every day they are allowed to pick from a basket of candy as they leave! A very nice touch that I REALLY enjoy :-D

First Day of School!!

So I started my first day of school last week (but have since switched schools after finding out that InBloom really wasn't Montessori at all.. what a disappointment!) Anyhow, here is a picture of me on my first day. I was so excited about it and mama, dada and I had been talking about it for weeks! I woke up early to have a nice full breakfast and we all walked together to the school (dada taking pictures along the way).

I now go to a real Montessori school a little farther away, but well worth it! The teachers are so much nicer and give me more freedom to explore. I'll post more pictures of my new school soon.

One Week and Counting

We have been here exactly one week now, but it feels like so much longer! Maybe it's just me, but the days here are sooooo long. Probably because we wake up so early in the morning these days... it's amazing how much you can get done if you wake up at 6:30 in the morning. Since I've always slept in 'til 9:30 or even 10:00 in the mornings, 6:30 is a big shift! (and can you believe I don't even take naps now!) I think it's great... but mama... not so much.

We start off our mornings with a "family time" breakfast :) and talk about our day to come. Then I kiss daddy goodbye as I see him off to work and reassure him that the other kids will love him at work and he'll make friends fast. Next I take a shower and get dressed and ready for the day. Mama and I have "class" time where I have been practicing my manipulation of puzzle pieces and learning my colors and numbers. After that we take a walk to the playground where I try to meet up with my new friend Eisha and also meet other new friends too. I learned that Eisha is attending the Montessori school that is located right next to the playground! I can't wait to go just like her and have gone back to visit a couple more times to get better acquainted with the school. I never want to leave, and I must admit I have shed a tear or two when mama says it's time to leave. I'm comforted, however, by the knowledge that mama and papa are going to enroll me so I can join the other students too!!!! I start January 3rd since the school is closed for a couple weeks this month. I can't wait!!!

I have been talking a lot more these days and often surprise mama and papa with new words and phrases. A while back I put together my knowledge of the word "spicy" in a new sentence that for some reason made mama laugh hysterically! She was washing my .. ehem... behind one time and when I thought it was getting a little sensitive I said to her "Mama, my colito is spicy!" (Colito meaning "behind" in Spanish)

I apologize for not posting more pictures. Unfortunately for some days we couldn't use our camera because the battery ran out and since we didn't have a converter, we had no way of recharging the battery. Luckily today papa found an electronics place and bought a nice one. We'll work on taking some pictures and will post them soon... hopefully :)