Isaac starts school!

Well not really. I mean, his 'school' is only 2 hours. You see, we'd already signed him up for pre-nursery school (3 hours thingy) which will only start in January 2010 - coz that's the year he turns 3 yrs old, and they wouldn't allow him to start any earlier.

But the twins come out in January, you see, and people (well, everyone!) says that you should never start the older kid on school at the same time as when the baby (babies!) is (are!) born - coz this might make the older kid feel that they're being 'got rid of' coz of the babies - which, for the record, is NOT TRUE.

So, we decided to try and start Isaac earlier, on the idea of school. So we signed him up for this one-hour thingy on a Saturday morning. He enjoyed this 'school' thoroughly, and constantly looking forward to it, and asking to 'go school' all the time.

So this past week, we transferred him to the Monday - Friday 2 hour session thingy, instead of going for the Saturday 1 hour. In general, he loves it! Isaac loves to learn, and he can take instructions well, so he's been enjoying his classes, mostly.

I say mostly... coz... hahaha... you see, since this is his first week at school, we could sit in with him during class. (His Saturday 1 hour class has a parent to sit in permanently, but this 2 hour class - not supposed to be accompanied by a parent).

So on Monday and Tuesday, hubbs sat in with Isaac. He took to the lessons very well, and hubbs could distance himself without too much whining from Isaac. The teachers were very impressed with Isaac, saying that he could take instructions very well, and that he was attentive and understood what was going on very well - for his age (Isaac's 26 months old).

Then Wednesday, I brought him to class. Ah.... baaaad idea. He was sooooo clingy to me! Not at all like his first 2 days at school. The teachers were surprised and asked me:"Is Isaac more attached to you than his father?" Well, yes, he is. I mean, he is also very attached to hubbs, but I guess the kind of bond Isaac and I had, was in a way different to the bond that he had with his father. Hubbs says it's a mother-son thing. (He is looking forward to his father-daughter thing.)

So, it's like we took a step back. On Thursday, when hubbs brought him in. Hubbs says that Isaac was more clingy to hubbs than he had been in the first 2 days, but teachers said he was much better than he was on Wednesday with me. On Friday, yesterday, Isaac wasn't feeling well, so we didn't bring him to school.

Well, in general, still, I think Isaac enjoys school. His eyes light up when we ask him if he wants to go to school. He eagerly looks forward to wearing his uniform and carrying his backpack. At night, when he wants to continue playing/reading and not want to go to bed, we'd just have to mention that he has to sleep early for his has school tomorrow - and he'd quickly skip off to bed.

We're proud of him and very glad that he likes school :) Well, now to show off. hahahaha... For the record, even before Isaac started his Saturday 1 hour class... Isaac knows the following:
1) Alphabet:
He knows how to identify all the letters in the alphabet - in capitals. The small caps, he doesn't really know yet - for those that look substantially different from the big caps. Hehehe... our fault - we started teaching him the alphabet in the higher case.
Oh he can recite the alphabet from A to Z too, though he somtimes misses out the letter N.

2) Numbers:
Isaac knows how to identify his numbers from 1 to 10.
He can count items up to 10.
He can recite 1 to 20 - though he sometimes misses out the number 14.

3) Shapes:
Isaac can identify the shapes: square, circle, rectangle, triangle, diamond, heart, star, moon (the crescent shape)

4) Colours:
Think we mentioned before, Isaac's pretty good with his colours, was one of the first things he'd learnt. He knows: red, blue, yellow, green, white, black, orange, purple, brown.

We don't like make him memorise or anything, nor do we flash card him like mad. We just mention such stuff in our everyday talking with him and it seems like he soaks up everything.

Some people have told us that what he knows is pretty good for a 2 year old. So, of course we're pleased. But still, we know that different kids learn at different rates, and kids do catch-up at a later stage in time blah blah blah... so we're trying not to count our chickens too early.

Still, we're proud of our lil guy :)

Way to go, Isaac! :)