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Did not want to go in the morning (most days), did not want to leave in the afternoon (sometimes). Positives: she started to call some teachers by name, and some friends by name. She talked quite a bit in English, continuing make progress on language.

Kindermusik, sit on teachers’ lap. A nice overlap for her as this class is only class she goes this whole semester (with the transition from toddler to preschool).

Change job
The tuition goes up again. I need to make more money to support my family. I plan to start new job on April 1 (yes April fool’s day, but hopefully new job works out for me and my family).

A bit emotional lately as a net friend passed away recently, reminds me of an old friend’s husband passed away years ago at similar age. We all need to balance our life and work at this age.

Serenity started preschool a week ago, on Friday. When she started toddler program, since I need to go to work early in the morning, I have not been able to drop her off or pick her up much for first semester. Since I joined my current employer, I got more flexibility, and I got to see her more inside and outside classroom. I obviously miss the infant toddler community too, as I spent quite some time there (drop off, pick up, other gatherings). On her last day, we got the bags, put her stuff from her cubby, and said good bye to her teachers.

Pre-school
I have been to her preschool a few times (tour, a parent teacher gathering), I just realized it’s much bigger in terms of space, and population. So less intimacy (or cozy) feelings. But we like the teachers and it’s the same system (Hope Montessori). Minor things like fast cars on the parking lot (5 miles speed limit) bothers me a bit, but not terribly. I guess as parents we just need to be watchful of our kids in parking lot. Because each teacher is responsible for more kids (of course kids are older), it will take a while for parents to get familiar with teachers.

This moving from toddler program to pre-school thing reminds me a bit like our daughter was born, the doctor delivered the baby, in no time they cleaned up the baby, and put the baby in a scale (and light) to weigh her. Sometimes I wish things could move a bit slower. But this is the case of our modern society.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens
(link here)

Manual focus point: make sure eye is the focal point (link here

Exposure: add some if background is too bright (snow)

ISO: 100 is the common value, add more if we need more (gan guang du) in the case of low light

Reference:

cheat sheet 

I heard this story from NPR a while back, I meant to share it with my daughter’s teacher, did not do it as the New Town incident happened on that day. This is again discussed this morning at Hope Montessori morning presentation. I gave it some thought on this topic from time to time. I think it’s not east vs. west thing, also we need to consider the “brain freeze” when we put a person who usually is shy about public speaking to the blackboard, explain something to the class.

The most important lesson is, we (both teachers and parents) should encourage “good efforts”. I recall I had a very difficult class in Rolla, and from what I heard, the professor could give some not so good scores in the end. I tried my best, basically take the notes, spend a lot time working on homework problems, sometimes barely get it done before the class starts (I recall we meets 2 or 3 times a week). I did not do well in some of the early tests (3 tests before the final), in one test I did especially poor as I misread the problem as I was trying to finish all the problems in a short time. I explained it to the professor. He obviously understood it. As the semester concludes to my surprise he gave me “A” on the course. I think he gave it mostly because he thought I tried my best.

A lot of good points.

We congrats/celebrate with kids (did something, e.g., potty training), we don’t “reward” them (Sarah).

The “grit” (persistence) is very important, recent research found American kids are more tend to give up (Susie). Also, toddlers (community) do not have watch, the teachers give toddlers plenty of time to make mistakes and learn. When she saw the infant feed her/himself, or pour milk, she know they are going to succeed in life. The library incident example (toddler want to touch the phone, the mom said if he does, she won’t bring him to library again, the librarian said she will fine him for $100). The lesson: be honest when we communicate with kids. Sarah: the kids knew the first 9 times (parents said) does not count. A parent learned from Mishra (no need to repeat, just remind we already said it).

Sarah: we make mistakes, just be honest and say sorry to kids (e.g., we shout at kids).

Another parent: the “salad” video (hope kids video, maybe put Serenity’s video on iPad so that we can watch more often).

Sarah also mentioned as the older toddler gets more leadership role and feel more confident in the class, it’s also a good preparation for her/him to go pre-school (that self-confidence will help them do well in the new environment).