Emily's First Day at School

Emily's school career began this morning when she eagerly entered a local preschool. It was an exciting day for our 2 1/2 year old social butterfly who has been waiting her turn to go to school like her big sisters.

After the holidays I began searching for a local preschool that Emily could attend when she turns 3 in August. The logic was simple. Schools are very expensive here and Accenture pays her school after her third birthday. I received referrals from neighbors and visited a few places before we settled on the Blue House Nursery. During this process I kept second-guessing my decision to place her in a local school instead of sending her to SAS after the negative experience Elizabeth had at a Singaporean school last year. The long bus ride was the only thing keeping me from sending her to SAS.

While no school was perfect, we chose Blue House because I sensed it was a nurturing environment, it's a small school with only 24 children, they emphasized art (good news for our little Picasso), it's walking distance from our condo, the school hours were only 9am-12pm so Emily would be home for lunch and it was clear that their philosophy fell more along the lines of letting the children learn through play than many of the other local schools. Most schools I looked at had a daycare-feel to them because children could be there from 7am - 7pm, depending on the program. The Blue House didn't offer buses and only operated for 3 hours/day. I liked that atmosphere. The only drawback was the cost. The tuition was roughly the same as SAS with fewer hours and not exactly the same facilities and resources.

In the end Brian and I decided that we would rather error on the side of letting our baby girl enjoy a fun year of preschool socializing and playing. Even if it's light on academics, she'll still have two years to prepare for Kindergarten. And honestly, the higher cost didn't really matter with someone else paying the bill.

When I turned in the registration form, the director of the school mentioned they had one spot open in their Tuesday-Thursday program. The offer was enticing because it would guarantee Emily enrollment for the fall without being wait listed and it would allow her to adjust to the school. The only thing holding us back was the cost. We hadn't budgeted for that huge expense this spring so Brian asked his project for permission to start Emily early to avoid the wait list situation. Thankfully his project approved the request so Emily was able to start this month.

I called the director last Friday to tell her the good news and within a couple hours, Ms. Janet, one of Emily's teachers, called me to introduce herself, review what we needed to bring for the first day and discuss Emily's food allergies. The conversation provided added reassurance that Emily would be surrounded with attentive and loving teachers.

Emily picked out a new Dora backpack and she could hardly wait to wear it this morning. When we arrived at school, we put away her shoes (kids go barefoot at local schools here) and met her other teacher, Ms. Naz. Emily fed Reggie, the resident rabbit at the school, and went off to explore the playground area. When I told her I would pick her up at lunchtime, she gave me a big kiss and ran off to play. As I walked out the door, I could hear Emily tell Ms. Naz, "I go to school!"

When I picked Emily up at Noon, she had remnants of blue paint on her forehead and arms. Ms. Naz reported that Emily had a great morning and couldn't get enough of art time. No surprise there! Emily was happy to see me and on our way home, she shared with me that she liked her new school. I'm thankful that Day 1 went well and I pray Emily thrives in that environment. Finding the right school for our girls has been one of the most stressful parts of life in Singapore, so I hope the search is over.