Learning is Fun!

Today Hakeem had his first day of school! Well, it's not really a school, school. It's more of a playgroup with subtle educational elements integrated into their playtime. Basically they have group activities and each of them are given one-to-one reading lessons some time during the session.

They're open everyday except Sunday and public holidays. Hakeem's in the afternoon session so it starts at 2pm and finishes at 4.30pm. You can imagine sending and fetching him would be a logistical nightmare at first, but I'm sure I can work something out. Heehee I'd probably have to work through lunch or something like that, but if that's what I have to do, I'll do it! :D

I'm really quite excited about it now. Before I was completely riddled with anxiety so I couldn't enjoy it so much. Haha. Good thing I had Hafidz with me to share my misery. In the car, I explained to Hakeem that we're going to school and he'll be meeting lots of friends, and that we'd be leaving him there but we'd definitely come back. I think that explanation helps a lot because we didn't get any time at all to coax him into staying there.

As soon as we arrived, the teacher immediately whisked him away from Hafidz and straight into the classroom where parents are not allowed in! :'( That kind of killed us a bit, but I'm sure they have a strong rationale for doing that. I guess it's part of their settling-in strategies; extended goodbyes aren't healthy for kids anyways.

But he was such a good boy though! He didn't cry at all when he was brought in, Alhamdulillah. His parents on the other hand was a complete wreck! We were sobbing in the car wondering where did time go? It was especially hard on Hafidz because he was totally unprepared for this (unlike myself who spent the last week being anxious about it!). Sigh!

For the first week, we have to leave him for just an hour to give him assurance that we will come back. I wanted to just wait outside for a whole hour. In fact, we didn't even want to wait an hour! We were ready to just come back after 30 minutes! Haha. But in the end, he was absolutely fine! He happily waved his teacher goodbye and all.

We heard him cry from outside when we came to pick him up and that set me right into a panic. But according to the teacher, he was so good throughout and was just playing and singing with the other kids; it was just when they wanted to put on his shoes that he started crying. Heehee yea, he's not a big fan of shoes. He's more of a slippers and sandals kind of guy.

In the car, we asked him if he had fun and he kept saying and waving, "Bye friends! Many friends. Bye!" Heehee his first day and already surprising us with new words! So that's really promising. And it seems like he had a lot of fun too and was very friendly with his teacher. :) Hope we can keep this up!

 In the car before school. He didn't want to wear his shoes then either.

 Outside the school

 The waiting area of the school - I don't think we're allowed to wait here either..

 Fun2Learn! :)

 This is after his first "class"

 He did this under Hafidz's care. He thought this was "cute". Sigh!

This is Hakeem's favourite sitting position

So that's all about Hakeem's first day of school. It was only an hour so it's hardly "school" per se, but he learnt so much already in that hour, we look forward to hearing more new things from him! Just 10 minutes ago he said very clearly, "I want to play." Already stringing four words together! Good job buddy!

And this is a video of Hakeem a few days ago when he just knew how to say his name. Heehee.