First Ballet Performance

It was our princess very first dance performance. Although it was not a formal performance, I was so excited that I asked Ivan to make sure his camcorder was fully charged the day before it. It was the last day of the ballet class she took before the summer. Because parents usually had to wait outside during class time, the kids were quite distracted when parents were in the classroom. They always ran to their parents during the performance. Some kids became shy and hid behind their parents. Charisse always ran to Ivan and asked to see replay from the camcorder. It was just fun to see the little princesses dancing and running.

First Ballet Class Performance

First Day of Preschool at Alpha Beacon

Alpha Beacon is a Christian school that Ivan really likes. It is because this school teaches students values and love. However, Charisse wasn't potty trained at the time the school started last year, we sent Charisse to Children's School for a year. Since Charisse had taken Summer school at Alpha Beacon last year, this school environment and teacher were not new to her. In fact, she was really looking forward to go back to this school this fal. She asked us many times that if she was going to this "new" school instead of the "old" school.

One challenge is that we have to get up no later than 7:30 am. This school requires students go to school on time; and we have to arrive at 8:30 am. We reminded Charisse many times before today that we had to wake up earlier. She usually stayed in bed for a long time before she got up. But this morning, Charisse woke up by herself before 7:30 am and chose a pretty outfit to wear to school. I still couldn't believe it was so easy this morning. We arrived at school on time. Charisse recognized Miss Godinez and followed her to her cubby. After leaving her bag in the cubby, Miss Godinez introduced couple students to her, and Charisse started playing with them. She didn't even look back to find us. She felt so comfortable there and just let us go after saying goodbye. After school, we asked her if she liked the school. She said yes. She told us that she would like to hug her teachers before she left. Then she went to hug Miss Jaci and Miss Godinez. I'm so happy that it was an easy transition from one school to another.

This school put preschool and pre-k students in one classroom. Preschool students have classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday; while pre-k students have classes Monday thru Friday. Since Charisse was borned on October, she could go to preschool or pre-k. Today, she had met all pre-k students, and she's the youngest in class. We still haven't decided if she should go everyday to pre-k because we're not sure if she's ready yet. However, we know that she would not like to be the oldest in her group coz she always likes to play with older kids. This needs to be decided in next couple weeks.

First Day of Preschool at Alpha Beacon

Chinese School

After 3 weeks of summer school at Children's School, we had registered Charisse to go to summer school at Alpha Beacon for the rest of the summer. On the first day of school, we was told that her class was cancelled because there weren't enough students. We were so disappointed because we did not want Charisse to stay home everyday. After lunch, I surfed on the web to look for class or activity that Charisse could do in the summer. I called couple places and had decided to take her to a Chinese school where it's to close to Ivan and my offices.

After first week of school, Charisse started making new friends. Many students are mandarin speaking. One day, when we watched Doraemon with Charisse during lunch, she asked us if we could pick the one in Chinese. I told her it's already speaking in Chinese. My nanny explained to me that Charisse meant Mandarin not Cantonese. It's just funny that she knew that she could learn Mandarin by watching the cartoon in Mandarin.

Another day, her school took her to watch a musical performance called "Disney's Alice in Wonderland" in Foster City. That night, she danced and sang like a performer in front of us. I guess she had made up the melody of the song, but the beats and rhythm sounded right to me. The school also took their students to a theatre to watch the movie "Ice Age". Last Wednesday, they took them to the Academy of Science on the free admission day. However, Charisse was disappointed because the line was too long and the teachers had decided to leave without entering the museum.

Charisse likes going to this school than Children's School. I guess one of the reasons is that she can communicate better with Asian. Another reason is that Charisse was afraid to play with boys in Children's School because the boys were rough, but the boys in this Chinese school are very polite.

衰車

Today, while Ivan was driving, a car ran a red traffic light and almost hit our car. Charisse immediately said, " 呢駕衰車呀,夾硬嚟㗎~" Ivan and I found it very fun and laughed. I guess either Ivan and I had said the same thing when the same situation happened before.

End of School Year Celebration

The end of school year celebration happened over a month ago. I didn't have time to blog about it until now. The celebration was very much like a graduation commencement. It started with a slideshow on pictures taken thru the school year. When the students saw themselves or their friends in the slideshow, they said the names loudly together. After the slideshow, each student went out to get his/her evaluation. Charisse was so shy that she took her evaluation from Teacher Nancy and rushed back to her seat. Luckily, I was able to capture the special moment. The celebration ended by a potluck with all kinds of delicious food.

Here is the evaluation from Teacher Nancy:

Charisse is a dear, sweet, kind and respectful child. She has grown so this school year. She really is feeling so secure in herself, participating well at circle time. Charisse is beginning to use more of her English at preschool. She has a good recognition of the numbers, shapes and colors we focused on this school year. With a little more help she'll be chatting away to us all in no time. Charisse follows directions well. Charisse loves to play with the play kitchen/house area at school. She has some good friends in our class, Jessica and Caris. Keep up all the solid foundation building at home, you are doing a great job. It feels so wonderful to see Charisse so happy to be at Children's School playing well with her school friends. Thank you for sharing her with us all. She warms our hearts.

End of School Year Celebration

A Trip to LA on Memorial Weekend

We went to LA in almost every holiday because Ivan wanted Charisse to enjoy the holiday with us, and he knew Charisse liked taking the rides and roller coasters. It's true that Charisse enjoyed more each time we went. However, there is one more attraction in LA, not a theme park but my friend Grace's home. On last day of our trip, we visited Grace and her family. Charisse loved her family so much that she didn't want to leave. We drove away for 20 minutes; when we went back, she didn't show any sign of missing us. It took us almost 2 hours to convince her leaving with us. Ivan and I thought it would be great if we could leave her there for the whole summer but I could see Grace's husband Kenny kept sweating when we brought up this idea. Ha ha ha...

LA Trip - Knott's Berry Farm and Legoland

Last Day of the First School Year

Time flies! The school year just ended couple weeks ago. When I looked back, I see Charisse have grown up a lot this year. She
...becomes more independent.
...is potty trained.
...has builds up trust between her and other people besides parents and our nanny.
...knows what's friendship.
...doesn't like to play with boys because they play rough.
...feels sad when she has conflicts with her best friend (Jessica).
...feels sad when she feels rejected.
...becomes more emotional.
...is more expressive.

We may send Charisse to another school next year. Charisse is looking forward to go to the new school. She always thought that going to a new school means she's a big girl. Kids always want to grow up. If I were at her age, I would like to stay young. There's another reason she wants to go to another school, she always complained that she got hit and push by a classmate named Garrett. I had raised this issue to her teacher. I have been teaching her to forgive and forget but I don't think she understands it yet.

This school has a tradition that all students walk on their feet with colorful paint onto pieces of paper. I believe that symbolizes the students walk out from school with a colorful life.

Last Day of School

Second School Field Trip - the Discovery Museum in Palo Alto

Charisse's class had a field trip on April 30. I took that morning off and went to the Discovery Museum with her. All students wore the T-shirt they made couple weeks before the trip. It felt like they were wearing uniforms.

School Field Trip

Easter Egg Hunt

This year, we went egg hunting at Central Park in San Mateo again. We shouldn't go to this place because we didn't have a good experience last year -- too little eggs and too many people. Before the hunting started, they kept announcing that "pick up one egg, you will get one gift; pick up 10 eggs, you will get the same gift." They tried to convince people not to pick up more than one egg. However, who would listen to them.
"Five... Four... Three... Two... One..."

Within 1 minute, the eggs were all gone. How many we got? Three... We were pretty lucky because there were many older kids in the crowd. I didn't enjoy it. Why were we waiting in lines for so long and fighting for those eggs.

In the afternoon, we went to Ivan's brother's home. Charisse's cousins Michelle and Toby went egg hunt at a local church in the morning too. They got more than 200 eggs home and many little gifts. Since the egg hunt at the park wasn't fun, we had a mini egg hunt game at their home.

East Egg Hunt