Our Upcoming School Girl

As I am starting to realize, I believe it is a typical Asian thing for children to start preschool at 2 or 3. Here in Thailand, like the US, the program/ curriculum is flexible so a child can choose to go less than 5 days a week. In Hong Kong, preschool is structured more like kindergarten (and actually is called kindergarten), therefore to go less than 5 days a week is not an option. It is also a 2 year kindergarten program, so to not enroll for the first year would make it practically impossible to get in the second year. When she would start school at age 5 (in what they call Primary 1), if she hadn't gone to kindergarten she would be behind socially (knowing how to sit in a chair when she is suppose to, follow directions, get in line, etc). Children begin kindergarten the year they turn 3-- so Keely will be one of the younger ones but it's the year she turns 3. She'll actually start 5 days before she turns 3. She will go for 3 hours 5 days a week.

The school she is going to is taught in English. I would love for her to go to a Cantonese or Mandarin speaking kindergarten, but many focus on writing and memorization and things like that. We don't think Keely would do well in that type of atmosphere. There are probably some that aren't like that but since we aren't there yet we can't really investigate. When she starts Primary 1 and on up, she will be learning Mandarin as one of her subjects in school. The school is also very close to where we will be living. We are told it is about a 15 minute walk or a mini-bus ride plus about a 5 minute walk or so. Jacob's schedule will be more flexible so we are hoping Jacob can take her to school and then probably Jordan and I will pick her up. There is a bus service we can pay for her to be on, but we are going to try taking and picking her up first.

When we first even thought we might be moving to Hong Kong (when we didn't have a job and didn't really have a reason to believe we'd be moving to Hong Kong), we had our friend put an application in for Keely at this kindergarten. The application was turned in on a Monday and she was accepted. On Thursday, our friend picked up our acceptance letter and we found out that they had a record number of students apply -- 178 for 75 spots and Keely got one of the last two spots! She also got into the morning class, which normally is given on a first come first serve basis. We really thought she'd be in the afternoon class and were a little weary about this because afternoon probably is her hardest time... morning and evening are much better times for her (night kindergarten class anyone?). We are really blessed Keely was accepted into this kindergarten and is in the morning class!! We'll see how this chapter of her life goes!