1st Grade Orientation

This morning Ella had her 3-hr orientation at school which included an hour with the teacher as a class, a tour with parents, and then lunch.  She enjoyed it and was excited to see her class.  Interestingly in the short time we spent with the class we can already pick out the rowdy boys.  Honestly, quite a few of the girls looked very similar - black hair, pigtails with lots of barrettes or decorative hair rubberbands . . . I think Ella will fit in just fine.

Her teacher's name is Princess - aka Ms. Princess!  Even more interesting is that she is from Trinidad, but moved to Brooklyn, NY when she was 4.  She said she taught in some bad parts of Brooklyn ... hmm, and with a name like "Princess", I can't imagine what THAT was like.  I found it quite amusing too to hear her tawlk like she was from New Yourk but visually look like she was from Trinidad.  She was super nice and had a great teaching philosophy and great goals for the kids.  I am truly tempted to volunteer as a homeroom mom but we'll see if I can pull the trigger.  In all my years at Hill Elementary (Austin) I never did that and I almost wonder if I am nutty to attempt that in a foreign country at my first year at the school.  

We decided to ride in a Pedicab (I think that's what its called in English) to the school rather than walk since we were running late.  Pedicabs are like these bikes/moped-ish type things with a square 3-sided enclosure for you to sit in.  I didn't get a pic but will next time.  It wasn't too bad but it is a bit uncomfortable to be so close to the taxis/cars whizzing by us (while we have no helmet or seatbelt or even a door for that matter!

We also so an old menu posting in the cafeteria from a few months ago before school let out.  It had English descriptions next to the Chinese name.  We cracked up on these:  "Mexican Chicken Rolls" and "Olney chicken leg castle".  First one was easy - enchiladas or maybe burritos or maybe even flautas but I doubt they'd get that fancy.  The Olney one had us stumped till my mom read the Chinese and said it was 'Nawlins' = "New Orleans" is what "Olney" meant and I guess that's how they thought 'Nawlins' was spelled.

Here are some pics from school today:



Ella in front of her classroom door.

This is Ella eating lunch with her class.  They provided lunch today although I swear the email (and yes, it was in English) said to pack a lunch for your kid.  So she's not particularly happy at the time I took this because she really wanted to eat her Mac & Cheese that I had packed.

This is a picture of what Sammy occasionally likes to do with Eva's hair when Eva's head gets really sweaty.  Believe me, the humidity is so crazy sticky and most if not all of the school does not have central AC.  They have these standing units but are usually not enough to cool down big rooms; so the cafeteria was a bit sticky.  Anyway, the twins and Eva came and met up with us during lunch at the school orientation.