Moses Starts Pre-K in Taichung!

First day of school!

Our son, Moses, is finishing his first week of preschool in Taiwan.  He is the only overseas student in the entire school and he is taking it in stride. We were concerned at first because he had a disgusted, pained look on his face when we first went to buy his uniforms. Maybe it was his first realization that he could not speak the language and was no longer in America. Anyway,  he seems to like it now. He has been amazingly adaptable and has begun to make friends.

About the School

Li-An (Moses' Chinese Name) attends Wesley Preschool,  on the Taichung Methodist Church campus right across the street from our home. It is a well-established 50 year-old preschool with three stories, about 300 children ages 3-5. Kindergarten in Taiwan is also considered preschool. So the classes are xiao ban, zhong ban, and da ban. (small (age 3), medium(age 4), and large (age 5)"class".

There are 16 children in his class and two teachers, who are very kind and qualified. Daily activities include Montessori time, language arts, music (twice a week, including violin), PE (twice a week with a PE teacher), English, library, arts and crafts, Christian life, recess, a two hour nap, and lunch and two snacks. The food is prepared in the church kitchen and there is a set menu for each month. A sample daily menu is soymilk and biscuits for snack, shrimp and eggs over rice with bamboo shoot soup for lunch, and noodles or porridge for afternoon snack.  Our son definitely sleeps and eats well at this school! School starts anytime after 7:30 and ends at 4:00 but you are not charged extra until 5:00. After school (4:00-5:00) activities include clay, roller blading, chess,  and violin. Li-An wants to do clay.

Changing into 'indoor' shoes.

Students wear uniforms four days a week and have separate indoor shoes to keep the classrooms clean. They are very clean and air-conditioned. There is no grassy play area but there is a large "green top", a play structure, a garden on the third floor, and two basement play areas.
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Our tuition is very reasonable. It comes out to $7800 NT  ($275) a month for five days a week, full time. (There's also a $16,700 NT ($521) registration fee per semester. -- Steve)
This includes an hour of after school clay play! So much more affordable than California.

Personal Observations

Lining up for school assembly / flag raising.

There is definitely a greater group focus vs. individual focus in the school. MTW there is a half and hour long flag raising, calisthenics, singing and dance segment at the beginning of the school day. The children all seem to play together as opposed to small groups, and the whole group assemblies are much longer. Imagine our preschoolers in California sitting for 1.5 hours in a church auditorium practicing songs, celebrating birthdays, praying, and watching a short video. This is what they did this morning.

Moses used to bring home stacks of art and craft projects last year. As of yet they haven't done any art in the classroom yet. I wonder when and if they do crafts at this school. There is also no mention of mathematics in the curriculum, which is surprising. And no writing until kindergarten.

We do have homework: reading and recognizing characters from Tang poetry and English homework on a weekly basis. Moses rocks in English class. I'll use the workbook to teach him the corresponding words and patterns in Chinese--perfect!

This is definitely a family-oriented school with a strong presence in the community. It is amazing how much of an impact a church preschool can have! The teachers and administrators are really friendly and passionate about teaching and about sharing God's love with the children and families. The school even offers a parenting class once a month. We are reading Po Bronson's "Nurture Shock". I downloaded the kindle version onto my mac and am ready to discuss. How do I manage to get along in Chinese? I find that by mixing my Mandarin and Taiwanese I can usually get my point across. I don't really care if I make mistakes. I figure I'm here to learn and get the most of this experience so I just jump in wherever I am.

We are glad we have chosen this school, love the location, and can't think of a better place for our son to pick up Chinese!

-- Tina