Itadakimasu!

Celebrating Mona’s first day of school with a bowl of Minnie Mouse fish-cake ramen. She only attended one of the pre-k open school days where kids and parents are invited to come in and hang out. Mona had fun (as we knew she would) despite showing a little confusion when the teachers spoke to her in Japanese. We will be sending her back on her own more often.
The two hours she was allowed to “visit” the school, were spent playing inside with the other children. They were mostly eager to play with Mona, but it took her a bit to warm up to the new situation. After a while the teachers (baby-sitters?) announced it was time to pee-pee. Everyone took off their pants and took turns sitting on the little potty. This was perhaps the greatest thing for us, because after just one day seeing other kids use the toilet, Mona is super into taking off her pants and sitting on the toilet at home now, even if it is just to pretend to pee.

A little snack of milk and two huge sugar cookies (Mona’s weekly allowance of sweets was used up in ten minutes), and the kids all went outside to play in the snow. Mona is not the biggest fan of snow, so was a little behind when it comes to being able to climb the big snow-hill, which the other two-year-olds had already mastered, but we are not too worried. This time was just a play-visit, so we left when the other children headed inside for lunch and a nap. Mona was sad enough that we are anxious to get her back there to play a few days a week, but not too bummed out that some ramen with Minnie Mouse fish cakes couldn’t make her forget.
While I am glad it is not full-on “get ready for college entrance exam” type school, I would have liked a little more “educational” interaction from the teachers who really didn’t interact with the children other than to help them dress and clean up their food. There was no playing with the kids or talking about colors or numbers or animal names, etc. Basically just watched them play.