One of my fond memories as a child was siesta time in kindergarten!
There will come a time every afternoon when the teachers turned off all the lights and all of us little kids will help them to lay out some coloured straw mats (I distinctly remember some of the mats were red and blue) on the floor where we will all lie down and take our naps.
Too bad we all have to outgrow siestas (at least here in Singapore)…
When I was young and staying at my Grandma’s, I joined them in praying to the Taoist deities. In a strange twist, I was enrolled in a church kindergarten.
Whenever I stepped into the chapel, I was always wondering if there was a fight in heaven between the Taoist deities and Jesus…
Back in kindergarten, I had this pair of blue boots that my mum bought for me that I really liked. Think I liked it because it was a special kind of footwear that could only worn when it was raining. Unfortunately, I think I grew out of it pretty fast because I don’t remember many rainy days, and I also don’t recall wearing it very often.
Maybe I would be rich and famous now if my mum had bought me yellow boots instead…
The kindergarten I attended (Dan and HG, you know which one) had this grass patch outside that somehow had a healthy population of snails. It was quite disgusting because sometimes when we were running around, there would be a “CRRRUUUNCH!!” sound and we would realise that we had accidentally killed another snail. Think its worse when you skid slightly after stepping on one…
When I was too young to understand the full significance of giving flowers to a girl, I actually picked a flower from the roadside to give to one of the girls in my kindergarten class. Didn’t know why I did that though… Must have been watching too much TV.
Back in the days before Holland V became commercialised, there was an immunization centre of sorts near where St James Church is now. I remember my mum brought me there for a jab one day, and as a reward for being a good boy, she bought me this toy which shot out soft plastic darts and was modelled like the web shooter that Spiderman uses.
I wasn’t very creative when I was young and my idea of making something pleasing to the eyes was to use whatever I had available.
When I had this assignment to colour in a picture of a wooden house made of planks, I coloured each and every plank a different colour, making use of all the colour pencils I had at my dispense in the kindergarten.
Teacher’s comment: “Lionel, your picture is very… colourful”
Even when I was in kindergarten I was already “kay kiang”…
We were being taught Mandarin in classes and we had to learn how to write numbers. One, two and three were written as one, two and three horizontal lines, so I thought it was a cinch and decided to do some advance homework.
Apparently, “four” written in Mandarin was not four horizontal lines… 🙁
One of the memories I have about kindergarten and primary school is my late grandfather sending me to school every day. He was always there to walk with me and I actually don’t remember talking much, but it was one of those daily rituals that I remember clearly.
No, I didn’t just break my leg, so don’t worry. This is an autobio entry for my time in kindergarten when I broke my leg while on a swing. If you feel squeamish, then maybe you shouldn’t read on.
It was an ordinary day when a few of us got on a garden swing that could seat about 8 of us. As we were swinging away happily, our teacher called for us to go back in for classes. I stuck out my leg to stop the swing and then I heard a loud ‘crack’!
Turned out I cracked my shin and had to have my leg in a cast for a few months. Putting the cast on was fun but it was pretty scary when the doctor had to remove the cast with a buzzsaw!