It's the time of the year where most preschools are putting up their year end concerts. For us, it's a little more significant than previous years coz this year, Caleb's graduating from Kindy and Sarah's doing her debut performance.
Our little graduand receiving his cert
Standing before the crowd
Taking his place with his classmates
After all the graduating students received their cert, they presented the audience with a graduating song...
The lyrics of the song they sang...
After that, it was time for all the performances.
We don't really have any idea what Sarah was going to perform. I just know that she would be singing and dancing. She seemed quite enthusiastic about her performance until the day of the performance. When she woke up, she told me that she had a stomachache. She went to lie on my bed, told me in a grouchy and weak voice that her stomach hurts a lot and she don't want to go to school. Me and ND's immediate thought - Butterflies in the stomach! I had to be very patient with her and thankfully manage to persuade her to get herself ready for school.
So here she is just before the start of the performance, peeping from the door at the side of the stage.
She was thrilled to be able to spot us and couldn't stop grinning from ear to ear. I think she was eager to show off her costume, make up and hairdo to us. (And yes, no more stomachache!)
She kept waving to us, smile coyly and twirl her skirt the whole time that she waited for the song to start. We thought she looked really cute and nice in her costume.
Sarah in action...
There was this boy she partnered with for the dance and he was very "enthusiastic"!
First thing Grandpa said after the performance was (in Hokkien and in a very unapproving tone...) "My grand daughter so cute and pretty, but her boyfriend (the boy she danced with) so rough with her! Use so much strength on her and she never even scold him!"
Watch Sarah's full performance here and see how how sweetly she's smiling at her partner.
As for Caleb, this year, his teacher requested for him to be a narrator for the story that his class was presenting. The story is set in a forest with 4 woodpeckers as the protaganists. The woodpeckers and other forest animals are living in harmony with the plants and trees, till the arrival of 2 bears who goes about destroying the trees in the forest. The animals in the forest then use scriptures to remind the 2 bears that God created all things. They are beautiful and so the bears should love and take good care of God's creation.
Caleb with his classmate, Angeline, introducing the story.
We all thought Caleb did an excellent job narrating the story. He was fluent and his intonation was very good. Grandma and Grandpa were exceptionally proud coz the people sitting around them commented that Caleb's Mandarin was very good. They asked Grandpa and Grandma whether we spoke Mandarin to Caleb at home, of which they replied that we speak English at home but Caleb practised very hard for this performance.
We did put in some time and effort to practise for the performance. When Caleb's teacher first spoke to me about him taking on the role of the narrator, she said that she thought he would be a good choice coz his Chinese foundation is not too bad and he has always taken his assignments seriously. So she felt that he would be able to do the job.
When I first saw the script, I was like "Wah, the words are quite difficult to read!" I couldn't read a few of them myself and had to refer to the dictionary. Caleb started off not knowing how to read 95% of his lines. I went through the script with him a couple of times, of which the first few times he cried, he grumbled, he fretted about how difficult all the words were. After that, things just got easier when rehearsals started in school. I think it's peer pressure. He came home telling me that Angeline could memorise the whole script and even his lines without needing to look at the script. And he too could memorise his lines after a while and said it's not difficult anymore. However, he still held on to his script as his security blanket. Towards the last week of the performance, he was no longer working on memorizing his lines but adding emotions into his lines.
Caleb standing with his classmates towards the end of the story.
Here's Caleb's performance on video. Again, this Mummy blundered on capturing the whole performance. The last time round, when Caleb did storytelling, I was so excited, I forgot to start the recording. This time, I started the recording for 2min and then I realised my SD card had run out of memory and was no longer recording! After scrambling for a spare SD card, here's the remaining 7min of his performance!
After all the performances, they got the classes to come out for the grand finale.
The school sang the closing song - "This is My Father's World" in English and Mandarin.
The hordes of parents clicking and snapping away
Sophia with Grandma. I think she can't wait for her turn to be able to perform.
After the performances were over, we took more photos.
I like this series that we took of Caleb and Sarah.
Kor Kor and Che Che
Caleb was really sweet. He realized that Sarah's top was riding up and showing her belly and he tried to help her adjust her top. Though sometimes he can get all rough and rowdy but generally, he's a sweet Kor Kor.
I need to help you pull up your skirt...
There, that's better...
Now we're ready to pose...
This is so funny!
This is my brother...
And this is my sister...
And we love each other very much!
And along comes Sophia to join in the fun
Grandma decided to join in too!
And how can we miss out Grandpa...
And then it's time for some photo moments with friends. These 2 girls are Sarah's classmates.
The girl in costume is one of Sarah's best friends in school. The other girl just joined her class.
Kor Kor and his friend from the other K2 class decided to join in too
And to end our eventful day, of course we had to take a family photo!
