Juniors picking up the accents

As those of you who have been following the Blog for some time will already know, one of the main reasons why we choose to move to Australia when we did is because we wanted our four year old son to get into the Aussie ’system’ at as early a stage as possible.

We’ve always joked that it wouldn’t be long before he’s talking like an Aussie but surprisingly, after only 4 months it’s already started to happen.

The class he is in at Kindergarten has quite a few Australian kids in it, and when you add in the extra ingredient of an Australian teacher it’s no real surprise that he’s started to pick up on the odd word.

With Easter being around the corner, one of his most prominent Aussie-isms is the Word Easter Bunny which is pronounced Easter Baaarny, Daddy has started to become Daaydy, and yes has started to become yea.

It’s kinda cute and we are trying really hard not to stop in our tracks and ask him to say it again when he comes out with a new Aussie-ism just in case the poor little mite becomes paranoid.

Having a daddy originating from Yorkshire I thought that the accent would be so over powering that he’d never pick up on the Aussie accents.

 Even after only one month it looks like the two days a week at Kindi seem to be doing the trick

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Time for someone to start Kindergarten!

Well, junior started kindergarten yesterday and damn, was he excited!

We heard the sound of tiny feet running at great speed across a wooden floor towards our bedroom door at about 6:25am. The door bursts open and junior shouts “It’s time for big boy school’!

Kindergarten personifies growing up for our little boy and to be honest I think he’s got bored of spending so much time with his mum and dad over the last few months. Back in the UK he used to attend ‘nursery’ three days a week which he absolutely loved.

He’s always been pretty confident with other kids (a little to confident sometimes) and playing and learning stuff with his mates became a pretty big part of his weekly routine which he always looked forward to.

We also found the interaction with other kids really helped build his confidence and the curriculum the nursery offered helped support us when we came to teaching the ABC’s, colours, numbers and all that other good stuff. The routine is something that we didn’t really realise we’d all miss.

As I started work within two weeks of arriving in Australia getting into a routine was pretty easy for me. For the misses and our little boy however, it’s been slightly more difficult to get out of ‘holiday mode’ and into a daily or weekly routine because every single day has been different.

Don’t get me wrong. The missus has found plenty of fun stuff to do; the beaches are fantastic as I’m sure you’d imagine, the parks are great and the Zoo and Aquarium make a really good day out but for junior. It’s the interaction with other kids that he was missing and the routine of having regular interaction with the same circle of friends is something that has really been missed.

I’ve mentioned in previous Blog entries that our 4 year old little lad was always one of the main drivers for moving to Australia when we did.

We wanted to give him the quality of life that Australia has to offer as well as getting him into the Australian School system from the very start.

We didn’t really appreciate that at four he would be close enough to his little buddies for him to miss them when we moved down under. Even now he still has wistful moments when he talks about his chums back in the UK.

Things will get better though! Now he’s started ‘big boy school’ he can start to develop a new circle of mates and the added bonus of a routine is great!

He loved his first half day at Kindi and although there were one or two kids who didn’t want to leave their mum or dad (or ‘screamers’ as the missus describes them) it sounds like the other kids did to.

Kindergarten, pre-primary, and the final two years of High School (Years 11-12) are optional but we recon the experience will be an educationally valuable one.

Aussie children can attend kindergarten for four half days per week, or two full days, depending on individual school programs.

Initially our little one will only go to kindergarten between 9am - 12 for the first term, and then he’ll progress to two full school day (9am - 3pm).

I’m unsure for how much longer he will relish the thought of getting up in the morning to go to school but for now, we’ll all enjoy it!

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