Wiggle Talk - A Podcast For Parents · The Wiggles & iHeart Australia

The First Week of Big School: Expectations vs Reality

·51 min·2 clips

Asher came home with a full big lunchbox because the eating window is only 10 minutes.

1. Wiggle Talk, a podcast for parents, looks at the first week of big school, with Kindy in New South Wales and Prep in Queensland, for Asha, Lulu and Lottie. 2. Hosts Simon Price (Red Wiggle) and Lachie Gillespie (Purple Wiggle) bring in Dana and Lauren, who had not been on the podcast before, to add the mums' view. 3. The episode compares expectations before school with the reality after "those first few days", using recorded interviews with the kids before and after. 4. Before school, Lulu and Lottie predicted "songs, play-doh, making bickies and making jelly beans", while Asha asked to take "a strong" Transformer and said he'd like a hug and for a parent to come "a little bit forward" into the room. 5. Lauren describes Asher's drop-offs as like "ripping off the bandaid", with him clinging to her leg and then bouncing back, and says he arrives home at pickup "beaming". 6. Lauren found Asher's big lunchbox coming home full, learned from the school spreadsheet that the eating window is 10 minutes and that she had the order backwards, and rejigged the boxes. 7. Dana says Jasper, in Grade 5 and at a new school after moving to Brisbane in Grade 3, now handles a cricket bag, laptop, belt and bus. Jasper says his proudest moment was breaking a bail in half and calls his school house "like a family". 8. Asher worries about "gastro-turf" after a preschool gastro outbreak kept him home for a week, and the parents report tired children, bedtime restlessness, cereal requests and a twin who won't eat breakfast. 9. Dana says a library bag arriving after the first library session taught her that "it's okay not to get it all right on the first day" and to allow "at least term one", and she also describes enjoying the new space while the girls are at school. 10. Parents with children starting school, or those already worried about drop-offs, will relate.

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