Transcript of AE 1395 - Interview: What the First Year at Primary School is Like with Noah Smissen

G'day, you mob! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English.

So today we have the second appearance of my son on the podcast. He appeared a few months back where I think it was episode 1369, A silly conversation with my son Noah Smissen. And ever since then he's been like, Dad, can I come back on the podcast? I want to come back on the podcast and chat. I loved it, it was fun, so I thought- we had him at home the other day. He said he was sick and then he seemed to be okay. I'm sure your parents know what it's like.

But he was at home and I was like, well, why don't we have a chat about your first year at school in prep at primary school, and you can talk about it from your perspective, you know, what was it like? What did you like? What did you do? Are you excited for next year? You know, tell us. Tell us about your first year from your point of view.

So we sat down and had a chat about that. I think the conversation went to a few other areas as well. But yeah, it was a fun one. It was a fun one. If you guys want to get the transcript for this episode so that you can listen and read at the same time, please be sure to check out the premium podcast membership at AussieEnglish.com.au. The link will be in the description. It's a membership that allows you access to all 1300 plus episodes of my podcast, the transcripts, the online player on my website so you can listen and read at the same time, bonus episodes, everything like that. And obviously you're helping support what I do here at Aussie English. So go and check that out at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. And now, without any further ado, I give you my son, Noah Smissen.

Noah, what's going on? It's your second appearance on the podcast.

Yeah.

Are you excited to be here?

Yes.

Why?

Because I'm making another podcast.

Yeah. You know that there were thousands upon thousands of people that heard the last one that you made with me?

Yeah?

Was that exciting? How did it make you feel?

Mhm. Good. But I want to see how many are already done now because I asked you out there in the kitchen.

I know. I'll have to check later. Did it feel weird knowing that so many people had listened to you?

Yeah.

More, more than live in our town.

But is it more than live in Australia?

No.

No.

That would be impressive. That'd be, that'd have to get 30 million downloads.

Yeah, and then that would be like a really, really famous.

You would be super famous if that happened. So I thought I'd bring you on the podcast today where we could have a little chat about your year in Prep. So you have just well, almost. It's your last week in Prep.

It's week five.

No, it's not.

Week six.

I think it's more than that, mate. It'll be up to like week ten for the fourth term.

Did not know that.

So you've been.

Cause like, we've been like, in week four and I've been, it's so quick in ten. I didn't even know that it went that quick cause..

Each term is normally ten weeks. Yeah.

It took one second to even do it.

So what was it like going from Kindergarten to Prep? You were in Kinder last year where Joey is now. Joey's still in Kinder. What was it like going from Kinder and what you did there every day in Kinder to now being in Prep at a school?

Just more work.

What kind of work? How did it differ? What what what do they get you to do?

They get you to fluency, maths. Roll the dice and maths.

So adding numbers together?

Yeah. And even taking away.

Yep. Subtraction.

Yeah.

So you also learnt to read and write. That was pretty crazy. You did that so quickly. I was really impressed. All of a sudden you were learning words and you were saying them all over the place.

We even learned to Grade Six tricky word.

Which one was that?

'Because'.

'Because'? Why is that so tricky?

Cos there's a lot of letters and sounds weird. Because when you get up to the R, it's an A and then back into U.

There's no R though in the word 'because'.

I said.

You mean the A.

No the, the U.

Yes. Okay.

The A pretends to be the um, U.

Oh okay. Yeah. So you've got this, they've got this full way of teaching you how to spell things out, right?

Yeah.

That seems very efficient. You learn so quickly as Prep students. I was really shocked.

And my, my Grade One classes.

What do you, what do you do every day when you go to Prep? What is the normal day look like for you? So like I, we pack the bag at home. I put your lunch box in there, put food in there. You've got some other stuff, like extra clothes in your bag, maybe some books.

There's no extra clothes in my bag.

No? There's a hat.

Yeah. Sometimes I got an extra hat.

Or a jumper.

Yeah, I've got an extra jumper.

Yep. So you take that to school when we drop you off because we don't get to see this. As parents, we drop you off at school in the morning, and then you go into class. What do you normally do once you get into class? What's the first thing you guys do?

Inquiry.

What's inquiry?

Um, another, um, thing that we learn.

But what is it? What do you. What is it? You ask questions or.

It's like you just learn a little bit how to write and draw, but you mostly draw pictures. And then after. And cry and cry. I didn't know how to say it anyway.

Inquiry.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um. We do writing. It's the. It's the session writing until our pictures.

So you do some drawing as well?

Yeah. And then we do brainfood after those two.

What's bran food?

Brainfood.

Oh brain food?

Yes.

Gotcha. What's the brain food? Ah, these are brown food. Brown food? What, what what sort of food do you get for brain food? That's what they call it at school, right.

Fruit and vegetables.

So fruit and veggies. You have to try and give you a bit of, um.

Yeah, but.

Nutrients.

Fruit.

Mostly fruit. And what kind of fruit do you have in your lunchbox for brain food?

Strawberry. And there's one funny thing. Mum sometimes puts the brain food in the snack.

So what does that mean, though?

The snack is for after playtime.

But do you find it or you have to wait until playtime?

Um, I don't wait until playtime. It's after playtime, and I have to wait until then. But I wait until brain food and I just found out I had to waste my time. But I still get eating time because I have to put the brain food back in the brain food box. And then the snack back in the snack box.

What else do you normally have in your lunch box? What kind of food do we put in there for you?

Gummy bears. Um, but the normal thing that you always almost give me is toast.

You mean a sandwich?

Yeah.

Yeah. What's in the sandwich? Normally.

Vegemite and butter.

Oh, yeah. Do you like Vegemite?

Yeah.

Do you reckon all Aussie kids love Vegemite? Did you know that many foreigners, many people who come from overseas, from different countries-

Love!

They hate it. No, they hate it. Yeah. They don't like it. Can you. Can you believe that?

Yeah. But when you put too much. It's so spicy.

It is, it is a little bit. It's a little bit intense. So what's the trick? How do you get it to taste nice.

Don't put that much. Put a lot of butter gonna taste good.

Yeah, yeah. Do you prefer it in a sandwich or on toast?

Toast.

Me too. Why?

Because it taste better. But I prefer it on my favourite bread. So like that long..

Long?

Oval bread.

Oh, is this like.

But not the pãozinho..

.. Mum calls pãozinho or..

No, not that. It's like a pãozinho..

Like a hot dog bun.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

But as I call it pãozinho. But it's better.

Yeah. Mum uses that. It's a Portuguese word for like small bread I guess pãozinho. And she uses it for, like, really small rolls.

I think it's like, um. Um, so that bread, what's it called?

Brioche. It's brioche bread. It's a really soft and sort of sugary bread, right.

That's what it means, I think.

Yeah. You prefer that, do you? And what else do you normally get? You get some snacks in your lunchbox too, right.

So I normally get um K-Time.

What's K-Time?

The snack, like?

Yeah. It's a Kellogg's, um, snack, right. But what's in it?

Um.

It's kind of like a soft biscuity thing, right?

Yeah.

What's inside?

I don't know. I don't know what it's called, but there's two, two flavours in two. Two like circles.

Are they like cylinders? Right. And they get wound, twisted together.

Yeah. And there's little, um, like, um, food in there.

Mhm.

Um, um, one of the sides I do not know because it's like a yellow side, but I think I know what the other side is like a fruit side.

Mhm.

Like a berry side.

Mhm. And that's your favourite treat, is it, at the moment? The K-Time thing from I think we get it from Woollies.

That's my second favourite.

What's your second? What's the first? Um.

Fruit snack. Fruit snack.

Aha, those fruit snacks? Yeah, again. It's sort of a similar thing, right?

Yeah. It's got. But it's smaller and it's got one circle. It doesn't actually go one line, then another one.

Yeah.

Like.

It's just sort of like a soft biscuit in the shape of a cylinder.

Yeah. The bottom's flat. It's a semicircle.

Yeah. True. Okay, so it's like the shape of a D, but then in a long line.

Yeah, but when you turn it around, it's D. When you turn it back around to its normal size, it's like cylinder. A cylinder or semi-circle.

Mhm. Semicircle cylinder? So what's your favourite subject at school?

Writing.

Writing. Why do you like writing so much?

You can learn how to write.

Yeah. But why?

And know how to read.

Why? Why do you want to learn to write? What's.

So I can read!

Yeah, but why is that important to you? Why do you want to read?

So this. The most important thing in your life.

Why? But for you?

Because you can read. You can read signs. You can know numbers.

Mhm. So is that why do you think it's important? Do you think it's used for everything, huh?

No, not for everything. You can't read diamonds.

Yeah. No. But as in like for your life, you use reading and writing every day, right?

Yeah. It's like that's called writing on it.

What?

The thing that Joey gave you.

Whereabouts you're pointing at? Oh, yeah. The Father's Day gift that she gave me. Yeah.

In the middle of school. What?

Mhm.

On the computer. It's got heaps of words.

Mhm.

Almost everything's got words.

Is it weird like only a year ago you would look at those words and you wouldn't know what they said. So now you do.

Yeah Joey. I know Joey used to be like she writes things wrong or something's right. And she used to say that she has a word, and she said that says.

She would often just write down random letters in a sentence and then walk up to us and say, what does that say? And I would have to say, make something up. Or she we get upset if I said that it said nothing. She'd be like, ah. She would get upset.

Hey, Skippy!

Ah, that's the cat. Your cat is here hanging out with us, too.

Yeah. He just stretched to my face.

He was stretching his paws out. He was stretching his paws out and.

Like this.

Yeah.

That feels good. That feels good.

So what other subjects do you like at school?

Maths.

Why do you like maths?

Because you get to roll the dice.

You get to roll the dice!

And it's the. It's the session where you get to play the most games.

Ah, well, that makes more sense. What kind of games do you get to play in maths?

Oh, Snakes and Ladders.

That's a cool game.

Get Out of My House.

What's Get Out of My House?

So you get these counters and you. There's different numbers and. And when you get on the same number, you do Rock, Paper, Scissors. And whoever wins gets to kick them out of the house.

But then what? Are they just out of the game or they have to come back in?

Well. Yeah, that's the end of the game when they do that. The one who does the kicked out wins.

So there's like only one person left at the end.

Yeah.

Do you win that normally?

No. I was like. I've only won like two games of it. I was like three.

Which one's your favourite game?

Snakes and Ladders.

Why is that?

Because you get, um, counters and it's. There's numbers. So 1 to 100, so you keep whoeve,r gets up to 101st wins.

Mhm.

And I've only I've won like 20 times.

Mhm.

I won it more often than my partners.

So tell me about um the play times that you have. So how many of those do you have a day.

Two.

There's two play times?

Yeah.

And then um what do you normally do in them?

We used to play. I made up a game. It's called Jelly Bean Police.

Jelly Bean Police!

So I'm, I'm the jelly bean, and I'm a policeman. I try to get Alex and Harry.

But why? Why Jelly Bean Police? Why can't you just be a cop, a normal policeman?

I don't know, I made it up and I call it and that's what it's called. And so there's little ropes in the castle and I can get through them. And they're the ones that are not police. They're bad guys. And when? When you're running, you sing. You just go. You. You say the word, you say "jelly bean police" every time you're trying to get him to say that.

I think this is the first time I've ever heard about this game.

And you, you have to lock them up in the castle. Oh, look, it's a cat.

Oh, the neighbour's cat's outside.

Yeah, and.

Scrappy, look! Scrap, look. The neighbour's cat, look! Yeah, he's seen it. He's like, what the heck, bro? So tell me more about playtime. What else do you do during playtime?

I have to lock them up and I don't lock them up, but they go through the ropes. And then there's like this little tiny hole that.

So this is like a playground, is it?

Yeah. And us boys.

Mhm.

They dry, we try and um they try we can squeeze through. Scrappy still looking at it.

Stay focussed. You can squeeze through what?

Um, so there's, like, these two gaps on the sides of the castle. They're very tiny.

Is this the one that's like.

And we just squeeze under them.

Is this the playground that's on the other side of the school? From where I drop you off at Prep?

No. Not there.

Was it in the middle?

It's, you know, where we go scooting? There?

Oh, yeah. On the other side, right.

So you see the playground there?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And you see the castle. You see these two little gaps on the sides. And we can squeeze under them.

Yeah.

And we can eat. You see the one with the rock wall? There's a whole gap under there, and I can. We can just squeeze right under the gap and we can go under- Scrap is going and have another look.

He's stalking the cat through the house. Yeah. There's a cat walking along the fence next to our house.

Oh I'm gonna, I'm gonna..

Stay here, buddy. Stay here. Focus. Focus on what we're doing. So, what else do you normally do during play times? What have you done this year? You've done lots of stuff. Like you used to collect a lot of bugs, right?

I played soccer, um, played footy, bring my footy ball to school.

Um,

Do you prefer soccer or football?

Play tag, hide and seek, I play.

Which one do you prefer?

I like soccer.

And why is that?

I'm always. I'm always just winning points. And my team's a lot. My team always gets the most. But it's the best day when you got your team-mates. Tommy, he's the best player.

He's good, is he?

Yeah, he's really good. He's been practising sports for his like he's started when he was two.

It's funny, you can see he and his family are very, um, sports oriented. And his dad, you can tell, likes footy and.

Yeah. So, you know, when we went down to the basketball court and we saw those two, me and Joe were down at the pit and we Tommy's dad and him were down at the basketball courts playing footy and even up on the grass playing footy. Him and his dad like doing it. Tommy. Tommy's got two brothers.

Yeah. Do you wish you had more? More brothers and sisters? Or are you just happy with JoJo's?

Um. You know, I want one more.

You'd want one more?

One more would be a boy.

Why?

Because you. You were born before Auntie Annie.

No. Yeah, yeah. So I'm the oldest. Yeah.

So.

And the same as you and Joey.

Another boy would be born before another girl.

Why, is that important? Is it?

So I was before, you were born before Auntie Annie. And I'm before, I'm born before Joey. She's four and I'm six.

Yep.

So there's five in the middle.

It's pretty crazy. My sister and I have 21 months between us and in age. So almost two years. And you and Joey have 22 months between you. So I had two children that are almost exactly the same in distance apart from one another, male and female, as me and my sister were. So it's pretty funny, isn't it? So what else do you do? Do you still look for bugs? You're really into hunting for bugs.

Yeah, I'm really into it. I'm into. But that's my second favourite thing. So.

Why do you like bugs?

I got a Lego the most.

Tell me. Tell me about bugs. Tell me about bugs first. Why do you like bugs so much?

I don't know, but Alex likes it. So.

Is it exciting going outside and trying to find these little animals and then collecting them?

I want to tell you something, cause I like. Cause I like bugs and Legos.

Mhm.

Why not make a bug Lego?

So you tell me about Lego then. I know you're very into Lego at the moment.

It's on my shelf.

You've got a lot of Lego, don't you?

It's on my, I got two, I got three Ninjago, but the two motorbike ones came together. That's how I.

So like the Ninja Lego?

Yeah.

Why do you like that so much?

No, because, like, there's one there's one Ninjago car, and you can. And you can push down on the back and it goes up and down. And they do lots of, um, things you can do..

They do lots of what?

Things. So.

Fidgety things.

Yeah. You can you can do lots of things with them. So like the spaceship when you push down in the middle, the thing does that.

Yeah. We got this the other day, right. We got you a spaceship Lego and we made it.

Last weekend.

Yeah, but there's a bit in it where, like, if you push down in the middle, the back of it opens up where the fire or the.

So that's where they would be. That's what they usually do. Like you got lots of things to do with them.

So you can push bits and move bits and move it around. It's not just like a stationary object, right? Why do you like Lego so much? Um.

No, because like you get to collect all of it and I'm like, I want to collect so much. And.

It's funny how much you guys like, especially the Preps, you guys are so into the different collecting things. Like you know how Woolworths, the supermarket has those cards or toys or Ooshies, all the time. You guys are so obsessed. Each time they have a different thing and love collecting them all.

So I, I want the Lego. Um. What was I gonna say? Because, um. You, like, can do things with it and lots of things. But the Lego is the best because you get to collect all of it. And I'm really saving up my 65 bucks so I can get even more notes to buy even more.

Yeah, well tell them about that. Tell. Tell the audience about, that the other night. You've got this little plastic safe that you put a code in, and you can open it up and you can put notes and coins in.

No one else knows it.

I know.

I've told. I've told people. They just keep forgetting, so I'm not telling them anymore.

So anyway, you got this safe, you brought it out. And I think each week we give you coins, right? For different things. If you do chores around the house.

You bins.

If you bring the bins in, if you take the bins out, you get a coin.

You give me gold coins, please.

Both you and Joey get coins for doing chores around the house, especially like cleaning up outside and..

Can you more often give me the gold coins? Because I because they give me the most money, they cost more.

You guys work that out so quickly. I remember, Joey, remember?

You know what?

Remember how I've got the jar with all the change in it that I use to give you guys payments? Joanna worked out so quickly. Um, which one was worth the most? And you remember how previously I would pick the coin and I would give you the coin, and sometimes it would be silver, sometimes it would be gold.

She just freaks out.

Now she wants to choose herself every time because she knows which one's the $2 coin.

Yeah. The $2 one costs the most.

Is worth the most. Exactly. Exactly.

I know because once in maths, Miss Hardy was telling everybody the gold coins are worth the most. That's why I've got. I've only got less in my safe. And I gave you almost all of them.

Well, I had notes the other day. I think I had sold something on Facebook Marketplace.

Yeah, for grandpa, you got like hundreds. Hundreds. Hundred. Hundred.

What, I borrowed money from grandpa, and I paid him back with money that I, um, I got from selling some stuff. But the other day, I got a bunch of $20 notes from. From selling a plant on Facebook Marketplace, and you brought your safe out, and I said I should probably I need some of these coins back so that I can have the coins to give you guys to pay you. And, um, you wanted some notes, remember? And we opened up your safe and you poured out all of this treasure. There was, like, necklaces and crystals.

You know why? Because we all clean like shelf and. Mama, mama, mama told me to put them all on my safe.

But it was like a pirate's treasure chest. You'd open it up and there was just all this treasure. And the thing that was astonishing, that blew my mind. I said to you, I think initially I thought I was going to give you a $5 note because that was what I owed you. Oh, no, I was going to give you a 20. Um, because I said I owed you a $5 note and I didn't have one. So I thought, oh, give me $15 in coins and I'll give you the $20 note so that you get the 15 and then a five on top.

And then you gave me you gave me 20, 20, 20.

Yeah. It turned out you had..

I had, I had five.

Mhm.

And I spent it.

Mhm.

Wait, did I?

I don't think so, you still got it.

I still got it.

But you had so many gold coins that we kept sorting them out into piles of 20, $20. And you just kept pulling out piles of $20. So I ended up giving you, I think, 60 bucks and you gave me..

65 bucks.

Yeah. And you gave me the coins back so that I can now pay you guys pocket money with those coins again. But it blew my mind. But the safe was a lot lighter afterwards, wasn't it? It wasn't as heavy anymore.

Cause I had heaps. And.

You did.

But that was, that was way more money than I had.

Yeah.

That was like it cost more. I had more.

Mhm. Yeah. You've still got some more don't you.

Yeah.

Anyway you were saying that you wanted to save this money up to buy Lego.

Yeah.

What else would you buy? If you couldn't buy Lego, what would you spend the money on?

No, I'm just spend it on something I like.

What do you like?

No. Something cool.

Like. But like what?

Well, I have 65 and I would spend it on. A monster?

A monster truck?

Yeah.

So would you get. You get one big thing. Not lots of little things.

Yeah. Um, I you know why I'm going to save up for my 65 bucks, and I get more than 65, because that box.

Which box?

Those heaps of boxes that were, like, huge and I..

This was at Kmart.

Yeah. And one was 130, 103 and then 150.

And these were Lego boxes.

I had to, I had to keep saving up for that one, because that one, that one was a huge truck and I had to.

Oh, so is that the monster truck?

No, it's not, it's not a monster truck. It's a, it's just a normal truck. But it was so cool. It was big.

So you just want to buy it. You want to save up your money to buy the biggest Lego that Kmart has? Is that what you want to do?

It's not the biggest. It's the second biggest. But that one, it was crazy. I, I had to save up for it because it's bigger than any of my others. It's way bigger than any of them.

Where are we going to put them all, Noah? Where are we going to put all these Legos?

Mama, you know why? Mama's gonna give me another shelf soon. The shelf? You know, the shelf with all the makeup and stuff on it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She's going to give me that soon.

Well, where's she going to put all that makeup? On the ground? In a bucket, like. In Scraps', in Scraps, like, um, little.

When she, when she knows. And she'll just wait for a weekend and she'll move it into my bed. And the ones on my bed are going to go back onto that shelf, and then I can keep sleeping on that bed.

Mhm. Oh very cool. Well I think what if we end the episode here. Is there anything else you want to mention about Prep.

Can make it a long episode.

Well maybe we do a second one. We can do another episode after this. We can talk about other stuff.

Okay.

All your fans will want to hear more, mate. Everyone listening to the episode is going to be like, More Noah! More Noah! I keep hearing in my head they're going to be thinking, Pete, shut up and let Noah talk. Is there anything else you want to mention?

I'll stop saying that.

Is there anything else you want to mention about Prep? Like, um. Are you excited to be starting Grade One?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, um, Joey, I think she wishes I was in the Grade One class. I was in the Prep area. So there's Prep class.

Yeah.

She. And there's a Grade One class right next to us.

Cause there's four classes, isn't there?

Yeah.

And so there's only three Prep classes. So one of them is a Grade One class.

You see the, you see the one that says Prep, Prep. The one that's left is one that's a that's a Grade One class. And one more thing that, um what why what was I gonna say?

One more thing you were talking about, Joey. Cause Joey's starting Prep next year at school as well, right? She's pretty excited. She's just getting really, really bored with Kinder, even though she's a year younger than she, than many of her other classmates.

She's gonna be like me. I started five at school.

No. You were? Yeah. You started at five. She'll be starting at four. She's turning five in March.

It's so weird that when, um. Spencer at Day-care, he's six at Day-care. I'm six at school.

People are different, mate. People take different amounts of time to do different things.

I think he is going to be seven in Prep.

Well that's happens.

He's going to be seven in Prep. That's crazy.

Well, you know our friend James.

Yeah.

He was a year older than everyone else in our class.

He's..

So he was like, when I was six, he was seven. When I was seven, he was eight.

Six seven. He said six seven.

Oh, God. Don't start that. But, um, are you excited about Grade One? How do you think Grade One is going to be different from Prep? What do you think? It's going to be exactly the same.

I got harder things.

Do you start learning a language?

Yeah.

Is that Grade One or have you been doing it in Prep the whole time?

Even in Prep we, we've been learning Italy.

Italian.

Yeah, Italian.

I think they say 'molto bene', right? For like 'Molto bene!'

I wish, I wish, I hope we can go there for Christmas and stay there the day after Christmas. Cause you know why?

Why?

They get to. They get to like, they get two whole heaps of presents a year.

What?

They start another year and on the first day of the year..

And they get gifts too?

Yeah, because this lady always flying around after Christmas.

What?

And she get, they get even more presents if they've been good for the whole year.

But what if we just give you loads of presents on Christmas? And you get twice as much as you would get?

Yeah, so they get. They get some more after the date, the after the the day after Christmas. And they get, they get even more if they're being good for the whole year.

Wow. That'd be pretty easy. That'd be pretty fun. So you would just have twice as much Lego, huh? Okay!

Santa's gonna give me Lego.

You reckon?

Mama told me. I don't know what types.

What type are you hoping he gives you?

Like the big, you know, the spaceship?

Mhm.

It's a lot of money, but I really want it because it's.

Which, which. Star Wars?

You know the Star Wars, the all the goodie the all the good guys are going?

Is it the Millennium Falcon?

Yes.

You'd like that.

That is so much money. And it's..

Do you want it because it's so much money or because you like the Millennium Falcon?

I like that one. I like the Millennium Falcon. And it's bigger than the one that I was just talking about that truck. It's even bigger.

Yeah.

It's.

So you just want massive Lego?

Yeah.

Oh, well, if you're a good boy, I guess Santa will have to just bring some and get it to you. You've only got a few days left.

I want that gold left.

All right. Cool. We'll finish up there and we will see everyone in the next episode. Hopefully, we'll do another one.

We're doing it after. Right?

Yeah. You're going to say 'ciao', you're going to say 'bye, guys'.

Bye!

See ya.