First Week of School

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One week down and moving into the second...

After the first day of school, Ari said, “One day was enough. I don’t want to go back.” Now after a week is done, I think he really likes it (although we don’t get more than an “it’s ok” out of him, you can tell that he does). He comes home dirty (from playing at recess) and smiling everyday. The other night at dinner he said, “There are some things that are better [than school back in Yardley], some things that are worse and some things that are just different.” The things that are better are what you’d expect - 2 recesses per day, gym twice per week (instead of once), ½ day every Wednesday. Things that are just different - here they provide snacks and lunch for everyone every day; in Yardley you can either bring it or buy it. He didn’t elaborate on things that are worse.

As I mentioned before, the classes are in English, so all of the kids speak English fairly well. There is another boy in his class who is from California and Ari has become good friends with him already. Ari has said, however, that he does want to learn Spanish, so we’ll have to see what we can do.

During the first week, we were a little worried that it was easy for him. Well, those worries are gone. It seems that the teacher was taking it easy the first week, but now has ramped up. He has a pretty good amount of homework every night. And, as we expected, the concentration is on Language Arts. He has already learned to write in cursive - and fairly neatly. There's a huge emphasis on neatness and organization...so much so that they have to count out a certain number of spaces over and/or down in their workbooks (bought specially from France) each day when they write their headings, their math problems and their sentences. Each week he needs to memorize a poem and recite it in front of the class (and create a “prop” to go along with it - a picture, or some other type craft). The math is still a breeze for him - they are just working on easy addition with carrying - but the teacher assures us that it is going to pick up. I think for know, he’s working so hard on the other stuff that it is good for him to have a break.

We had a meeting with his teacher the other day - she suggested it. It was good to review his weekly schedule and find out what sort of homework we should be seeing. It was also helpful to hear what she expects of the students. Ari has seemed to make the adjustment into the new school pretty smoothly. There is a school picnic this Saturday, so we’ll get to meet some of his friends and their parents. We’re looking forward to it.

Ellie had her first day of school yesterday - sort of a Mommy & Daddy & Me/open house/get to know the school kind of day. She was very excited for it. It looks like there will be about 15 other kids in her class. None of the kids speak English, some of the parents do, her teacher does pretty well. More about her school in the next entry...

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