School update

Speech Day (and a very excited little sister)

Just thought I'd give an update on how school has been going for the girls. First off, Katie's speech on the 1st went well (or so we heard...parents weren't allowed to attend). Katie felt good about it, and her teacher texted and said that she had done very well. PTL! We were all pretty nervous though about her first full day on Monday. I am thrilled to report that my question "How was it?" was answered with two thumbs up and a huge smile!!! And surprise of all surprises, her favorite part of the day was lunch! (Previously that had been the part she had most feared.) So. Full. Of. Praise. Yesterday didn't go quite as well--she didn't like lunch (but at least she can always eat the rice and thankfully the teacher had texted and told the parents to send fruit with the kids, so she had a banana too). Then she kind of fell apart at the end of the day when her class was coming to the gate to meet the parents. I guess some of the kids weren't staying in line very well, so the teacher made the whole class go back to the room to try again (which I totally understand...first month of school, teaching 35 first graders, you've got to make sure these kids get with the program!) Well, by that point in the day, I guess Katie couldn't handle it, so the tears started and somehow she managed to avoid having to go back with the rest of the class. We tried to explain to her that it was a totally reasonable request of the teacher and that even if it wasn't her fault, she was now part of a class and must do what the rest of the class does. What was so awesome though was that the teacher called afterschool to make sure everything was alright and that we understood what had happened. Then later that evening she texted me again to see if I might have time to meet with her to discuss Katie. This part made me a little nervous--I wasn't sure if she just wanted to discuss again the line situation or if there was some other problem she was having with Katie. Either way though I was thoroughly impressed with her initiative in reaching out. So today I went over to the school (I must confess I was pretty nervous...remember this meeting would be happening completely in Chinese!) Turns out she was just wanting to clarify what our goals were academically for Katie so that she could make sure that Katie didn't feel too much pressure.  I. Love. This. Teacher. I feel that this school and especially the teacher are such answers to many months of praying (and searching and being frustrated at not finding, etc). Two other things I love so far about Chinese school:

1-The communication. Every night we get an email that goes out to all the parents that tell us the homework and any other thing that the teacher needs to tell the parents. Does this happen in America too? Having never done the school thing over there I just don't know (of course I went to school in America but let's by honest, technology then wasn't quite what it is today, to say the least!) I must say though, that part of the reason why there is such constant communication is that the school schedule (including drop off and pick up times) is not known until the night before...that's just how they roll over here. It drove me crazy when I was a teacher here 8 eight years ago--wouldn't you love it if your boss came to you in the morning and said, "By the way, you might have 3 classes this afternoon" (when usually you have none). Might have class? Yes or no, buddy? Gotta love crossing cultures. Can you imagine if the pick up/drop off time changed every day in the States? Parents would riot, would they not? And don't even try to ask when the school is out for holidays...they won't know until 3 days before it happens. Not super-big on long-term planning. Just a few cultural tidbits.

2- School uniforms. Three days of the week we don't have to think about what she has to wear to school. Love it.

So that's the scoop on Katie. She loves English class (duh) and says that her favorite classes today were math and pinyin (the Chinese phonetic system). I can't wait to hear how "martial arts class" goes tomorrow....

As for Caro, the first week of Sept was a little harder than before. She started going full half-days (as opposed to just 2 hours each morning). It's still only a little more than 3 hours, but for some reason she keeps getting psyched out when they serve the food (most Chinese kids eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at kindergarten...yes even 2 and 3 year olds). She's usually pretty good about trying Chinese food and even likes most Chinese food more than Katie, so I'm not really sure why lunch time is spooking her (she cried the first two days of this week when it was time to eat lunch). We've told her that she will still get to eat at home and that we just want her to try and eat a little bit ("Try it and you might like it!") Thankfully, I can report (now almost two weeks after I first started writing this post!) Caro has completely acclimated to the new stuff at kindy, even to the point where they have finally started charging us for the food she eats.  (They never made us pay the food fee for Katie since she never really ate except on the days they served dumplings.)  I'm not entirely sure what exactly happens during the day at Caro's school--I'm mostly relying on a three year old to relay information.  But she seems happy and her teachers think she's great and her classmates and their parents are all excited to see her when we're out and about, so I guess things are going well!

Thanks for your prayers and keep 'em coming!