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| We don't have an actual school space so we use the corner of the living room, where baby can play on the floor nearby. Sometimes the girls like to pretend they have real desks though. |
We first talked to the school about
this in April. They said ask again in July. We asked in July; they
said ask again on the next to last day. That day they said come back
after school is finished. Then come back on the first day of school,
September 1. But that day all the leaders were gone at meetings so
on Monday, finally, Kevin went with Juliana and was able to talk to
the principal who said, “Okay, she can start today.”
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| Ready to head to school. We take Juliana on bike or both the girls in our little electric cart. (Look at those jackets! We officially survived summer!) |
Kindergarten in China lasts for three
years, starting at 3 years old. Each class stays together with the
same classmates and teachers for all three years. This year Juliana
will repeating the oldest grade. She has new classmates and
teachers, who seem very nice. It will be a transition, since most of
her old friends have moved on to primary school, but fortunately she
is already familiar with the school and they with her. While most
kindergarteners attend from 8am-5:30pm, we pick up Juliana at noon so
she can do home school and have down time in the afternoon.
Adalyn is starting her first year of
preschool! She is going two mornings a week to a small school held
in an apartment with only about 12-15 other kids. The teachers are
very nice and speak a little bit of English, and it's a laid-back,
play-based environment. On her first day, Adalyn headed straight for
the toys with barely a goodbye. She is pretty pleased about being
big enough to go to school like Juliana. Her school is about 25
minutes away, so we'll be spending a lot of time carting back and
forth, but fortunately it is in the same direction as Juliana's
school.
We plan for Adalyn to start
kindergarten next year, so I think this will be good preparation. I
don't feel like academics are necessary at this stage, but it will be
helpful for her to be in a Chinese environment and around other kids
her age. She hasn't been very interested in speaking Chinese lately,
so I think this will be motivating.
In the afternoons, after rest/nap time,
we will be continuing with home-school. Juliana did “early
kindergarten” last year and now will be doing K/1. You don't have
to worry too much about grade distinction in home-school, which is
convenient with two late-September babies who are right at the
cut-off. I think our home-school will look a lot like last year.
Adalyn joins us for songs, talking
about the calendar and weather, and practicing a Bible memory verse.
She usually stays around to listen to our FIAR read-aloud book, if
it's not too long. We've been doing Five in a Row for 1.5 years.
Each week or two we do a unit focusing on a different children's
book. We read the book aloud each day and do language arts, social
studies, science, and art activities related to the book. Next year
we'll probably move on to something with a little more structure, but
I have really liked this for early grades. It is very gentle and
experiential.
For instance, this week we are starting
with a book called The Salamander Room. We'll learn some about
salamanders, talk about animal habitats and go on a nature hunt, make
and decorate salt dough salamanders and create a little habitat
diorama. Juliana will dictate her own imaginative story about having
an animal live in her room and paint a picture to go along with it.
As we go along we generally examine the artwork in the book, talk
about different basic literary elements, and talk about some of the
interactions in the book.
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| The girls collected nature items to make habitats for their salt dough salamanders |
Juliana also does Math U See and All
About Reading. She likes the games but is less enthusiastic about
the practice required. I like both the curriculums pretty well and plan to continue on with these in the future. Adalyn likes playing with math blocks and
doing the reading games.
I am planning to do a little bit of a
“Letter of the Week” curriculum with Adalyn this year too. It
has some letter recognition, pre-writing skills, cutting and sorting
activities, patterns, and that of thing. We'll see how much we
actually do. Sometimes Adalyn likes to have some work to do along
with Juliana, but sometimes she just wants to play.
Some days school goes well and feels
inspirational. Other days it is pulling teeth to get absolutely
anywhere and we spend 40 minutes trying to get through a few math
pages. So, pretty normal. It is a lot harder to get Juliana to
focus when she has already been in a school setting all morning, but
kindergarten is great for her Chinese development and social needs.
Overall I enjoy home schooling but I also really enjoy sending my kids off to school sometimes. We'll see what the future will look like, but right now I'm glad that we can take part in both worlds!
One year + one week down, 18 or so years to go...
[fade off to me quietly screaming in the background]
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