First days of school

As of this week Kai and Luka are going to school and it is time for the letting go. They will hopefully quickly learn the language and find their way in this new world.

Up until now we have been living in a different country, but it has all been within much of our comfort zone. We have built our own little world within a different country. Searching for the familiar and holding on to that. Well in the process sometimes discover something different which is new and interesting.

This is our school’s timetable:

They are not sitting in the same classroom all the time, but they move around the school a lot more than they are used to. Besides a gym for physical education they also have separate rooms for music, Indonesian and art. Then they also do a lot of games outside or in the gymnasium if it is raining.

Next to the ‘regular’ school subjects like English and mathematics Kai’s schedule also shows other interesting subjects: ICT, science, library, chance and probability, speaking, listening, drama and choir.

Foreign Language

For all schools it is mandatory to teach a foreign language. They are free to choose which language that is. On our school search we found a lot of schools that would teach Italian. Apparently our school taught German before, but switched to Indonesian a couple years ago. So now they will also learn a fourth language.

Homework

Homework is normal here as well, which is new for our kids. Although 20 minutes of reading each day they are used to already. Both Kai and Luka just love to read. They where very happy with the borrowed Dutch books. I can imagine that they can not wait to be able to read in English. Other than that Kai will get weekly spelling words and mathematics as homework.

First impressions

On the first day Kai had brain gymnastic with all the third graders and he had to give a power point presentation about what he did during the break. Today he was quite impressed what they other kids would present after just 15 minutes preparation.

Luka said she did not understand much, but it did sound like she had understood a bit of everything that was going on.

The mandatory school uniforms do not seem to bother our kids at all, see our previous school post about that.

On monday after picking them up at 3.30 p.m. we had to drive half an hour to Brighton for their Dutch class. They go there for two hours every week to keep up their Dutch. While in the car it was clear that Kai had not used up his words for the day yet as he just kept talking.

The second day of school was a bit of a rough start. After waking up they both said that they did not want to go to school. The arguments being that the school day is too long, they do not understand anything and the breaks are just too long! I know that there are parents out there who have to go through this every day and I feel for them. After Luka was enthusiastically greeted by another girl from her class this morning that reassured me that this is only temporary for us.