Day 59, The kids' new school!

A Day at the New School!

Our test run to school the day b4 we shadowed!

Judging from the comments I received about my little "blog-highjacker" or "hacker" as she says,  I gather you all enjoyed reading my daughter's post on day 58.  I wasn't too happy about the complaints, but I suppose that a move abroad warrants some reservation.  I will allow some reservation, but not negativity!  I had to remind my precious little girl:) of what a wonderful opportunity this will be and that this move is a lot like the other things she works so hard at in life: school, gymnastics, etc.  I had a very candid conversation with her, explaining that if you allow negative thoughts into your head, you will almost certainly have a negative outcome; but, if you open your mind to all the great things that can happen, you will soon discover that this place that you were initially nervous about, may soon become a place that you grow to love!  She felt pretty good after our talk and approached her day of "shadowing" at school with an open mind.  Here's what she wrote in her notes today and if I must say so myself, she provides a pretty detailed account of her day! My oldest daughter also wrote about her day in middle school! My husband and I went house-hunting, while the girls shadowed at school!

"The Hacker"

You're probably wondering what we did yesterday. Well you'll soon find out...

Yesterday,  the whole family woke up at 6:38 and I mean that's pretty good 
considering we just got here. Jetlag can take days to get over.  It took some 

people a while to get dressed (Cough, cough:). By the time we got to breakfast,

it was 7:30.  Did I mention that our taxi gets here at 7:45? Then, we had to choose 

our food from the buffet. That was another five minutes! We ate our food really 

quickly.  Lucky me!  (in my sarcastic voice) I finished just in time...yay! 
Then I got a piece of candy from the front lobby and got into the taxi. It was my 
first time in a car that had three rows of seats and the back two seats faced each 

other.  It took us seven minutes  and we reached our 

destination, SCHOOL!  

My first time seeing these cereal!:)

I was nervous at first, but later on I felt really comfortable, so that was good. Anyway, back to the beginning. I got to the school and I love it there! There was a lady named Mrs. Caroline and she showed us around. Then she took us to our classes. It was so fun! The teacher was really nice and I even had a buddy to tell me about things that I didn't know about. The math was really easy to me. Yay, Kumon!  It was also cool because we had snack. At recess, I made a lot of friends since we were in class for a long time. Then, we went to French class. I was in the beginners' French class because I don't know as much French as the kids that have been here longer. I'm looking forward to learning french!

After that, I went to lunch. Lunch was much easier than the school I go to now because 

there were two sides of the cafeteria, the cold lunch and the hot lunch sides.

I got hot lunch and all I had to do was sit down on the side of the hot lunch and 

start eating and at my old school, I had to wait in a super long line and there was 

15 minutes of silence and here there are only 10 minutes. After that we had recess 

again. I played soccer with my new friends during recess. Then we did some school work 

and right before our last recess, the teachers passed out computers and we even got to 

play one game. 

Then the other kids had to do their tests so I got to play on the computer while 
the kids took their tests. Then I wrote a paper about what I learned. By then it 
was time to have our last recess.  After our last recess, we did a little more 
work then went home. My overall day was AWESOME! I made new friends, I had a great 

teacher, lunch was awesome, we had 3 recesses today, 2 snacks... and I mean that's 

everything I could possibly want.  I know I can never replace my old school, but this 

one is pretty cool.  P.S. I love my new school.

 

Hey, its me!   I will tell you all about how my first day at my new school went!  Before I start, I just want you to know that my description won't be as detailed as Ari’s description.  I won't tell you about every single minute of my day ( HaHa!!) I am just going to tell you the basics:)  You are probably thinking, what’s all this commotion about? Well, yesterday Ari and I shadowed a school in Belgium and it was a pretty big deal for us...new country, new school, new teachers, new students and for the first time in seven years, I won't have to wear a school uniform (no school uniform for middle-schoolers!  So, as you can imagine, I'm pretty excited!

When we arrived at the school, we were a bit early and had to sit for about 10 minutes. That was fine.  I'd much rather be early than running late!  Then Ms. Caroline arrived and showed us around the building.  She talked about the teachers, the rooms, the classes and the extras, meaning theatre, art, and music. She was very kind and enthusiastic!  She loves the school and we even got to meet her daughter, who is an eighth grader at the school.

When we got to the school and started classes, there were many things that were different.  One of the things was that we only had three classes that day and that meant we had double periods, which were science, art and social studies. For me, those classes were pretty easy.   Most of the kids there speak different languages, so the social studies teacher did a good job of keeping instruction simple enough for everyone to understand.  They were discussing how many days it took the earth to rotate around the sun and other things.  I was happy and relieved that the lesson for the day was a simple one.  In art, they were working on a project where they chose one drawing from their whole art book and drew it on a poster board.  It was pretty neat! They have an entire building that's dedicated to art–unbelievable!  Then, in science the class was working on a plant/seed investigation.  My "buddy's" name was Liviana (Livi), she told me ALL about the school and introduced me to lots of people. We also had two recesses and a nice lunch. 

For lunch, there were about 20 different options, way more than I was accustomed to having.  It was also very complicated, as there were many different mini-stores from which we could get food.  I was overwhelmed and didn't eat much.   

After lunch we had advisory.  In advisory class,  we did a little worksheet called, " How Smart are You?" where the worksheet asked us questions.  We answered them by filling in the bubble 1,2,3,4 or 5, rating ourselves on different questions.  At the end, we tallied the responses and it gave us a description of ourselves.  It was nice to be able to think about myself that way and identify areas where I am strong and areas where I can use improvement.  

After that, I walked over to the elementary building, and my parents picked me up there. It was a very pleasant day.  We had a great dinner and we came back to our apartment to rest.  I was exhausted!

I'm looking forward to a day of house-hunting!

I hope you enjoyed reading about my girls' adventures today.  My husband and I were quite nervous about whether they would enjoy school.  They both asked if instead of house-hunting today, if they could return to school–pretty good sign, don't you think?!  Stay tuned for details about our house-hunting trip!  Fun, Fun, Fun!