School!

Ya Hoo!! Rejoice with us! We have found a school for Katie!

I really had wondered if we ever would get an appointment at a school that had an opening, much less find a school that was what we were looking for. (since what I was looking for is rather specific... ) I was afraid I would have to either keep her home with me or cave in and put her in full time.... or be fussed at whenever we needed to keep her home or travel... But God knew :-)

We went yesterday to visit the Scandinavian School in La Moraleja (the area we live in). This is not ever a school I would have known about, much less investigated (given that we are not Scandinavian :-) ), but we have a new friend who lives on the street behind us who did extensive research into English speaking schools & has her son at this school. We loved it - they were totally on the same wavelength as I was - even complimenting me on wanting to keep her home with me more - completely not what I had been told elsewhere! Basically they will let us put Katie in as much or as little as we want! They are very laid back and truly will work with me for whatever we need. They do speak and teach in Swedish :-), but they all also speak very good English and Katie will be in the International section of their preschool. Her teacher is American (from Kentucky), but there is also a co-teacher in the classroom who speaks only Spanish to the kids (though she understands English as well). They have 2 separate classrooms, one all in English and the other all in Spanish. They have circle time in English for 40 minutes a day in the English room (and seem to spend most of their other time there), and 20 minutes for circle time in Spanish. There are at least 5-6 strong English speakers among the other kids - and all of them understand English. At the other "bilingual" schools I visited, maybe 1, maybe none of the other kids spoke English at all, even if the teachers did. I think the main difference is the emphasis - the school comes from more of an English slant b/c they don't speak Spanish as a 1st language either :-).

One of the things that made me feel most comfortable - at the other 2 schools we visited, Katie was very clingy, hiding behind me and not wanting to engage at all. (NOT at all her usual confident self!) But at this school, she ran off to explore w/o me, and wanted to stay and go to school there immediately :-). She has been talking about how she is sad that she has missed the fun things she heard them talking about that were going to do today. So I think she will fit in just fine!

They have some great activities - they have weekly time in the kitchen cooking :-) (we'll see what that entails!), Swedish/English music time called Musiclandia, art time, gardening time - should be fun! They are very dedicated to outside time - they go outside 2 times a day, rain or shine! They encourage the kids to dig in the mud, splash in the puddles, etc. So that should be good for our little princess. And they worry about sunscreen - made me laugh since you know that's due to them being fair Scandinavians!! They have 2 little turtles in the classroom which even get to come home with different families each week. :-) We'll see...

So tentatively, we are planning to put Katie in the school for Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and we will just see how that goes. Their day is a little shorter (tho still not short!) - they go from 9-3 or 3:30. So I figure if all day those 3 days doesn't work, we might try a short day on Wednesdays. The great thing is, I know they will let us decide and we won't be criticized for whatever we decide! Also, they will transition her in slow over the next few weeks (partly due to our schedule :-) ), so she'll go until 12 on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, then a little more the following week.

I am still going to keep my appointment on April 15 at another local school that is a more academic preschool - so we haven't decided 100% what we'll do for next year. But I figured that it's better to get her in this laid back program as we are still transitioning into living here. I'd prefer not to switch her, but at least we have something that is a wonderful option for now. Thank you, Lord!

Thank you all for praying for us as we waited and searched!
Becca for us 3