Madeline and Jason are now calling me “Mum.” They started at a British school about a month ago and ever since then, we’ve noticed a gradual transformation of their daily speech.
“I need to go to the loo!”
“Where are my trainers?”
“That’s brilliant!”
“Let’s go straight away.”
“He’s so pathetic.”
“I have loads of them”
“Can I have some crisps?”
I’m sure if we had put them into an American school, this delightful transformation would not be happening. :-) Jonathan has accused me of sounding very british when I’m talking on the phone to other brits. All I can say is that I can’t help it and I take back every mean thing I ever said about Madonna and her fake british accent. If you’re surrounded by it, it’s bound to happen.
At school, Jason is in Year 2 (equivalent to grade 1), and Madeline in Year 5 (equivalent to grade 4). I like that their school has uniforms and that they’re able to include more arts & music as part of the curriculum. Both kids are able to take private piano lessons during school time which has been great. They’re also both learning french (required for British curriculum) and have weekly swim lessons at the local community pool with their class. At some point they will do drama, ceramics and learn to play cricket (England’s national sport). I’m hoping that Madeline will agree to join the school choir next term since she loves to sing.
We’ve been quite amazed with how well (and quickly) both kids have adapted to their new school and making friends. This was the first year that Jason did not cry at drop off on his first day of school. I think all of the changes over the summer have helped him to adapt better to new things. This is also the first year he has had any home work. We knew that he’d have some catching up to do in reading, but were caught off guard at the advanced level of math and spelling. We’re not too worried though, as the school has a good home work system and Jason has made some good progress already. I have to mention that I’m very appreciative of Jonathan’s patient teaching style because it has been a real challenge trying to teach Jason the concept of 2-digit subtraction when he was previously only doing single digit addition! We’ve also had to accelerate his spelling because he’s being tested each week on 4 and 5-letter words already.
Believe it or not, I was a bit more worried about Madeline’s adjustment at first because we had heard that her teacher had the reputation as being the toughest teacher at the school, with a “victorian” teaching style. Even so, Madeline was able to adjust quickly and was awarded “star of the week” during her first week of school. She was quite proud coming home that day, and showing me the gold star pasted into her home work diary. She seems to be doing very well academically, and it’s flattering and amazing to see that she has been able to just slide into the next logical grade here, even though she was coming from a U.S. school and a bi-lingual school to boot (where english subjects were only taught 50% of the time).
Both kids have unanimously agreed that their favorite part of school is “going to the Heath” every day (weather permitting). Last week, Madeline’s class went on a 2-mile cross country jog across the heath. It’s really great that the kids can just walk to the heath every day to enjoy nature and breathe in some fresh air without having to be bussed around like most urban schools.
Here’s one of the main trails dubbed “Lime Avenue” by the locals, also the scene of where I sprained my ankle for the second time since we’ve been in London (the first time was also on the heath).
The trail looks harmless enough, but when you’re busy talking and walking on an uneven rocky trail and not paying attention to where you are stepping, not to mention having a bad ankle with no ankle support (wearing sneakers), then you’re just asking for trouble. Down I went, on the way to watch Madeline’s first football match. The important thing is that I managed to hobble the rest of the way (with Jonathan’s help) to watch her match. I’ve learned my lesson and am now walking around with my hiking boots and plan on wearing them when ever I go near the heath.
Jason came home one day with his pockets stuffed with “conkers.” He collected them at the heath during science class and managed to fill every pocket he had.
We’ve figured out that the conkers are horse chestnuts and apparantly a favorite autumn past time of english children. Evidently, you drill a hole through a conker, tie a string through it, and then whack it against a friend’s conker to try and smash theirs to bits first. We haven’t tried it yet since we don’t have a drill bit.
In true Madeline fashion, she has already managed to become known as “the girl” who plays football (soccer) at her school. She was hand picked by the P.E. coach to play on the school team.
Yes (unfortunately), she is the only girl on the team, but that hasn’t kept her down. They had their first match last week against another school. Everyone noticed how much bigger the other team was.
Madeline was a bit anxious since she was the only girl playing in the match and the opponents were huge.
In the end, her team lost despite a valiant effort. They felt better after learning that the other school had stacked their team with 11-12 year olds, whereas Madeline’s team had primarily 8-10 year olds.
Aside from their regular schooling, we’re trying to keep their Mandarin education going. This is definitely going to be our biggest challenge while we’re here. Mandarin immersion schools just don’t exist out here, so we’ve decided to go with a private tutor for now. I was initially hoping to have them attend a weekend school, but was quite disappointed after visiting a few (not to mention the commute). We’ll see how it goes!
I’ve recently started a “life drawing” class. I must stay that I was very reluctant to do it since I’m not much of an artist and haven’t done any drawing since high school. Well, it was being taught by a British mom who is a parent at our kids’ school. She kept after me and assured me it was very informal and fine for beginners. I figured, we’re in a new country, doing new things, meeting new people, so I might as well try it. Naively, I was expecting we’d be drawing still life fruit, flowers in vases, etc. (I was really too embarassed to ask what “life drawing” was). Can you imagine my surprise when I showed up to find a nude model!! Well, after the initial shock, after which I think I let out a nervous giggle to another mom, I actually learned how to measure proportions holding a pencil to my eye and draw with charcoal. My teacher says I’ve improved quite a bit after my second class, which is encouraging. :-)
I love following everyone’s adjustments to London. It makes me sad that I’m leaving the UK in two weeks.
Aren’t you going to post one of your life drawings?