School & Music

We had parent-teacher 'meetings' on Tuesday evening. They have them several times a year here instead of just 1 at the beginning of the year as US schools do. Kaitlyn has adjusted quite well socially as well as academically. Her teacher is encouraging her to join her letters in handwriting, she is writing poetry, stories, learning French, the class has dismantled the Narnia they had built in the class and are now building 'A Secret Garden.' Her spelling is impeccable and she is even progressing in her maths (multiplication and division)!
A bit of background: The kids only have homework once a week-usually on Wednesday or Thursday-and it is not due back until the following Monday. No schoolwork has been brought home as of yet-we found out why. The kids do not work out of workbooks or worksheets at this school. They have composition books for each subject and those books are sent home at the end of the year. There is a kitchen in the school-Kaitlyn's class has been learning about the continents and have been making things from other countries. Griffen's class had to 'design' their own object to eat that used only 3 fruits. He made a smoothie. Music, art and drama are encouraged greatly at the school with art and drama being offered as after school clubs and music during school time. (more on that later).
Griffen has struggled a bit, but his teacher said he is doing quite well now and is showing strength in math and science. She also managed to squeeze him into a special program called "Early Literacy Support," next term that will help to boost his confidence as well as his reading and writing skills. It is a government funded program with room for only 6 kids. His teacher is amazing-she is young and is only teacher I've met who goes out of her way to teach to all modalities of learning, concentrating on tactile and kinesthetic. Her methods of teaching math and sentence writing were amazing. Both kids are slowing making changes in how they talk. Kaitlyn's intonation is changing and Griffen is pronouncing his vowels with an English accent.

Now for the music...today was the school concert. I listened to the orchestra, beginner & continuing flutes, violins, clarinets, recorders, brass, the choir and one pianist. The school teaches all but the piano, but announced that as of September they would teach that as well! Kaitlyn made me proud, playing flute with a group that had been playing since September. Griffen has just started a tester class for the violin and they played today as well. In fact it seemed that well over half the school is playing the violin!