First Grade!
This is a crazy adventure for sure. There is all the normal emotion of putting your first kid in school compounded by the fact that we're doing it here in Costa Rica. We prayed long and hard about where he should go and God opened up the door for him to attend International Christian School. So while the financial end of this adventure is overwhelming some days (we pretty much pay for everything, uniforms, books, supplies, plus tuition) we are trusting that God opened this door, he provided the money for a second car to make the transportation work, He will take care of all the extra money things too.
So this morning Elliot, Quinn and I dropped Forrest off at his new school to spend the day with Mrs. Aguilar, a lady who has been teaching for 25 years.
He seemed really excited about the day. He said "Mom, let's do a smile picture and then a serious and then a silly." Well ok!
The obligatory smile photo...and yes, totally fake! Now for the serious one...
And now the silly.
We got to school early, which was good because it was a mad house! All the kids have to bring in about 50 pounds worth of books and supplies, so all of their parents are in the hallways and well, it's just sorta chaos. But we brought his stuff in yesterday during the parent meeting (man, that was crazy...all in Spanish. Thank you God his teacher speaks English too, after all she teaches most of the day in English) so we just had his backpack.
Once we got into the classroom, he got quiet and started studying everything. His teacher let him pick his desk and he just began to watch everyone else. He asked me to stay for a few minutes, but then he said, "I want to give you all a hug and you can go."
His core classes, like math, language arts, Bible and Science are in English. Things like computers, PE and Art will be in Spanish. His teacher asked us last night if Forrest speaks Spanish and when we said "well, sotra?" she said, "Oh, he's learning Spanish! How great! He will be in a special Spanish class just for kids learning Spanish." That does a mama's heart good. Yep, he is my little SSL kid (Spanish as a Second Language). They will test him to see where he's at and it may be that he's in the SSL class all year or just for part of the year. Either way, I am thrilled with the special help!
And now Quinn, Elliot and I are figuring out our new normal at home. Elliot has never known a second without Forrest, so this is an adjustment for him. He told me yesterday "when Forrest goes to school I want to skype with him because I will miss him." Oh buddy!!
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Wow. Those are some adorable boys! And I get excited thinking about what a huge bonus it is for Forrest to know Spanish (even as a second language) this early!
ReplyDeleteI'll be praying for all of you figuring out the new normal. =)
Thanks for the prayers Grace!! And yes, no matter what they do in life, the fact that they are learning Spanish from such a young age (Quinn from the womb) can only benifit them and those around them! When do you start classes again?
DeleteSo sweet! Glad he had a good day! I can only imagine the extra nerves I would have in your situation!
ReplyDeletehow'd his first day go? it looked like it started well!
ReplyDeleteperhaps a better question is how did that first day at home go?
we celebrated our oldest's open house after graduating from high school and was looking back at our set of pics just like this - only we were dropping our boy off at a school in quebec, canada, where everyone spoke french (and his teacher had very little english).
you know, he came out of school with a smile and said they got to go to the playground THREE times mom!! But as the night went on you could tell there were some harder parts of the day, he said no one played with him (first day, the new kid, little spanish, it's understandable) and that his teacher had to tell the kids to be quiet a lot...but I think over all it was good..and this is all part of school and growing up. And we did ok around here, we all were sorta off...you know getting used to the new normal :)
DeleteOh man, he's a trooper. We're going to go into a new schooling situation this year keeping James home for 2nd grade, but Hannah and Jack will go to preschool. Jack has always had a hard time with James leaving...we'll see how James does with JACK being the one to go. Praying for you guys.
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