Mommy goes to nursery school
August 19, 2009 – 7:57 pm by jennieYesterday morning was our first parents’ meeting at Beto’s new school, the Instituto Federico Froebel. The academic director gave a bit of a speech, and then all the parents were sent off with their kids’ teachers. Beto’s teachers actually ran a mini-version of what a typical morning at the school will be like for Beto’s grade (Maternal), and all of us parents got to be students again.
Normally the kids sit down and have a home-packed breakfast not long after they arrive at the school. They didn’t let us parents eat, though!
The English speaking teacher went first and showed us what a circle was, and then held up a bunch of different objects and had us name them (tortillas, plates, wheels on a toy truck, etc) and say whether or not they were circles. Then we got to run to the playground equipment and find all the plastic circles from a bunch of circles, squares and triangles that had been hidden around the grounds. Then we got to come back to the work tables and make caterpillars by gluing circles onto pieces of paper with pre-drawn caterpillars.
Next it was the turn of the Spanish speaking teacher. She changed the theme from circles to parts of the body and did a bunch of different activities, singing, dancing, scavenger hunt, etc all relating to the body parts.
Beto’s new teachers are both very nice, very energetic, and very well prepared. I think he’s going to be quite happy with the wide variety of activities and the smooth pace at which everything moves along…Beto’s not a boy that likes to sit around waiting for things to happen! We visited quite a few schools before we selected this one, so were feeling pretty good about our choice, but now after the parent day I feel even more sure that this is going to work out very well for the young man. Especially as it turns out that there will be just three other kids (all boys!) in his class.
He starts next Monday, and will be at the front gates in his uniform with freshly scrubbed cheeks at 8:30 in the morning. His school day supposedly lasts until 12, but what they do at first is just send each kid home when they reckon they’ve had enough for that particular day. They say that normally after the first week they’ve all adjusted and are happy to be there for the full morning. One mother, who’s daughter is in Kinder 1, which is the year above Beto, says that her daughter started crying on the days she *didn’t* get to go to school. Hopefully Beto will love school that much too!
