Settling In To School

Vinny had a slow start to making friends and getting comfortable with school.  There were a couple of children who included him right away but on the whole he felt very homesick and missed his friends at home and in Montessori.  He has the idea that when he gets back into the United States that he will be able to go back to Montessori and have school with his old friends.  It has been difficult explaining to him that even if we returned his friends have moved on to other schools as well.

We have done all we can to help Vinny make the best of it.  Every day after school when I pick him up I sit around and allow him to play in the playground with other kids for an hour to an hour and a half.  At least it helps him maintain his presence and facilitate the friend-making process.

He has taken to the curriculum well as their model for Pre-Primary is similar to the Montessori model.  Recently he heads quickly into the school room after the bell -which is an air raid klaxon- to see what "jobs" or "duties" he has for the day.  Some days he helps clean, others he gets to write the day of the week (not his favorite) and on others he can be "line leader."

As we expected he is more advanced than most in reading.  The books he brings home to read aren't much challenge so we try to make up for that at home.  It appears that they do not emphasize mathematics much in their Pre-Primary curriculum, so we keep up on that too.

Vinny had been very excited about a near end-of-year disco dance that had been advertised.  I never went to these as a kid because at first i thought they were ridiculous but looking back I know that never attending these helped dent some of my popularity.  With that in mind, when I spoke about the dance to Vinny I'd do so with great enthusiasm, but it didn't take much.

As you know Vinny loves to dance.  He did very well in the spring in his dance recital and has begun more tap and jazz lessons here.  As soon as the word dance would cross one's lips, he was ready to disco.

He looked forward to the dance for over a week. When the evening finally came, he told me he wanted to "look handsome" and asked me to help him find some appropriate "handsome" clothes.

He went, it was dark, it was noisy, it was full of hyperactive children singing with Australian accents, and he had a blast.

He also got some kisses from a friend of his who is a recent immigrant from Spain.  She doesn't speak a word of English, but who needs words when one can speak the language of love?




If you watch these videos, I recommend turning your volume down.