November 14 was visiting morning at the kids’ school. Except Sarah’s teacher was out with a back injury, and asked that we visit his classroom when he was back. He didn’t want us wasting our time observing the substitute. So I had four hours to divide between 3 kids. We all talked about it, and I decided that I would visit each child for one hour and then go home and make lunch! 🙂
First up, though, I hung out with Lexi in Kindergarten.
This is her buddy, Lars. They have been friends since pre-school and he is one of the few Swiss kids she has had playdates with. I love that at this age, gender doesn’t matter, just if you are nice. 🙂
Every morning the children sit in Kreis, or circle time. The teacher talks to them about what is going to happen for the day, they sing a few songs, maybe play a game, and if necessary, review the rules of behavior. Alexandra still doesn’t talk in Kindergarten, but she has lots of kids who will still play with her and take care of her. But she does love to sing in Kreis.
Frau Meier is holding Findus the cat. Poor Findus is sometimes scared to be in Kindergarten and needs the kids to help him feel welcome and explain how things work. And if you are the birthday kid, you get to take Findus home with you for the night.
After an hour with Alexandra, it was time for me to visit Sophie. She had Handarbeit, or handicrafts, and was learning how to sew on a real machine. And not just any machine. Oh no, this is a Swiss school, so the kids get to learn on Swiss sewing machines, namely Bernina’s.
To get a feel for the machine, they practice sewing on paper, with no thread in the needles first. She is tracing straight lines, and they also practiced circles and wavy lines.
Then they drew stars on paper and sewed around the lines to cut out the stars. A couple lessons later they put thread in the machines and sewed the stars together to make a pretty Christmas decoration that she brought home.
During long recess, the kids were each given a slice of Zopf, and the parents were invited to cut themselves a slice as well,along with coffee and tea in the auditorium. I like to spend visiting day with my kids, rather than chatting with parents, so I cut a slice of bread, and went outside to share it with them. Then they sent me back to get another slice. Which I did. I saw a couple other parents doing the same thing so I didn’t feel like too much of a criminal. 🙂
After break, I went to visit Noah in his classroom. They were having an English lesson, which meant that Noah got to help the teacher a lot.
At one point she asked him what the green thing on her desk was called and he shrugged his shoulders, so she asked me. I said “a plant” with an American “a” sound. And she repeated it with her English “a” so it sounded like “plahnt”. I couldn’t help myself and I said it again, only this time I really emphasized it “plaaant”. She busted up laughing, as did most of the parents. 🙂
The kids paired up and were supposed to go around the room taking turns pointing to objects and having the other child say the name of it out loud. The little girl with Noah pointed to where he sits and he said “desk” to which she responded, “No, it’s a table.” The troubles of having a bigger vocabulary then your classmates. But I think he enjoys having a subject that is so easy.
I always have fun on visiting day, seeing the kids in their school environment. It makes it so much easier to visualize and understand what is going on when they tell me stories about what happened at school. It also makes me appreciate their teachers even more.