First Day of School

Today was Alice's first day at school. The morning went well. She ended up not wearing the cute outfit she had selected last night as it was chilly again this morning. (Seems like most of the warm spring weather happened in March!)

Putting her student number in her backpack.

Hurry up, Mom.

We're going in the van, right?

Off she goes!

I did catch up before she got to the door - barely. The principal was there and greeted her by name. She then walked us to Alice's classroom where the teacher handed her a stack of trifolds - one from each of her classmates, introducing themselves and welcoming her to class - all translated (thanks to google translate) into simplifed Chinese for her! Her buddy will be a girl who was adopted from Russia. The teacher then led her away to her desk and Alice never looked back!

Here we are back home. She doesn't look any worse for wear after a day at school.

I arranged for her ESL tutor (my former Chinese tutor) to spend some time at school with her today. I thought it would be for just a couple of hours. She ended up being there for 4.5 hours - from 2 hours before lunch until 15 minutes before the day ended. She said that Alice did well, but her language is still so limited that there were many times Alice couldn't participate. During math, the two fifth grade classes were combined and then separated into groups by ability. Alice ended up in the lowest group - because of language - but once she understood what they were doing she flew through the computations. I need to request she be placed in a higher group, especially one using more word based computations rather than manipulatives. She understands the math. She needs the vocabulary.

The tutor said that Alice had plenty of offers from the other girls to play, be included, to socialize, and that Alice tried even when she didn't quite understand what they were offering. Through the computer translator at home, Alice said the best part of the day was outside (recess) and that nothing was hard - except English. No surprises there. The one big surprise is that she liked the school lunch! Yea! I don't have to pack lunch and she gets to try more American food. I don't think I would pay for lunch for an entire school year, but for the 5 weeks of school remaining, she can have hot lunch every day.