Knorr Family Adventures

German educational system is not for the faint of heart.  Andrei is in 4th grade and we have truly loved his teacher and his school but next year he has to go a different school and we are currently in the process of trying to figure out what that school is.  There are several tiers: Hauptschule (main stream minimal education and no future) Realschule (medium level from which you can either transfer to gymnasium oberstufe or get Ausbilding) and Gymnasium oberstufe is the last 2 years of Gymnasium and it can be hard to adjust to the level of work required after Realschule Ausbilding is the education that is required for most hands-on jobs (hairdresser, carpenter,etc.)  Gymnasium (highest level of education).   There are also two types of Gesamtschule.   First type called IGS (Integrative Gesamtschule) seems to be the most similar to American middle/high school where all kids learn together but get separated into 2 levels for subjects such as ...

This year was the first year we actually did something on Halloween.  It just so happens that I am not a big fan of this particular holiday so I can’t say that I missed it over the last couple years.  We moved to Germany 5 days before Halloween.  Anton was just 2 and a half years old so has no memories of this fun-filled night at all, other boys remember the idea of walking around and collecting candy.  Halloween is not a German holiday - there are very few people trick-or-treating on the streets, and most of the costumes in the stores are scary as opposed to fun. This whole introduction now actually leads to a story.  We live about 30 minutes away from the American military base (and a rather large one at that), so I decided that it’s about time Anton gets to enjoy Halloween how it’s meant to be in the States.  Andrei and Ilya refused to go without giving me any reasons and even after some persuasion they still opted to stay at home.  A...

Unbelievably I have had no time to write here at all because life has been extremely exciting and busy.  Bullet point version as a quick update. Andrei and Ilya joined Cub Scouts and it has definitely added a new level of complexity to our life but they are enjoying it. Andrei went on his first camp out and a night time hike (with Chris) which went from 9PM to midnight.  No flashlight in the forest!  Part of the scouting does involve a fair amount of paperwork but I am almost caught up on that. We are busy trying to navigate secondary schools for Andrei because it's that time of the year when open houses are happening and application will have to be made soon.  Chris seems to be having a hard time understanding that now is the time when we have to pick Andrei's track which will be STEM. I'll try to write separately on that because it's actually an interesting topic which deserves its own topic. The amount of tests and homework is slowly getting a bit overwhelmi...