School update

It's been almost exactly 2 months since the last time I wrote here.  Our summer has come and gone as well as 3 weeks of school have passed.  The life has been busy but I knew that since all the kids are in new schools and our schedules are completely different from last year.  We are still trying to figure stuff out but anyway ...

Our house looked like that most of the summer 

Night before school

Anton has started 1st grade.  He goes to school for kids with hearing issues and from what I understood the kids in his class are all over the spectrum regarding their issues.  Anton does not have a problem with hearing but his brain does not process what he hears at normal rate and Anton's teacher knows how to work with him which has been good so far.  The school is a little bit further away but he gets picked up and dropped off right in front of our house and it's going good.  He leaves the house at 7:15 and comes home at 15:40 3 times a week and earlier on 2 other days.  Because we are in Germany, the fact that he comes home so late does not mean that he has classes all that time, it means that he has extended care on those day.  Generally speaking his classes are done by noon since he has 4 or 5 classes daily.  Anton has told me recently that his classes are too long and he gets very little time to play.  Oh my child - just be grateful that you are not in American school where you have actual school from 8 to 3 every day :) One lesson a week is German sign language and I (and many other I spoke to) was surprised to learn that sign language is different in every language so even American and British sign languages are different from each other so German sign language is not the same as American.  Anton also sees a lot of sign language as it's being used in school.  Also he is learning letters using words and signs and seemingly it's a little easier for him to process information that way.  He has started coming home with homework this week and so far we are slowly working through writing the letters and trying to connect the numbers.  

Writing L

Ilya is in 4th grade and this year we transitioned him into a regular German public school because his Russian school is moving to a new location in the middle of Frankfurt and our commute would be just too long and too painful, not to mention the fact that when Chris is not in Frankfurt I would not be able to get Anton ready and on the bus before having to leave with Ilya.  Anyway, he is now in school where Andrei went last time and he seems to be mostly happy.  He leaves home around 7:20 and comes home either around 12:30 or 13:20.  Ilya has more homework this year and we are finding out that his struggles with German might be a little more serious than we anticipated.  He has 2 extra German classes plus one additional one-on-one lesson all provided at school so we are happy with the transition since it's better to sort it all now and have him get help. 

Andrei started 5th grade in a new school as well.  His is the hardest to figure out because the kids are obviously older so there is not as much communication with parents and Andrei is not exactly the talkative kid.  He leaves home at 7:05 to catch a train and at this point I am not sure what time he is coming home, but he usually takes a bus back.  Overall his classes are done between 13:10 and 15:15 with an optional homework help until 16:00.  He does have an old-school phone - meaning no games, no internet, just a phone for calling us or vice versa.  He have 3 new classes which we are still trying figure out - ethics, NaWi (beginning science) and GL (social studies).   His homework is just starting up because they give kids about 2 week to learn the new routines before homework begins. 

Ilya was helping Anton with homework and Andrei jumped into the pictures