Skip to main content

More on kids ...

I wrote this about 2 weeks ago but never published it.

School is going ok but it's definitely been a little bit of a challenge to make sure that everything that needs to get done gets done.

Anton is doing ok-ish in school - it's hard for him to sit nicely, some numbers and letters are harder than others (let's just say writing number 8 almost killed Chris :)).  He has occupational and speech therapy at school.  For now we also have him in local swimming classes as well as local soccer club, both of which meet once a week.  Part of him going to those 2 activities are to get him physically active, but part is to keep him involved with kids in our neighbourhood since he goes to school elsewhere.

Ilya is slowly finding his rhythm of coming home early, having lunch and getting his homework done.  He has the most extracurricular activities but most of them were chosen by him and he loves.  He  does art class once a week, Cub Scouts once a week and soccer twice a week.  He also started Russian class once a week via Skype for him and loved it.  He really enjoys his activities but they do mean that he has to be pretty organized as he was finishing his German homework at 9:20PM one day last week.  Unfortunately, Anton's swimming is on the same night as Ilya's cub scouts so we are still trying to make it all work.

Andrei has Boy Scouts and once a week he has a cooking club at school.  Andrei is still adjusting to 1) more independence in his school work but also 2) more requirements in his school work.  For example, every 2 weeks he will have dictation in his German class so he has to learn how to study for that without teacher specifically saying "memorize line 1-4 today and lines 5-8 the following day."   He also has math test on Wednesday, geography test on Thursday, dictation test on Friday, German test on Monday, and English test on Tuesday.  Honestly, it feels a little bit like too much but I guess that's what 5th class is like.  Can't wait for higher grades ... NOT.  Andrei will also start Russian via Skype once a week.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 we...
11 comments
Read more

Random notes

Wrote this last week but never published :( My plan was to write about Anton and his school a bit. Or about how German language acquisition is (after being in Germany for 4 years).  However ... life!   Last week Andrei was home Tuesday and Wednesday because the teachers held parent-teacher conferences for those 2 days and kids had no school.  First time it's happening this way because in other schools meetings were always held either before or after classes.  After having him home for 2 days and meeting his classroom teacher, I learned pretty much nothing new - his grades are good but he needs to talk more in class.  That's what I got out of a 30 minute meeting.   Friday Anton was home because his school starts Carnival celebrations early.  Monday and Tuesday all the kids were home because again Carnival - Rose Monday and for no reason for Tuesday.  Anton's extended celebrations continued into Wednesday.  I am not a fan...
5 comments
Read more

Medicine in Germany

I knew two things about Germany before we got here - food and medicine are supposed to be really good here.  Today's topic is medicine that we've encountered so far.  It has definitely been different than what we are used to. Anton has had 3 bouts with bronchitis in 3 months and every time he had to use steroids to get rid of it.  The last time we went for a check up to make sure he was in the clear, the pediatrician said that we should use the steroid medicine until the "bad season" is over which is somewhere in March or April.  I questioned the use of a steroid as a preventative measure for 2.5 year old and she said that it wasn't a BAD steroid, so it was ok.  I came home, looked it up and didn't like what I saw - not a lot of research has been done on this particular medicine so far and it might cause some psychological, growth, and other issues.  And it's only being sold in Germany at this point.  I forwarded that info to some more medically info...
4 comments
Read more