Bennett's First Day of School

Today was the first official day of Chinese school for the boys.  In the end, it will work out that Bennett goes in the mornings from 8:30 to 2:30 (3 days a week I hope) and Austin will go from 2:30 to 5:00 (four days a week, with homeschool co-op the fifth afternoon).  That is a longer day than I planned for Bennett, but it is the only way to work the carpool so I am not making 4 trips day.  He will have lunch and rest time the last couple hours and hopefully it will be a doable arrangement.  He was excited and nervous today but did well.  He smiled and waved goodbye when I dropped him off...though I think if I had stayed two more minutes there might have been tears.  There is actually only one other boy in his class!  Smaller than I expected, I don't know if this is what I would choose, but it is lots of one on one time with the teacher and hopefully this other boy will become a good friend. 

 Bennett was s-i-l-l-y when I was trying to take his picture, in his Lightening McQueen backpack.  His assessment of the day was as follows:

"We went to the playground and to a park."  "I didn't say any Chinese words"  "I didn't like the snack.  It was white in a cup and warm"  "I liked lunch though"  "I didn't sleep at nap but I winked at him".  

So there you have it.  He seemed to like it overall, but came home SO tired.  As I expected.  It is a long day to do in your second language, really very taxing in the beginning.  But hopefully it will be a positive place for him and he will learn quickly...his Chinese regressed a lot after Xiao Chen left us in February. Though, I might be glad he didn't say anything in Chinese, b/c I am afraid his most common words he knows of late are "bathroom" words... when I was reminding him what to say if he needed to go to the bathroom at school, he said (with a twinkle in his eye, but also sort of serious) "chou pigu?"...stinky bottom is the nice translation. Oh Bennett.

It was Austin's first day back as well, though this picture is not a back to school picture (I actually forgot to take one of him today... whoops). It was old hat to Austin and he seemed excited to return.  He will remain in the kindergarten class, along with Bree and another foreign friend.  The teachers all recommended that they not move up with most of their other classmates to the first grade class, since it was going to be some intensive Chinese character writing and a more intense learning environment.  That seemed more than fine to me, since I am not in this for the typical high pressure school environment that is the norm. I think it will be better to have another kindergarten year in his second language.  But back to the picture...this is Austin's baseball class/team uniform!  Ha ha to us...since the 5/6 year old class got Cubs uniforms, the Cardinals rival (how do you like that Uncle Mark?).  He has been twice now (every Saturday for 10 weeks).  He LOVES it and looks forward to it.  Can't believe that it is even an available resource here, but so thankful.

He continues to be such a KID now, wanting to check scores every morning and playing ball in a real uniform.