First week of International School

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This was the first week of school. First week of International School for Jacob, first week of any school for Nicholas. Both were excited to meet their teachers and see their friends, in spite of how Jacob looks in the picture above. He wanted to go inside, not stop for a picture.

Jacob started IY3 (first grade) on Monday. By Thursday he had a girlfriend (a little girl who he sits with on the bus), and by Friday had already gotten in trouble for talking during class. A far cry from the shy kid who hid behind the teacher’s desk last year.

Nicholas started IY1 (preschool) on Thursday. He was so ready to go and excited to ride the big bus. He’s funny.

Matt: What are you going to learn about in school?
Nicholas: Vampire bats and the attacks they do on humans.

Probably not.

It’s a lot different than the American school last year. For one, Nicholas gets to go. (In Britain they start school at age four. Thank goodness the American school closed; Nicholas couldn’t have waited another year to start.) Both boys have 30 minutes of German language lessons each day. And in IY4 (second grade) they teach swimming.

Jacob’s homework requires reading two books every night. Each book is about 30 pages. They’re part of a British series so the sentence structure is different than what we’re accustomed to, and they they use words like “car boot” and “aeroplane.” Jacob doesn’t have any problems reading them, but it takes about 40 minutes to read both. (I really feel for the parents of struggling readers.) Already Jacob hates them. I can’t say I care much for them either; the stories just aren’t very interesting.