We love school (I)

The lack of a camera really put me off blogging. Thanks to Jes, we now have a replacement.

The big thing at the moment is school. I tell you what, it's terrific. We are so lucky to have found a place that we like, that the kids like, in a good location, at a price we can pay - and we found it long distance! Jordan in particular seems to have taken to his classroom like a duck to water; his teachers say so, and we hear a lot of interesting stuff from him about what he's doing. He and I were taking a walk the other day and he said "Mommy, they speak English at my new school. Today I learned: Akhat, Shtaim, Shalosh. That means one, two, three." How about that! One two three in Hebrew! (Jordan often says "english" when he means a foreign language.) I was impressed. There are different assumptions about English literacy in his class, too... Jordan was not writing letters or spelling at his old school, and in his new class all the kids write their own name. The teachers here don't pressure him, but are providing him with a new wealth of writing opportunities, and he's joining in. Spelling, too: today he looked at his labeled milk cup and said, "That's my name, Jordan! J, O, R, O, A, Z. Jordan!" I actually love that he got the D and the N wrong: that shows he was really deciphering the letters, not just reciting the spelling. Here is his classroom in the late afternoon light:



And here is Jordan with some new friends, doing a word puzzle.



I also found a chart in the classroom of an "Apple Taste Test." This must have been done before Jordan started.



Jordan does a lot of Lego building in his free time, as at home (below left, where I snuck up on him). But he also participates enthusiastically in the art projects - we hear a lot about those - in fact we hear more about this school in one day than we heard about the last place in a month. Below right he's showing off the day's project, in which all the kids made creations to represent Light. Jordan's is made of gold rope, glitter, beach sand, and marker. The artworks are always annotated with a sentence from the child explaining their picture; the idea is that it helps the children to reflect on their work. Unfortunately I don't remember Jordan's caption for this one.



The teachers do a staggering amount of documentation and display of the kids' projects, typically including not only what the kids made, but also photos of the kids as they do the project, and a paragraph from the teachers about the activity and what particular children did with it. This is part of the Reggio Emilia philosophy, in which the teachers use detailed observations of the children to inform their emergent curriculum. They say that rather than being a burden, it keeps them engaged. And of course the kids find it thrilling. Here's a display of their activity "My favorite things about fall." Jordan said his favorite thing was the falling pine cones.