School

I love my kids' school. I love the fact that it is so international. There are kids from all over the world there. I also love that most of the teachers go to our church so we are friends with them as well. I like that I know exactly who my kids will have for a teacher the next year because there is only one teacher per grade! I also love that the kids are always doing something different. There's the science fair...which I wasn't into at all, but it was something different...and kids in 3rd-8th grade were required to participate. Jacob's class recently studied the rainforest. They painted long strips of butcher paper with the four different layers of the rainforest and hung it on one wall in their classroom. They all chose different animals that lived in the rainforest and wrote plays about them. Anna Grace's class did a study on a country that they had either visited or lived in. They did all kinds of things with it. They also did quite a few plays this year. Will's class studied famous Americans and then had a wax museum like showing. Several of the classes came and visited the characters who told about who they were when the "tour guide" pressed a button on their display. Will's teacher took all the boys in her class bowling one Saturday, and all the girls had a sleepover at her house one night...something you could never do in America! Anna Grace's teacher had all the girls over for a tea party, and I'm sure did something just as exciting with the boys. When we were in the states Will got a note about applying for the gifted and talented program at school. We never did fill out the forms, because we weren't going to be there long enough for the program to even begin. He was sad and said that kids that were in this program got to do fun stuff in their classes. I told him that all the kids at our school in Turkey got to do the same kinds of stuff they do in the G&T program! Jacob had 14 people in his class and Will had 15. I'm not sure how many kids were in Anna Grace's class. I remember when Erica was in 1st-3rd grade in the states. She always had good teachers and really enjoyed school. There were just too many people to do much more than teach for the standardized tests that were so important. I'm glad that our kids have the opportunity to go to a school where they don't even give standardized tests! When we were in the states Will was pulled out of class 2 or 3 days to take the test that he should have had the previous spring. He did fine. I had no doubt that he would be okay! We go to a great school!