Kartini Day Part 2

We got our professional photos back from the Kartini Day event, so here they are! 

This sweet picture was a candid shot taken by one of the teachers and handed to me as a printed copy on copy paper ....so that's why it's a bit faded and grainy.  It is a precious photo to us of Jonathan with his teacher.  While I am often stern with him and get stressed about how to help him overcome his flaws, she continually sees his strengths and patiently works with him and praises his talents. 

New Preschool Joy!

A proud Jonathan stands tall to show off his school supply cubby --3rd orange basket from the top.  I think this will be one of my favorite pictures of all time.

Joshua's interest is caught for an instant by the teacher's lesson about parts of the face. 

      After a very prolonged absence from blogging, without further delay, I share these pictures and stories about Jonathan and Joshua's new preschool. 

      While we did have a few positive experiences at our old neighborhood preschool, in the end we decided to leave that school and go to a new one.  Thank God!  We are having such a much more positive experience at the new school -- like a difference between night and day.  In contrast to the other school, our new school is spacious, organized, populated by mostly-obedient and motivated children, staffed by enthusiastic and caring teachers and aids.   

       Our new school is further away, not in our immediate neighborhood.  To get there, we walk about 4 blocks down to the main road, hop on a mini-bus for about 2 minutes, and then walk another 3 blocks to the school.  However, even though it's farther away, I've reconnected with a previous neighbor whose daughter is in the class above Jonathan.  I'm connecting with other mothers in a way I never did at the other school, because there are sometimes up to 20 moms waiting around in the play yard and bench area during school hours!  I rejoice in this!  

Waiting for our city minibus ride on the way to school.

On our walk to school, we now have time to notice the beauty of the natural world, including our local volcano.

      The boys are in different classrooms now.  Jonathan is in the "little kindergarten" and Joshua is in the playgroup.  Jonathan loves his classroom and can't wait to get inside, sit at his desk, and start learning.  He especially loves doing worksheets and crafts.  The teacher is extremely organized, plans her lessons, and keeps her classroom extremely clean.

Jonathan does well in his classroom and eagerly looks forward to writing in his workbooks and doing crafts.

Snacktime

       Unlike the other school, this school has a play yard and a lots of local style playground equipment.  I try to get to school early.  School starts at 7:30 am and they start with a 15 minute recess.  So by the time class starts, the boys have had a walk to school and a full half hour of outdoor play.  After that, they are ready to go inside and learn.

      Jonathan is in a high learning curve trying to figure out how to relate to the other boys.  At first he would approach them and they would run away from them.  He'd chase them.  Often they'd get into a tussle of smacks and punches.  The next phase -- Jonathan spent a week digging in the dirt.  The boys would sometimes come and watch him and then wander off.   This week -- Jonathan joined the boys in their game of pile-up-on-the-slide.  For whatever reason, one of the bigger boys insisted on hitting Jonathan with a stick for about five minutes before I finally took the stick away.  Wonder of wonders, Jonathan, who does have a temper, DID NOT HIT BACK!  This was a major breakthrough!  At home he told me, "Mom I was trying my hardest to duck!"  Then yesterday, the boys had a big long game of chase-Jonathan-and-try-to-take-his-hat.  Jonathan seemed like he was enjoying it, although when we got home he told me the boys were being mean.  Indeed at the end of the game I saw they collectively picked him up in the air and then he was dropped on the ground (and cried.)   It's always a wisdom-seeking experience for me to watch these dynamics and decide when to intervene or not as Jonathan learns how to relate cross-culturally.  I know I can't always jump in and rescue him and many times I prefer the teacher to be the one to notice and intervene.

      Joshua, on the other hand, has a different style on the playground.  He putters.  He'll play on a swing by himself, then examine the water meter, or play on one side of the teeter totter.  The moms and teachers will often engage him and he's receptive and sweet.  Sometimes he'll play on the playground equipment, but mostly he just quietly makes his rounds.

      There are 6 American kids who attend this school and about 50 local kids.  It's a really nice mix because the boys do have some friends with whom they have a lot in common and don't have to try so hard, but they also are still in a language immersion environment to maximize their language learning.

Rhythm band lesson using buckets, bottles and home-made shakers.

A little after school tutoring on how to hold a crayon properly.

"Mom, take a picture of my picture!"

Making our way home on the minibus, the boys tank up on water before we hike 3 blocks up the hill to our house.

      So we got a new pile of school uniforms.  They are not as cute as the uniforms at the other school, but Jonathan just loves the patches on his uniform shirts.   The patches have the school name and logo on them.   Dave says Jonathan will be sad when he finally has to go to American-style Mountainview and will not get to wear his uniforms any more.

Exercise uniforms for Friday PE day -- yep my boys are dressed in pink and purple.

One last shot to show you Jonathan's blue uniform which he wears on Tuesdays.  He's so proud of his badge, his tie, and his vest.  Can you see he's turning into a big boy?

Going to Sekolah! Preschool adventures....

The Monday uniform

After thinking and praying about it for so long, we have finally started our preschool adventures. Although I am happy to be with the boys at home and do our  home lessons, Dave and I have felt that we really want our boys to learn the language of our host country.  It's our fourth year here.  I had thought that we could just play with neighborhood kids and learn language that way.  It hasn't worked out -- partly because of our personalities, the nature of our ministry here, our neighborhood's personality.  So after a long time praying and asking the advice of others, we decided to enroll in the little neighborhood preschool up the street.  It's a very simple little school -- just 10 kids in the playgroup class that Jonathan and Joshua are both in.  We chose it because it's a.) close to home, b.)  instruction is all in the national language and the ethnic language (versus English) c.) both boys can attend the same class and d.) Jenn can stay with the boys as long as needed.

Our morning walk to school ....up to the T in the road, right for half a block, left for half a block, and we're there!

It's been a bit of a trial for me, to have us all ready and out of the house at 7:45 am on Monday, Wednesday and Friday!  Jonathan is also taking swimming lessons on Saturdays, so that means we are up and out 4 days a week!  I guess it's my initiation to the future.  The boys' adjustment to school hasn't been seamless either.  A good friend told me to measure the progress month-by-month and not week-by-week, and especially not day-by-day.  It's not only an adjustment to school culture, but a deeper cultural adjustment than our boys have ever encountered.  Please pray especially for Jonathan to be able to keep his hands and feet to himself.  This was our fourth week at school and I did feel like it was going better than before, although we still had our sinking spells.  The boys understand the routines better now, so I'm hoping I can retire to the waiting area most of the time so that Jonathan and Joshua can bond with and accept instruction from their teachers instead of thinking they can hang on me all the time.

After snack time, there is some down time when Jonathan often asks a teacher to look at a book together.

Our little school is a "national" school, but all of the teachers but one are Christians.  We haven't had any religion classes yet, but they separate the kids into their own groups for that.  However, there was a Christmas party which was attended by all.  The head teacher of the school gave a very age-appropriate sermon that was quite evangelistic about how Jesus takes our sin away.  We learned a song which when translated says "Jesus takes my naughtiness and throws it into the sea.  Jesus takes my whining and throws it into the sea."  A very fitting song to sing around our house since we have plenty of both!

The school is located in a private home, and Jonathan and Joshua's classroom is in the garage area. The older kindergarten group does most of their work inside the house in the living room and a bedroom that has been converted to a classroom.

Today was play-dough day, using a local version of the product.  Each kid got a dollop about the size of a teaspoon.  

I think the uniforms are adorable!  Okay, well, the hats are a bit over the top, but I love the blue batik.  There are 3 separate uniforms for Monday, Wednesday and Friday!  Eventually I'll have pictures of all of them on the blog, so check back.  Dave thinks it's very interesting because in America we are so resistant to uniforms.  Even at Mountainview, their are no uniforms and there was not even a student dress code for a very long time.  Attire became so sloppy that finally a very casual dress code was initiated last year.  I often wonder what the locals think of Mountainview students since they all wear very formal uniforms to school and our students were showing up in tee shirts....now polo or collared shirts.

Learning to roll the play-dough into a ball.

The playgroup class is very lopsided on the boy/girl ratio!  I don't know why!  There are 7 boys and only 3 girls in the class .....so I'm very thankful for Mr. Dody, who is the primary playgroup teacher.  He understands the boys' needs to wriggle and run around, although most of the culture expects kids to "duduk manis" (sit sweet).  However, that said, with so many boys, the classroom often dissolves into total chaos.  That's when I stick very close to the boys and use all my energy to keep them in the lesson group and not in the mob wrestling on the floor, playing chase around the house, or crash-banging into the gate.

One thing we're learning that's fun is different animal sounds in the local perspective.  In another month, I think we'll be able to sing Old MacDonald in three languages!
Cow:  English -- Moo   Local -- a-muh
Pig:    English -- Oink    Local -- Oo-wey
Rooster:  English:  Cock-a-doodle-doo  Local: Cucku--yu-yu

Until the next installment!

Preschool at our house!

First of all I want to say thank you to Becky for somehow finding ABC Jesus Loves Me and then telling me about it.  Second, thank you to the makers of ABC Jesus Loves Me who have developed the perfect program for our home and made it free for use in private homes.  (For those who are interested in more detail, we are using the "4 year curriculum" at present, just doing the parts that fit into our lives or out of our library and supply box.)

The curriculum is very extensive, but I've decided to just pick and choose what is best for us right now.   I don't want Jonathan to be one of those kids who knows how to read, write, do math, but not how to behave or be kind.  I'm not going to focus on teaching the "intellect", but focus on training the will/spirit and do the fun activities that support normal development.  It would be scary to me if Jonathan were able to read all of the material that is out there in the world if he didn't yet have the spiritual foundation to help him process it all and discern what is right in the eyes of the Lord.  So the 4 year curriculum focuses on a single character quality each week, such as Faith, Obedience, Attentive, and has a corresponding Bible Study and activities to go with it.

Here the boys are working at their new desks.  I mostly focus on teaching Jonathan, although Joshua likes to join many of the activities too.  In this picture, our focus of the week was "Giving."  They are coloring a picture of the widow who gave her last two coins to the temple.  

One of the corresponding activities was to make rubbings of coins and start learning about money.  We used local coins.  One of these days I'll have to teach them about American currency!  We also made "offering banks."  They get a coin for helping me do the dishes in the morning, and then we empty the banks on Sunday mornings and take them to church.  The boys love putting their OWN money in the offering.

I've made a rotating gallery on the wall here, at the boys' eye level, for all of their artwork.

We do a handful of worksheets every week, which gives the boys some practice at deskwork.  Most of the activities are more active though.  We've done a nature hike around the neighborhood where we collect samples and make a big poster.  Every week there is a suggested game for developing fine motor skills (like moving small objects with tweezers or painting with q-tips) and large motor skills (kicking balls, jumping and hitting balls.)  Below is one of our favorite large motor skill games called "put out the fire."  I made a chalk ladder and fire on the sidewalk.  The boys had sponges (washcloths for us) and got them wet at a bucket at the bottom of the ladder.  They had to walk "up" the ladder and then squeeze out their water on the fire until the chalk was all gone.

Jonathan puts out the chalk fire at the top of the ladder.

This was a fun game for Joshua to participate in too.  Here he is dripping water from his washcloth onto the "fire"

Here the boys are playing with kidney beans.  This activity didn't work so well for the intended purpose, but they still had fun.  The theme of the week was "Patience" and the story of the week was about Abraham being patient to have a baby, Isaac.  In this activity, we counted out beans to show the ages of people in our family (Joshua, 1; Jonathan, 3; Mommy 38) and compare them to Abraham's age (100).  I just don't think their brains were ready to understand the comparison concept ...but they had fun playing with the beans!

This activity was so fun!  We were learning about "Obedience" and the story of the week was Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace.  We made these "Fire Crayons" by melting old fire-color crayons in a muffin tin.  

We needed some new play dough for several activities so the boys really enjoy helping to make it!

When we Skype with Grandma and Grandpa in America, we can show them the projects we've been working on!