In which Cherry adjusts to school

All 3 kids have begun school, and they are all attending French public schools, though not the same one. Sapphire and Ezio are attending school together on the other side of town because that's where the Classe d'Initiation meets. (Essentially, that's the French version of English as a Second Language. They refer to it as CLIN.) They have adjusted very well. Sapphire has made oodles of friends, and while Ezio has not, he is playing soccer with the other boys from his class most recesses. Things are a bit more complicated for him because all of the other boys in his class are 5th graders, so quite a lot older, and all of them are from either Portugal or Brazil, which means that they can talk together in a language that he doesn't understand.

Cherry is going to the Groupe Scolaire (that's what they call the collection of an elementary school, or ecole primaire, and a preschool, or maternelle) across the street from us. And since she is only 3, there is no CLIN, she's just in a regular preschool classroom with other kids (and adults) speaking French. She is having a more difficult time adjusting, which I suppose isn't surprising given that this is her first exposure to a school or daycare setting. While I taught last spring, she stayed either with Blaise, or with a babysitter, but there weren't lots of other kids around. She isn't entirely sure that she likes other small children, and the class is quite big, with 21 kids, and 2 adults.

Her first full day of school (which is really only a half day. She doesn't go back to school after lunch.), she cried more or less the entire time, and so her teacher asked me to stay for a little while the next day. She was OK as long as I was there, but once I left she cried the rest of the time. The 3rd day, she cried a bit less. Then, fortunately, there was a weekend and an opportunity to recover a little bit. Monday she cried a lot, but was distractable, at least some of the time. Tuesday she was actually smiling when I picked her up. Yesterday was a Wednesday, so no school, and we spent an hour with a couple of the kids from her class and their mother. I'm hoping that if she becomes more comfortable with some of the kids, then school will be a bit less scary for her.

She cried when I dropped her off this morning. We'll see how she is when I pick her up.