In which the children begin school

Wednesday was the first day of school in France, unless of course you happen to be in one of the many districts that doesn't have school on Wednesdays (that's right folks, no school on Wednesdays), in which case the first day of school was Thursday. We live in one of the districts that doesn't have Wednesday school, so Sapphire and Ezio started school yesterday.

I wasn't sure how much time it would take me to get them situated in their classes, so I left Cherry with Blaise and we headed out around 8:30 to make sure we got their in plenty of time for school to start at 9:00. We got there around 8:45 and waited in a huge crowd of parents and kids for them to open the gates to the school grounds. Finally, around 8:50 they opened the gates and everyone streamed in. We followed along until I realized that I had no clue where everyone else was going, and we retreated back to the headmistress' office. Once she had handled the registrations of a couple of late enrollees, she walked us over to where the kids' teacher was, and we waited while everyone else was collected by their teachers. Then we all trooped up to the classroom together.

Sapphire and Ezio are in the same class, along with 4 other students. Ezio is the youngest. The oldest is a boy who should be at the middle school across the street but needs the French instruction. There is a girl from Romania and a boy from Brazil. Sapphire and Ezio haven't figured out where the other two kids are from, but both have mothers who wear headscarves. Evidently they will be in this class full time initially, and then will gradually join the regular French school classes, first for math and then for other subjects as their French improves. The teacher assured me that by the end of the year they would be ready to go to the school across the street next year. Of course, next year they'll be going to school in the States, so that's kind of a moot point.

Evidently they were tested in math yesterday to see what level they were working at. Today they were tested in reading (in English). Amusingly, they had to read a passage from Chrysanthemum, which is a wonderful book, but one that I've read aloud so many times that I think Cherry can recite the entire thing. I'm not sure how accurate a test of reading skills it was! Then they had to follow some directions to draw a pictures. Evidently they were supposed to include a picture of a lorry. Naturally, neither of them had any idea what that was, so on the way home we talked about differences between British and American English.

Evidently the school lunch was pretty good. They had trays, but their food was on plates on the trays, and they had "real silverware" and water pitchers on the table, and they could take as much bread as they wanted. There are 4 courses and they're all served at once, but Sapphire and Ezio are trying to eat the food in the proper order: appetizer, main course, cheese course, dessert. Mostly the dessert seems to be fruit, but once a week or so it's chocolate mousse or an eclair or something.

Ezio lost his very first tooth during one of their 5(!) recesses. (They only had 4 today, which I think will be standard: morning, afternoon, and before and after lunch.) Then Sapphire had to go find someone who spoke English so that Ezio would have something to put his tooth in! Evidently that was a bit of a challenge as most of the teachers were on break.

Cherry started school today, with a half of her normal half day. I stayed for the first 20 minutes, and then left. She said she had fun, but she was crying when I went to pick her up at lunchtime. I think the teacher said that she had just started crying, but I'm not exactly sure. She was very disappointed that she didn't get recess, though she was excited that she got to go pee in the little potties and wash her hands afterwards in the little sinks. Also she had some sort of a blue book but she didn't get to bring it home. Maybe a workbook of some sort? Oh, and a little girl walked up to her but she ran away because she didn't know the girls name. I suggested that maybe the little girl had wanted to play with her. "But I didn't know her name." "Oh." Maybe I'll have to mention to the teacher that my daughter requires formal introductions in order to play with somebody.