First Grade

Today marks one month into the new school year. We had some changes this year, because M is going to preschool half-days (has to learn Czech somewhere) and K finished preschool/kindergarten and started homeschooling first grade.

We did our Official First Day of Homeschool on the first day of regular school. We went to the Sea Life Aquarium and had a play date. Think of it as a sort of school independence day. Then we started regular lessons on the second day of school.

We had a bunch of unforeseen circumstances, like M staying home from preschool for a week because he was sick, followed by a week of school, a nasty virus for me (while the Slovak was on a business trip!) and then several days of (planned) travel to a translation conference in Athens while the little ones stayed with the grandparents. And of course I came back home with bronchitis/pneumonia and had to stay on bed rest for several days.

With all of that, it's actually kind of surprising we have done any school at all! We're busy with math, spelling and handwriting (English print and Czech cursive) and spent quite a bit of time on prehistory over the past several weeks. We're doing ancient history this year just because history is fun. The extracurricular schedule of afternoon activities is just about complete, with things scheduled three afternoons per week.

K is still a reluctant reader, but she is capable of reading when she tries. She is much more willing to write, so she is learning to read through spelling. She enjoys math so much that she has mentioned the possibility of being a "math superhero" who saves people by doing math problems for them.

In fact, K enjoys math and science so much that I almost wonder if we have a STEM child on our hands. She complains to high heaven about history (I read a child's history book and then we do activities or look at books on the same topic), and yet a day or two later comes to me asking questions and wanting to learn more about...archeology, cave people (she objects to the term cave men), early farmers... She actually really enjoys history once I've introduced a topic.

K's new stated ambition is to be an archeologist. Maybe a paleontologist. She has asked me if kids can do archeology or if she has to wait until she grows up. There's a place an hour or two from here that shows a medieval Bohemian village with traditional crafts you can try and also apparently has an archeology section for kids. We are SO going there as soon as it re-opens (closed for the winter already, unfortunately).

As far as reading, K has acknowledged that it might be a useful life skill to acquire someday. She just doesn't want to rush into anything, so she told me she thinks she will be ready to learn in second grade. Maybe third.

Also, during spelling today, she flawlessly spelled ten words I gave her, then for the last, bonus phrase...drew a detailed picture to illustrate the phrase, instead of writing the words.

That girl still cracks me up.

What Multilingualism Really Looks Like

We have a system. To successfully pass on your languages it is really best to have a system, and our system works.

But it's also important to be flexible, okay, and that is how I'm explaining how we found ourselves in the following situation this week:

Apo reading a book in English to K on one couch while I read a book in Slovak to M on the other.

That's what multilingualism looks like in our house!

***

Apo and I also spontaneously forgot how to speak our own languages while out on a walk last week: I spoke to K in Czech and claimed to know no English while Apo insisted he actually ONLY spoke English. Gave K a big fit of the giggles.

***

This week K picked up a book and started reading. She read several words / a sentence or two out of a couple of books, including from one Czech book. That was a little more challenging as I have been focusing on English only, so she didn't know how to sound out all the words - but she managed it. I told her that reading Czech is actually pretty easy compared to reading English, because each letter has only one sound.

Then I suggested that she find a Dr. Seuss book, as that might be easier to read. She got One Fish, Two Fish and read about 10 pages before I asked if she wanted to stop and finish later. "No!" she said, "I want to read it all! And then all of M's books and my books!"

Dr. Seuss is challenging but not impossible for her, since we have not had all the letter combinations and such from our 100 Lessons book. It is supposed to finish at about a 1st grade level, so I had planned to read Dr. Seuss after finishing the lesson book, but K had other ideas it seems.

Later that day she told me, "I can't believe I read that book on my own!!"

She has also started picking words to read out of chapter books (or my Kindle), such as HARRY POTTER or FARMER BOY (titles at the top of each page) from the books we were reading together, or finding some of the words she recognizes from her lessons. I think it is exciting for her to see that what she is learning in her lessons can be applied in the real world.

Then yesterday I read a Charlie and Lola book to K and M, the one where Lola is scared about starting school. After we finished, I said,

"Lola was nervous about going to school, wasn't she? Do you remember when you were nervous about starting big kid school?"
"Yeah, I was scared about it."
"Are you still scared about it or do you think it's going to be ok?"
"I think it's going to be ok now."
"Because you thought you couldn't learn to read. But you caaaaan!"
(self-satisfied nod and grin)

And THAT is why I'm teaching the child to read.

Reading Aloud and Reinforcing the Community Language

My five-year-old just finished 'reading' the one-year-old a book, in almost the exact words as it's written.

When I was her age it was Ernie and Bert's "I Can Do It Myself" (a.k.a. my personal motto at the time). For K, it's O Perníkové chaloupce, about Hansel and Gretel.

We bought the book for M's birthday, but it caught K's imagination somehow, and she loves me to read it to her and M both. She even insisted for a while that I pause in between sentences so she could repeat them after me.

I think it's good for her Czech, because most of the Czech children's books out there are either very simplistic (for babies, one or two words per picture) or else quite complex (for elementary age, lots of text, high vocabulary level and not many pictures). This is one of the few I've found that is in the middle, so it is accessible but still stretches K in terms of vocabulary and sentence structure.

For instance, she's asked me before about the sentences "Děti vzaly nohy na ramena" (an unfamiliar idiom) and "Tatínek hořce rozplakal" (crying 'bitterly'), and she 'read' them to M today. I also heard her use several other complex sentences or phrases from the book while reading - a level of language that, even when she interacts with the Slovak or me in CZ/SK, we just don't use in everyday conversation.

I know we need to read to her more in Czech, but as I've mentioned before, it's just hard to find suitable material. The other day the Slovak decided he wants to get in on the chapter book reading with a book in Czech (rather than Slovak, to help with Czech vocabulary). He decided on The Jungle Book (Kipling), because it was one of his favorites as a boy. I expect we'll give it a try someday soon.

For now, I'm just enjoying listening to my big girl reading to my little boy, neither one stopping to think that they're both learning something while doing it.

Playdates and Extroverts

K had a playdate with a friend from school this week. We've been planning it for several weeks, waiting for everyone to be in town and healthy, so when it finally came she was thrilled. She went home from school with the friend and her mom, and I came over after about two hours to have coffee and let the little boys play (we both have an older girl and younger boy).

It's been so miserable outside that we haven't even been able to go to the park or for longer walks since last fall, so I'm glad K had the opportunity to spend the afternoon with a friend. We have toys and things to do at home, but for such a people-oriented child as K, that just isn't enough. I know it can't be easy being the lone extrovert in a family of introverts (I even think M might lean more toward introversion when he gets older, but we'll see).

I'm sure it can't be as exhausting as it is being the introvert parent of an extrovert child who just - can't - understand why anyone would want to be alone with their own thoughts, though. :)

Anyway, I'm pleased the girls had fun, because I like this mom and talk to her a few times a week. She lives on our route home so we often walk home together and talk while the girls play together like maniacs as if they hadn't just spent all morning together at school.

I still need to make arrangements to meet with Russian Friend, K's best friend since she started at this school two years ago, when neither one of them spoke Czech. Her mother is also very nice.

***

In reading news, K is still getting more confident and less frustrated as we go along. She has started spontaneously trying to read signs or words in books. Over the weekend we went to Starbucks and she read "coffee", "bus", "tram", "push" and "tam" (the last two on a door). It is kind of hard to find English (or short Czech) words in public, but there are some. One afternoon this week she spontaneously read "Angry Duck" (on Happy Hippo book) and tried to read a children's encyclopedia (managed a few words, but the reading level was too high otherwise).

I think this is important because she is starting to see that reading is both useful and possible, and most of all it is her own initiative. She is very motivated to do her lessons, of course, but that is still guided by me. I love that she is starting to see the benefit on her own by finding "real" things to read. She is determined to learn among other reasons because she plans to teach M to read next. After he learns to talk.

Languages: Fun or Normal?

My daughter seems to enjoy this show we see on TV sometimes called "Say It With Noddy" (I think - it's dubbed into Czech). Each short episode introduces one English phrase that is repeated several times. I'm not sure why K likes it, frankly, unless she gets a kick out of already knowing all the phrases they teach.

It always ends with the phrase "Ta angličtina je legrace!" (English is fun!)

This week K took exception to that statement:

K (sounding kind of offended): Hey, English isn't fun, is it?
Me: (going along with her) Um, no. So English isn't fun?
K: No, it's just normal.
Me: I see. And is Czech fun?
K: No, it's just normal, too.

And you know, for her - for us - that's true. English and Czech aren't something fun or unusual. They're NORMAL.

That's kind of great, if you think about it.

***

Also, today I settled something for the children by doing "Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe", which I haven't said in at least twenty years. I realized as I said it that K has never heard it before. She did, however, know all the words to "En ten tyky", the Czech equivalent. Her English is still dominant, but I guess you can tell what language she hangs out with other kids in.

She hesitated before saying the last line, telling me they weren't supposed to say that. I asked why, and she said it had the word *whisper* kakat (poop) - and immediately clamped her hand over her mouth with her eyes open wide.

I was very careful not to laugh.

***

We've now been doing our reading lessons for just over a month (tonight was #32). We had a brief backslide in week two or three where K was battling nerves again, but we worked through it - I think she might believe me now that really, nothing bad will happen if she doesn't know the right answer, no seriously - and she is progressing right on schedule.

We love the fact that each lesson (after the first two weeks) has a story with it. They started out as just two or three words each, but there was a story and a picture and that is SO EXCITING for K. Currently she's reading stories of three to four sentences of several words each. It's such a dramatic improvement that I think she's finally starting to believe that she can learn to read after all. (That has been the problem: she was irrationally convinced that she would never learn to read and all the other kids would be smarter than her. Definitely not true.)

***

Have a good weekend! I started this post when it was still Friday but it appears to be Saturday already...

When Reading Becomes a Mind Game

I always thought I would want my children to be early readers. I remember being 8 and coaching my 2-year-old sister on her letter sounds, or 10 and making up worksheets for her to practice writing at 4. I think it improved my handwriting but didn't have much effect on her.

Then I grew up and had children. I started reading and thinking about early childhood development and education, and changed my mind. I decided to neither deny nor force learning on my child, teaching her what she asked, when she asked. In Europe (at least our part) preschool and kindergarten are about play-based learning with no pressure to learn to read before first grade (fall 2014 for us), so we haven't had any outside pressure to step up the academics.

Then K asked me to teach her to write when she was less than 2. So we started a very slow introduction into formal learning, mainly using things like Kumon workbooks. They're great for the very young child who wants to 'do school'.

We eventually got to the point where K knows most/all of her letters and can write simple words by sounding them out, but she couldn't read by sounding out (or by word recognition). I wondered if she had some kind of block or if she just wasn't developmentally ready for it yet.

Then she started developing this kind of love-hate relationship with learning and reading in particular. She would passionately insist that I teach her something, wanting to keep going and going instead of just doing a short session, and then she would turn on a dime and say she hated learning and never wanted to go to big kid school, ever, not even a little bit. Often this happened when she made a mistake, even the tiniest mistake.

She went from yearning to go to big kid school (first grade) to regularly saying that she is afraid of big kid school and doesn't ever want to go. She wants to stay in preschool until she grows up and enter the workforce straight from there.

She finds it difficult to articulate why she is afraid of big kid school, but the main factors seem to be that she will not be able to learn to read, the other children will know more than her, she doesn't want to make new friends and she doesn't want to sit down at a desk and not play.

I believe other complicating factors are a strain of perfectionism, high expectations of herself and a tendency to be easily discouraged. Not to point fingers, but the Slovak has also been known to make dramatic NEVER statements when frustrated. And, of course, high expectations and emotional intensity also describes me as a child, though according to my mother I didn't really lose my temper, I just wouldn't give up until I mastered whatever I was trying.

I first decided to slow down the 'reading lessons' (occasionally we would sit down and practice writing or reading some simple words) and focus on me reading to her instead, since she seemed to be getting more and more anxious, but that didn't work. It still came up at odd times and she would break down during the day or at bedtime, saying she would never learn to read and didn't want to go to school.

Then it occurred to me that maybe by not teaching her to read properly I was just dragging things out and contributing to her anxiety, allowing her to build it up in her mind as this impossible, terrifying thing. Maybe instead of backing off I should just TEACH HER TO READ now so that she would see she can do it and stop being afraid.

That's my current theory.

I had already ordered Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and brought it back with us, because several people, including Perogyo, recommended it specifically.

When we got home from our trip I decided to make time every day (with a jealous 15-month-old and as little as a one-hour window between Apo coming home and bedtime, this is an issue), buckle down and go through the book one lesson per day.

The first day K breezed through Lesson 1 with no difficulty and wanted to do the next lesson right away (as usual). I said no, let's keep it short and just do one per day. She lost it. She went in a heartbeat from 'please can we do more, it's all I've ever wanted' to 'fine, I won't do any more lessons ever, I don't want to learn to read, I don't want to go to big kid school, I don't like words, I only like dressing up and playing and I do like writing because that's different, but not reading...'

It was not a very coherent rant but I did like the part about not liking words. I talked her down from the ledge and she cheerfully drew a few pictures before putting the book and paper away. The next day she skipped in from being outside and asked if we can do our lesson now please.

Yesterday we did Lesson 11 and I have to say - it works! I can see the logic in the way things are presented and within two or three lessons, when you start actually sounding out two to three letter words, K could do it. She had a couple of specific difficulties with the concept of sounding out and the book addresses these straight away (probably common problems then). She still gets frustrated sometimes but not as badly and she is very encouraged by her success when she reads words on her own.

I hope to report in three months' time that we have finished the book and K is reading with confidence!

Small Children and Historical Perspective

I took the children for a short walk downtown on Friday and we walked a slightly different way than usual, so I was pointing out some things K doesn't see regularly.

We walked up the center of Wenceslas Square and talked about the man in the statue, Svatý Václav (the square is named after him). I explained that he was a kníže (prince or duke, an independent ruler but less than a king) who lived a long time ago, ruled over this country and people now remember him as a protector (patron saint).

K wanted to know where he lived. I considered the fact that I don't technically know anything except that he died in Stará Boleslav, but went with the most likely answer, that he moved around some but was probably based in Prague.

Then she wanted to know why he is riding a horse. I said because that's how he got around, because before people had cars they traveled from place to place on horses, and that they didn't have cars at that time because he lived over a thousand years ago.

Then she wanted to know if he is still alive and was disappointed when I said no, because she wanted to meet him. I stressed that he lived one - thousand - years - ago, which is a very long time.

As we talked we passed by the memorial for Jan Palach (right in front of the statue) and she pointed out the flowers laid out, asking if that was for someone who died. I said yes, that is for a person called Jan Palach, he also died, which was very sad but happened a long time ago. K nodded her acceptance.

As that last sentence left my mouth, I realized that for my daughter, 935 and 1969 are essentially the same era. As is 2005. Anything before 2007, the year she was born, is ancient history and impossibly long ago. Children have no sense of historical perspective!

We have had many discussions lately about if certain people are alive or not (historical figures mainly) and how people used to do things before they had __. For instance, we just finished reading Little House in the Big Woods, which involves both concepts.

K finds the idea that people haven't always had access to the things we have now to be mind-boggling. I can understand that, because as a child I had the same problem. The difference between 1979 and 2007, however, is that I couldn't imagine a world without refrigerators. She can't imagine a world without cell phones. She sees a world with no DVDs to be just as distant as a world without cars.

Today, this line of thought led her to ask me, "Before people had bags, did they have to carry their snacks in a box?" I said bags have been around for a very long time, at least as long as boxes.

She has also asked me things like,

"Did Dedo [grandfather] have a mommy? Oh, I know, Babka [grandmother]."
"He did have a mommy, but it wasn't your Babka, it was Apo's Babka."
"Oh! Have I met her?"
"No, you never met her, and neither did I, because she died when Apo was very young."
"Why?"
"Because she was born a very long time ago."
"When you were a little girl?"
(mildly offended) "No, your great-grandmother was not born when I was a little girl. It was much longer ago than that."

I know these things are really hard to grasp when you have no frame of reference and your concept of a "lifetime" is five years. I really enjoy watching as K grapples with ideas bigger than she is, though, and I love the conversations you can have with a nearly five year old.

Even if she does apparently think I was born in 1907.

Big Kid Skills: learning to whistle, learning to knit, learning to read

I've spent this morning brainstorming birthday/Christmas/knitting ideas for my soon to be five year old.

Birthday and Christmas because, well, they're coming up. Knitting because this weekend K asked me if she could please learn to do that thing with the needle thing where you make things, which I determined to be either knitting, crocheting or sewing based on her hand gestures.

I was already thinking of getting her a children's knitting kit, actually, but then I would also have to get her a person who knows how to knit in order to teach her. I like the idea of knitting but am not very, ah, coordinated. I also have my doubts as to how well she would handle the needles. She is currently learning to tie her shoes but hasn't mastered it. (Though she has only had shoes with laces for a week or so.)

Then I had the inspiration of finger knitting! No needles and a relatively fast payoff, right? I remember doing it as a child and making endless chains. If and when she masters that we can look into something more involved.

Is that a good idea?

Is there anything else in this area that would be suitable for a five year old with an unskilled parent?

I'm also considering getting a learn-to-read book (we have some workbooks but they are more about individual letters or doing mazes and other tasks) or some other kindergarten materials. This is still a problem, but I hope that in the next year it will be easier to find a few minutes here and there for some English learning activities.

Is THAT a good idea? Does anyone have a recommended book/curriculum or should I not even use a formal curriculum and just continue freestyling and/or letting K learn to read on her own?

Anything else I should buy while I have the chance?

Child Interpreters and Foreign Languages in Preschool

I recently learned that K serves as an interpreter when her preschool teachers can't understand the external English teacher who comes in twice a week. Apparently (one teacher told me today) they ask K and she explains what he said.

Part of me wonders if this is expecting too much of a four year old and the other part wonders if we could negotiate a break on tuition for K's language services.

I am impressed that she can do this, actually, since it is one thing to be bilingual and another thing to facilitate communication between two other people. It's a different cognitive process.

It does go slightly against my no child interpreters rule (I don't think it's right to put a child in that position if it can be helped at all), but this isn't serious or frequent. I know she can handle it, and I am proud of her for being helpful.

We had this conversation as K and another girl sat at the table working puzzles. The little girl pointed to the animals in the puzzles she was doing and named each one in Czech.

The teacher said, "Yes, that's right, and I bet K could tell us how you say that in English."

K, obligingly: "Horse. Cow. Chicken."
Teacher: "Isn't it 'cock'? (to me) Isn't slepice 'cock'?"
Me: "No, I believe it's 'hen', but we usually just say 'chicken' for everything."

An extra level of multilingualness was added by the fact that the little girl naming the animals in Czech - is Chinese. Like K, she's a Czech-born foreigner and is perfecting her Czech in preschool.

Life is fun sometimes.

Just One of the Kids

I asked K if they're still having English class at her school this year, and she said yes, in fact she helps teach it. I know she doesn't usually attend the class, so I wondered about this (entirely made up, part made up?) until I realized she was confusing "English class" (with native English teacher) and singing songs as a class in English with the regular teacher. I guess she feels that knowing all the songs makes her a co-teacher.

She has also told me that we have to stop talking a couple of times as we stand at the school door waiting to go in -

"We have to stop talking now.
"We do?"
You can't speak English to me in there."
"Oh, really? Why not?"
"Because...they don't understand English."
"I see. Tak můžeme mluvit česky."
(visible relief from K)

Although oddly she has no problem speaking some English with me when I come to pick her up or once we are inside. It seems like a reminder to herself as much as to me: time to change gears.

K's teachers have reported that she is much more assertive (but not too assertive - I asked) than in the past, that she is physically and emotionally well balanced, bounced back from the birth of her baby brother last year, and generally doing well in school.

A lot of this comes down to her increased comfort and confidence in Czech. Before, the language barrier meant she held back and kept her head low, but now it is essentially gone and her real personality can show.

I'm very pleased. What a change from this!

Adventures in reading

I've mentioned before that the four year old has been slowly learning to read. I say slowly because her interest comes and goes and I almost never initiate anything - I will provide the knowledge when asked but I don't want to push her to be an early reader.

K knows most of the letters and their sounds and is starting to grasp the concept of sounding things out. Sometimes this leads to amusing (for me) and amazing (for her) conversations like this one from July:

"Mommy, you know what heart starts with? S."
"What does heart start with? Hhhhhhhhhheart. H."
"No, but srdíčko."
"Right, srdíčko starts with S, but heart starts with H."
"But it's the same."
"It means the same, but in English heart starts with H, and in Czech srdíčko starts with S. Sometimes a word starts with one sound in one language and another sound in another language."
K: Mind. Officially. Blown.

Or this: "Mommy, you know what starts with P? 'Puter. ... And S starts with ponožka." [sock]

We also pay attention to environmental print, which is kind of challenging since a lot of it is in Czech (I'm focusing on English for now) and a lot is company names (advertisements) and other things she wouldn't understand. You do find a good deal of English out and about, though, such as on the bus:

"K, do you see that word over the door there, the one that begins with S? Can you read what it says?"
"Sopka." [volcano]
"Sopka??"
"Wait, it says STOP."

I realized some time after making note of that exchange that she was probably trying to say "stopka" (borrowed from English obviously, I think they covered this one in school). It's not as hard to tell what language she's speaking these days as it used to be, but she still trips us up from time to time.

One thing I've noticed as we slowly work towards real reading is that K seems to "get" new concepts when she's ready for them, not after a certain amount of exposure. Just like with learning to talk in the first place, no matter how many times I said BALL while holding the ball, she did not have a clue what I wanted from her. She didn't get the correspondence between letters and their sounds (bee makes b sound, em makes m sound) until she was ready. I guess there's some cognitive switch and before it flips there's really not much point hitting the flash cards!

Or maybe my daughter is just stubborn, who knows... In any case, that's part of why I try to follow her lead. It has worked well so far, so I'm sure it will work with reading, too.

Adventures in Geography

My daughter loves maps. Probably not surprising for a child who has traveled as much as she has. She likes to pore over atlases and draw her own maps to guide us on our walks around town. It has been difficult, though, to explain to her the relative positions of the different countries when each is on a separate page and there is no (!!) actual world map in the whole atlas!

We got her a children's atlas for Christmas and were delighted to find it had a wall map of the world in the back. We put it up a couple of weeks ago and since then K has been demanding instruction in geography. She can locate America, the Czech Republic, UK, Russia and New Zealand so far, plus the American, British, Czech and Slovak flags (at the bottom of the map).

She likes to point to each country and ask who she knows there. Answers like "lots of Chinese people" don't really cut it, either - she wants to know who she, specifically, knows in that country. Or failing that, who do I (Mama) know there? She does know people from a lot of different countries, in fact, so I guess it's not a stretch for her to imagine that she must know someone in every country in the world.

K was highly disappointed when she saw how big the Czech Republic and Slovakia are compared to bigger countries like Russia, China and America. "But Prague is SO BIG!" she objects. (She is constantly surprised that we are STILL in Prague when we go to another neighborhood.) It's disconcerting to see yourself as part of the big picture, I suppose, isn't it?

And then last night we had the following exchange:

Me: "That's South America. And that one up there is North America. Those are TWO SEPARATE CONTINENTS."
Matus: "One..."
Me: "And there are SEVEN continents in the world."
Matus: "Six..."
Me: "Here, let me show you them."
*race to see who reaches the map first to indoctrinate our child with the correct number and division of continents, while K shrieks in laughter*

This goes back to one of M and my biggest and most surprising (for being completely out of left field) cultural differences: after a few years of marriage I said something about "all seven continents" and it was out! He'd never heard of seven continents and I'd never heard of six, except for those who combine Europe and Asia into Eurasia. I felt like he'd told me there are actually two moons and we all live on the bottom of the ocean, or something. It was presented as a simple fact in school, seven continents, end of discussion. Turns out kids are taught seven, six or even five continents depending on where in the world they are. M was taught six continents, Europe and Asia separate but the Americas joined. He was offended when I suggested we could agree on six continents, with the Americas separate and Eurasia joined...

So of course I had to seize the opportunity to get my point of view in K's head first! In the explanation of what a continent is (as opposed to a country) we also had some political commentary: "America is actually called the United States of America, and it's just one country in North America. Even though it tends to think it's the only one."

I am occasionally struck, when teaching K about something new, by the political or ideological choices that have to be made in what you teach. Are there six continents or seven? Eight planets or nine? Do you give the short answer or the long? IS A TOMATO A VEGETABLE OR A FRUIT??? And that's not even touching on how to present historical events.

For the record, I go for seven continents, nine planets (I ignore the recent marginalization of Pluto in scientific circles) and tomato as a vegetable. I'm a traditionalist in a few areas it seems.

I only like your English

This past Sunday night, my daughter and I had the following conversation:

"It's time to go to bed so you can get up for school in the morning."
"I don't want to go to school tomorrow. I'm not going to go there any more."
"Why not? You love going to school."
"I don't like my teachers or my friends or toys."
"But you like your teacher Lida."
"I do like Lida but not the other teachers."
"And you like your friends M [Russian] and L [New Zealand]."
"I do like M but not L. I don't want to be her friend any more. I bite L."

(K has claimed not to like L several times in the past several weeks, and actually did bite her at school a month or so ago.)

"That's not very kind, is it? L is your friend and we don't bite our friends."
"But I don't like L any more, because L speaks English and I don't want to speak English at school. I want to speak Czech like all the other kids. I don't like English."
"You don't like English?? But you and I speak English together."
"I do like your English, Mommy, I just don't like L's English."
"Well, that makes sense. You don't have to speak English at school if you don't want to, because everybody else speaks Czech there. Maybe you could tell L you want to speak Czech together."
"But L doesn't speak Czech."
"She does speak Czech actually - she just doesn't like to. But you know, even if L speaks English to you, you could answer her in Czech. You don't have to speak English if you don't want to, and if you want to play with someone else, just tell L that."
"I did tell L I want to play with somebody else, but she said no. So I bite her."
"It really isn't kind to bite people. Maybe you could tell your teacher if you want to play with someone else and L won't leave you alone, because you should be able to play with whoever you want."

---

I had suspected in the past several weeks that L might be more attached to K than K is to L, but I didn't know it was bothering her to this extent. I couldn't believe she was able to put into words at her age that it bothers her to stand out by speaking another language at preschool from the rest of her friends. It had occurred to me that she might feel that way (at least eventually), but I didn't want to suggest it to her by asking. I can't agree with her way of handling the issue - biting and telling L she isn't her friend - but I really can't fault the desire to use her languages in the appropriate contexts. That's completely understandable! After all, the rest of us get to choose when and where to use our languages. And I would hate for K to feel so self-conscious about it that she started to actually dislike English. Basically she is getting pulled into another child's language rebellion.

I brought up the key points from the above conversation with K's teachers at school on Monday, and they confirmed my feeling that L is more attached to K than K to L. They also added a new bit of information, which is that, in addition to preferring English, L is a bit bossy - always wants to choose what and how to play - and K is the only child agreeable enough to put up with it. K isn't a passive child, but she is obliging and typically doesn't insist on her own way, so I can see that dynamic existing. Being easy-going and adaptable is a good trait and evidence of a good heart, I think, but I don't want K to be so overwhelmed that she lets herself be pushed around until she feels the need to lash out in order to escape. Which seems to be what is happening.

We are reminding K regularly now (as are her teachers, once they found out how much it bothers her) that she can choose who to play with and what language to speak - she doesn't have to speak English if she isn't comfortable with it, even if L addresses her in English. And she doesn't have to go along with everything someone else wants in general, either. That's the trick, I suppose: taking charge of your own languages and your own life, and learning to stand up for yourself without biting people...

Multilingual Czech Preschool

When my daughter's preschool sent out an e-mail earlier this summer asking which parents were interested in forming an English class with a native English speaking teacher this fall, I wrote back saying not interested, thanks, we have one at home.

I guess they end up forming not a full time class but a twice a week lesson with an external American teacher coming in, and the first lesson was yesterday. K was apparently exercising with the kids who don't attend the English class - but when I went to pick her up, the head teacher asked me if I would mind terribly much if K attended the class for 45 minutes twice a week. To help the teacher.

hahahahahaha

Apparently the kids spent most of the class staring wide-eyed and not really participating, since English is so new for them. The head teacher asked the English teacher if he thought it would help to have an English-Czech speaking child in the class to smooth things over, and he apparently said yes. So she asked me if K could join in.

I have mildly mixed feelings about it, but I suspect that most of my concerns would apply more to elementary school and Czechs teaching English. They aren't learning grammar that K already knows, the American teacher won't be threatened by her superior grasp of the language, and I don't THINK that kids this age will give her social problems if she knows all the answers and they don't - three things that can easily happen with older children in a similar position.

So I said ok, as long as it's helpful and not distracting and not more than those two lessons a week. Frankly, I get the impression that K enjoyed the "English lessons" they had last year, which I believe were mainly the regular teachers singing a bunch of English songs. It was/is her chance to be a star since she knows all the songs, can count to 10 in English, and whatever else they practice. Which I guess is not detrimental at this point.

A stickier problem will be what to do with mandatory English lessons in elementary school, where K will either be conspicuously at the top of the class, ridiculously bored, forced to choose between biting her tongue at the teacher's wrong English ("This is my k-nee") and correcting an adult in front of the class, or even put in some special position over the other kids (this is where I think "teacher's helper" can really backfire). I think I'd like to send some worksheets or a book from home for her to work on instead, or if there are multiple English-speaking students in the class, it would be awesome to bring in an external teacher for an hour to do a native-English class - language arts, learning to read, whatever. It'll depend on how open her elementary school administration and teachers are, I imagine.

But for the moment, K will be singing along with English songs, counting in English and generally playing along with whatever the teacher is trying to do. Which will ideally inspire the other children to follow her lead, haha. I'd be interested to see how that plays out!

---

K's teacher also commented a few times recently on how her Czech is improving. It's more grammatical now and more flexible. I found it interesting that her teachers claimed she never mixed Czech and Slovak at school as I described her doing at home, but then one day I was witness to the following:

Teacher: "Kde máš obrázek?" (Where's your picture?)
K: "Já nelobila" (nerobila - SK - I didn't make one)
Teacher: [insert several guesses as to what K means, including "Ty jsi rozbila?" - you broke it??]
K: "Já nelobila!"
Teacher: still not getting it
Me: "Chce říct "já nerobila" - nedělala." (She's saying 'I didn't make one' in Slovak)
Teacher: "Jo tááááák, to je ta slovenština..." (OOOOHHHHH, it's Slovak, didn't expect that...)

I've also heard K use Slovak at school other times, I think, where I had the feeling the teachers didn't realize that's what she was doing. So I'm thinking she may be mixing more than they realize and they just don't hear it! Actually, now that I think of it, I remember a conversation between a teacher and a Slovak-Czech little boy last year, where the boy was talking about his "babka" and the teacher kept asking what/who he was talking about. I mentioned we have a babka in Slovakia as well.

To be fair, I guess you really don't hear or understand the mixing unless you are used to it or expecting it somehow. I may be more sensitive to children's language mixing (whether CZ-EN, SK-EN or CZ-SK) or language-related misunderstandings/disobedience (the two-year-old isn't trying to be naughty when continuing to kick the gravel after being told not to - he may well not know it's called "gravel"!) than your average grown-up. You know, being occasionally prone to them myself...

Learning to Write

When K was around two years old, I hand-wrote something in front of her and her whole body stiffened in fascination as she watched me. She immediately demanded that I repeat the trick, so I took a blank piece of paper and demonstrated how to write her name and, upon her insistence, various other words.

It instantly changed her whole way of drawing: previously, she would scribble and maybe on a good day we might get a circle, but from that moment on her drawings became pages full of small, intricate symbols. She also started noticing things written outside, on the bus, in the store, and wanting to know what they say. Her fixation on it was really sweet, with this attitude of "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU HAVE THIS SKILL YOU'VE BEEN HIDING FROM ME ALL THIS TIME." (My response, of course, was "YOU'RE ONLY TWO. DON'T BE RIDICULOUS.")

Since then K has gone through a few phases of intense interest in reading and writing that last a few days or weeks until something else catches her attention. I've been using those high-interest periods to slowly and casually teach her some of the alphabet. The results of this to date are that she recognizes a few letters (K for her name, M for mama) and can write a few others (she writes lines full of T and O and then tells me what they say) and her alphabet puzzle is no challenge any more.

We're going through another intense writing phase at the moment: K makes me write down a word and then she copies it out to the side. She doesn't know what sounds most of the letters make and hasn't really caught on to the principle yet, but she is surprisingly good at making (backwards, upside down, sideways...) copies of the letters she sees. She can be somewhat single-minded (I have no idea where she got that, unless it was from the Slovak. really. that's my story), so we have pages and pages full of writing, ranging from "cat" and "dog" to "basket" and "computer", whatever she requests. I think she wanted to write "octopus" once.

I've been indulging her so far, sounding out the words as I write them and not addressing the backwards and upside down aspect. I think just practicing writing them will help her to eventually straighten them out and remember the names, etc. And of course, backwards and upside down writing is common even in children older than K, as I had to tell my husband - it offends his sense of correctness to just let it pass. He also doesn't like it when K uses "he" and "she" (or similar) incorrectly. It's wrong! I do sympathize :) but I remind him and myself that it's really developmentally normal and K will straighten it out herself eventually...

K also mentions almost daily that when she is a big girl, she will go to the big girl school (where she would really like to be attending already, in fact). She asks me about big girl school: what they do there, what they learn, if they have toys and a sandbox. She was very interested to hear that in big girl school you learn to read and write (and count and learn all about the world). I have been wondering this week if she wants to learn to write now so she'll be able to go to big girl school, or if the two interests are actually separate, if related. She hasn't mentioned them in connection like that, but you never know what is going on in her small, curly head.

I know it's not entirely unusual for parents to teach a two or three year old to read, write, count to 100, and do long division (really, some people's laundry lists of accomplishments are kind of silly), and of course sometimes a child absorbs these things without being specifically taught, but I am really finding a lack of desire in myself to cultivate an early reader (etc.) beyond allowing K access to knowledge as and when she requests it.

Because I also think it's silly to deny a child the opportunity to learn when he is clearly interested, as apparently my mother-in-law did with my husband - it was frowned upon at the time for kids to start school knowing how to read, so none would be ahead of the others, so she didn't teach him anything until he started learning in first grade. (I think this is why he was so surprised when I recently mentioned reading chapter books at 6 and 7 years old - I was an early reader and by first grade was reading Nancy Drew...he looked at me with a little extra respect after that!)

I always thought I'd be more eager to encourage my kids to read (and acquire other academic skills) as early as possible, but I kind of surprised myself once I became a parent and decided, you know, I'm really not interested in pushing it. I am confident that K will learn to read when she is ready and that pushing too hard runs the risk of her losing interest. I'd rather she learn to love reading at any age than learn to read early but regard it as a chore or something to make Mama happy.

K has access to crayons or pen and paper, willing scribes in me and the Slovak, (rather a large number, in fact, of) books, and I make sure she sees me reading myself. Have had to make an effort on this front, actually, as I took to mostly reading on the computer once she was born (hands free), so you can't tell if I'm reading my e-mail or something more substantial. I am picking up real books more often now, though, and not saving them just for when she's asleep. (We'll see how this goes when boy baby is born and I have my arms full again, though...)

So basically, that's where we're at: 3.5 and determined to learn to write. Reading seems to be less of a concern, since K can already "read" (i.e., retell a story to herself as she flips through a book), so I guess she feels like she's got that one down. I imagine that if she continues writing like this she'll learn to actually read sometime before starting school. That's fine with me. Whenever she's ready, I'll be ready to help. To me, the important thing is that she's engaged, eager to learn, and terribly proud of herself. I am not invested in her learning as much as possible, as fast as possible, but I am also proud of her - of her determination to learn and quick mind, yes, but even more of her confidence, joy in life and kind heart. Those are the real skills she'll take with her to first grade, regardless of what else she knows.

School Year in Review and 3.5 Year Language Update

The official last day of school was June 30. K started the school year in October, at a different school we weren't happy with ultimately, so we finished out the year at a different school that we ended up loving.

In under six months K went from speaking in individual words to conversing entirely in CZ/SK (she speaks Czech but it's interesting how strong an influence the father-language has on her still, i.e. Czech hasn't taken over completely) confidently, if mildly ungrammatically.

I'd be interested in an actual evaluation of her speech level, since I don't have much experience with native Czech speaking children so it is hard for me to judge what is age-appropriate and what isn't. I would estimate, though, that she may be up to a year behind her age level, or maybe less, which is a massive step up from the 2+ years behind she was at the beginning of this year. I'm hoping to ask one of the teachers what they think, too.

As far as English goes, K is the star of the school's English hour. Hahah. Again, it's hard for me to judge where she's at but I believe she is right at her age level. Grammar concepts are slowly coming together, although some, like he/she and his/her, she still doesn't have straight. Everything in the past is yesterday, and there are still several sounds she can't produce - but those seem about typical for 3.5, it seems to me. When we were in America, a few relatives commented that they could understand everything she says with no trouble, one adding, "I find her easier to understand than [cousin who is a year older], actually."

I do wonder, though, if K will STAY at age level, and if I will recognize the signs if she doesn't. Will her English stagnate with just me to talk to? Will I provide rich enough stimulation to keep her vocabulary and fluency growing? Will I notice if her English starts to lag? I think so...but I'll have to remember to monitor.

Socially and developmentally speaking, K is really thriving and happy, and I think her school is contributing to that. She is confident and friendly and usually very reasonably behaved. She has a wild imagination and loves to tell stories and play pretend. She often plays out both sides of a conversation at once, between her dolls or even, this weekend, between her toes. As in, her toes were having a conversation with each other. She seems to have a feel for music, picking up songs easily and singing them on key usually - not a given at her age. She recognizes a few letters (I teach her only when she's interested) and has good crayon and scissor control. I think our Kumon workbooks have really helped her confidence with crayons and scissors. She can count to 10 and is working on up to 20 in both languages. She knows the Czech months and is learning the English ones. Her reasoning and negotiating skills are developing at an alarming pace...

We've noticed that Czech is becoming her self-play language, especially since a lot of her scenarios revolve around school type situations, imaginary conversations with her friends, etc. It isn't a hard-and-fast preference for Czech, though - it seems that K's toys, like K herself, fluidly and naturally switch between languages at will. But there's more Czech present than English most of the time, I'd say, even when she was, for instance, playing with the toys at my mother's house.

Which takes us up to the end of the school year. I had been minorly wondering what happened to all the children's artwork, since K often came home with paint in her hair but rarely had any pictures sent home. They did display artwork on the walls at school, but that wouldn't account for everything. All was explained, however, when during the last week we were presented with a binder filled with K's work from the year, displayed in plastic sheet protectors. The binder also had several pictures of K and classmates on the front and back, two CD-Roms with pictures and video clips from the school year, the daily record of what went on in school (today we went outside and talked about snails, etc), and a letter to K from the teachers summing up her year.

K's letter talked about how she started out quiet but quickly learned to talk in full sentences, made lots of friends, and generally had a fantastic year and her teachers are proud of her. I thought the letter, and the whole book, were really sweet and a nice memento of the school year.

The "summer break" didn't last long, though, since we decided to keep her in school for the summer - her school is staying open except for a week at the end of August, just before the first day of school on September 1. I think school is good for her at this point, and there's no reason to stop if I don't have anything more fun for her to do. I am going to keep her home a few days if I manage to take us to the zoo or do something else worthwhile, but otherwise it's work and gestating for me and school for K.

So pretty much she finished school June 30, had a Mama and K day July 1, and left for a week in Slovakia July 2, from which we just returned. And then, today, back to school to play with her friends.

A Song of the Sun (or Moon?)

It came to my attention yesterday that K's knowledge in Czech exceeds her English knowledge in at least one area. That's a first!

The area? She knows her months in Czech now, or rather, she sings a song that more or less resembles the months of the year, although she doesn't know what they signify I would say. I have mentioned individual months to her in English, like your birthday is in November, my birthday is in December, right now it is May, etc., but I haven't started teaching the months in order yet. I guess it's time now...

I realized this yesterday on the way home from preschool, listening to K sing a song she's never sung before: "červe, červe, červenec!"

I asked her, "Did you just say červenec?" (July)
"No, červená!!" (red) (first clue she doesn't understand the significance)

But then she sang it again and followed up with something like "srpy" (srpen = August), so I asked her, "And what about leden?" (January)

She instantly replied with the whole song! "leden, únor, březen, duben, květen, červen, červenec, srpen, září, říjen, listopad, prosi-prosi-prosinec"

Predictably, some of those were more recognizable than others, but if you knew what to listen for, they were all there. And if you look closely, you'll see that the initial "červe červe červenec" was actually "květen, červen, červenec"!

Then I asked her, "Do you know what those are?"
She answered, "Yes, the sun," and pointed outside. (second clue she's not totally in on what this means)

This is the fun part: I am almost certain that the sun is not a total non sequiteur in this conversation... The teacher must have told them that this song is the "měsíce" - months. The catch is that měsíc means both month and MOON, and K almost certainly knows only the second meaning. (She doesn't understand time enough to know what a "month" is in English, either, of course.) So she understood the teachers saying, this is about the moon - and then mixed up the moon and sun to tell me it's about the sun.

It's also possible they have pictures to illustrate seasons and months that involve the sun, but I'm thinking a confusion on the word měsíc is involved somehow.

The significant thing here, however, is that my daughter knows something in Czech that she doesn't yet know in English, which is an important milestone in her education. Also, it's surprising that she knew the song so completely the first time she sang it for me - usually she will sing fragments for a while before being able to produce the whole thing. Also, I totally have to figure out a song for "January, February..." to balance her knowledge out again!

The Language of Her Peers

If pregnancy hasn't impaired my ability to count - which is by no means a given - then we've been back in Prague for six months. Six months of increased exposure to Czech, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with where K is at, especially when you consider that most of her progress has been since January at her new school.

The Slovak and I have been noticing recently how her active vocabulary keeps growing - she can tell him offhand what something is called rather than thinking about it for five minutes first. Her grammar is not great, but frankly, what three year old's grammar is? Her English grammar can be pretty sketchy at times, but it is better than her Czech grammar. However, she is really moving past the individual words and set phrases and making her own sentences.

I think the longest/most correct one to date was "Já nechci volat Babku!" (I don't want to call Grandma!) Not the kindest sentiment, maybe, but a spontaneous expression of her feelings in Czech!

Popular set phrases include:

Já to umím sama! / I can do it myself
Teta, já chci pití! / (to teacher) I want a drink
Dej mi to! / Give me that
Koukej! / Look
Vidis! / See?
To nejde! / It won't work, I can't do it

Several of those are marked, as the Slovak complains to me bitterly, by a distinct Prague accent. Last week she talked about a "pejsek" (instead of a havo!). Or today at school, as she was getting herself dressed to go, I said, "Vidíš, jak to umíš sama" (See, you can do it yourself!) and K replied, "Ale ne-umíííím!" So perfectly Pragueish! I think it's adorable - and inevitable - and of course having learned the language here I speak Pragueish Czech, too. But the Slovak, as an Easterner, is finding that he's a little less reconciled to little Czech-speaking children than he once thought. He can handle a pejsek, but I'm pretty sure if K comes home talking about sejr one day, we'll be on the next train to Košice!

Basically this is the flip side of my mixed feelings last year on K's British accent in English. There is something fundamentally jarring about your child speaking to you in a different dialect than the one you use. Like a tiny stranger is living in your house. If we ever (as we hope) move to Slovakia, this won't be the only reason - but it won't be the least important, either.

For now, though, the essential thing is - K can communicate and is learning to talk just like her friends! That's the way things should be.

Holding On...and Preschool Update

I've been trying to think of something to update about, but frankly, we've barely left the house in weeks. Did I mention the bronchitis? Did I mention that when a kid goes on antibiotics, the doctor recommends staying home from school for three weeks? Don't tell anybody, but I'm thinking of making an executive decision and sending her back to school a few days early. All of this, of course, while I'm dealing with my own case of (untreated) bronchitis and morning sickness. Actually, it's been kind of nice not having to get out of the house while I'm not feeling well!

As stimulating as our weeks-long Buffy and Doctor Who marathon has been (good parents let their kids watch sci-fi), I'm afraid the time is coming for K to go back to school. She has tolerated being cooped up at home pretty well, actually, and we haven't really been driving each other as crazy as one might imagine. She still talks about school and her friends there, and I think she'll be thrilled to go back sometime next week.

I never did write in much detail about the new school, but we really like it. She's been attending half-days five days a week since right after New Year's (except the recent time out sick). She was a little nervous to be left, once or twice, but generally was more upset about being picked up than dropped off! In fact, we had to have a serious discussion about NOT SCREAMING WHEN YOUR MOTHER PICKS YOU UP FROM SCHOOL. Once or twice it's amusing, but every day just gets old. The new system is that she gets her favorite afternoon snack only if she makes good decisions at pick-up time. Otherwise it's no pink milk for the rest of the day. Only had to enforce that once and her behavior underwent a magical change. Hah.

Her teachers are very nice and I like their attitude with the children - warm, nurturing, relaxed, reasonable. They seem to consistently speak Czech with K, which I appreciate. She's a new experience for them, since she understands Czech - unlike the other two foreign children there - but doesn't speak it.

"It's amazing - she totally understands everything I say and answers back in English!" one teacher told me. And then one day, after three weeks in school, "She talks now!!" I answered, "I know!!" - I had noticed the previous day a large increase in Czech phrases used at home and wasn't surprised they were showing up at school, too.

Interestingly, K is continuing to use increased amounts of Czech even during this extended period at home. She uses it to the Slovak and me as well as in her imaginary play. It's pretty cute. The other day I actually noticed that K was attempting to have a conversation with the Slovak ENTIRELY USING SLOVAK (/Czech). It was hard to tell because she got stuck pretty quickly, not knowing how to complete her sentence - but she was trying, instead of filling in with English. She also chewed me out for telling her Ľubím ťa instead of I love you. First time she's ever cared which language someone speaks to her.

Generally I feel like other than getting sick from exposure to germy kids, which can't really be helped, K is really thriving in her new school. She loves her teachers and has a best friend. The kids and teachers like her - every time I ask how her day was (or similar), the teachers say how involved and active in class K is. She draws and paints and comes home singing new songs.

And she's really looking forward to being a big sister...

New Preschool

Today was K's last day at her current preschool. She'll start at the new one January 2, I think.

One point I forgot to mention in my first post on this topic is that despite the rigid attitude and possibly exaggerated expectations as described, they actually seemed really pleased with K whenever I talked to the teacher or principal. Even at the parent-teacher conference where we discussed the evaluation of K as a "beginner" in skills I know she masters well, we finished that topic and then the teacher talked about how great K is and how lovely she is during ellipse time and how well she's acclimating into preschool. So maybe they did think she's on track for her age, after all. No telling.

I don't think it was a total mistake to put K there, and I think the experience was probably helpful for her. Even if the teachers rarely spoke Czech to her, she had the opportunity to spend time with Czech-speaking children, so I think she's fully on board with the idea that some people speak one language and some speak the other - an improvement on her previous belief that actually, everybody understands both languages if they would just stop being STUBBORN. I think this school has served its purpose, which was as an interim measure, a halfway house between fully English school (and society) and fully Czech school.

But! All of that is behind us now. On to new things: Czech preschool.

It's still private, because our neighborhood preschool still doesn't have any spots available, but it's less expensive than the current one and much closer - three bus stops from home. Actually, it's 30% cheaper for five half-days a week than the other one is for three half-days a week. Taking into consideration the more reasonable cost, my steadily increasing workload (yay! and...whoa) and the fact that I don't have any supplementary activities for non-school days* like I did in England (no playgroups or other places to go to be around other kids), we decided to go ahead and increase her school days from three to five mornings per week.

It will be good for me to have more time alone to dedicate to work while K is out, and it'll be good for K to have more time with teachers and children who speak Czech. The mommy in me feels like K is still such a baby to be in school so much, but I also recognize that it's not good for us to spend all day home alone. The good things is the teachers at the new school seem really flexible and open to adjusting the number of days, so if we go for a few weeks and I feel like it's too much then I can just ask to cut back.

We've visited the new school twice now. First for a short visit so I could look around and ask some questions. My main impression was that it was nice but seemed disorganized, which I thought might be due to the time of day (half-day pickup, some kids downstairs waiting for parents, other kids upstairs napping). Then we visited again last week for about 2 1/2 hours so that K could experience part of a regular school day. I stayed in the room at first, but as she got more comfortable she told me that I could go and wait in the other room, oh and could I please not sing along with the songs the class was singing? Thanks Mom for not humiliating me in front of my new friends. I figured that was a good sign.

My second impression was that the school does seem nice and a little disorganized. But for me, "nice" outweighs "disorganized", provided they don't actually lose my daughter while I'm gone. And if it comes down to it, I prefer disorganized (but warm and relaxed) to strict and rigid (but organized). It's their first year in business, so things are still fluctuating somewhat, as the reality slowly comes into line with the vision. Some things mentioned on their website, for example, aren't fully implemented yet. Most of the children are K's age, both older and younger (i.e., 2.5 to 3.5) with just a couple of older children (4-5).

K REALLY enjoyed the visit and kept herself busy in the home corner and playing with the kids. She announced before we left that she will go to THIS school now, thank you, and doesn't intend to go to the other one again. She didn't comment on or seem phased by the fact that it was all in Czech. She definitely understands Czech better now than she used to.

I did ask if the teachers all understand English, and they do, which is reassuring in the sense that if K tells her teacher something important in English, she'll get more than a blank stare. They said they'll just speak to her in Czech, though, especially since they know she understands Czech. That's what I'd prefer, anyway. We'll see how it ends up working in practice, I guess. There are two other foreign children in the school (Russian and Ukrainian, I think), who started in September not understanding a word of Czech. Apparently it was rough at first but now they are much more comfortable and understand what is said to them, even though they don't speak much.

All in all I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm not expecting it to be perfect, but I think this school will be a better fit than the last. Anyone who's met us knows us we are definitely on the "warm, relaxed and disorganized" side of the fence!


* Especially now in the Arctic Winter of 2010-2011. When it was warm we could go to the zoo or park or castle, etc., but these days, if we don't absolutely have to go outside, we don't. It is COLD out there! And hard to walk on non-cleaned sidewalks.