A New School

This past week was the first week of school for the boys. We've found it to be quite similar to pre-school in the states with a few exceptions. For one they are fed breakfast and lunch everyday and this is included in the tuition which is about $70 per month/ per child. The major difference in preparing for school here was the supplies----you must provide everything even down to the toilet paper your child/ children will use during the year. However these supplies are put in the community pile to be used at the teacher's discretion. Their teacher speaks absolutely no English, after the first day we asked her (through a translator) if the boys' were able to comprehend and follow instructions and she gave an emphatic "yes." I asked the boys the same question and they told me "we understand our teacher dad--but we just can't say what she says." It seems like their comprehension of the Polish language has come along way in the three months we've been here.

They've been begging us for a guinea pig (those of you who know our track record with pets are probably cringing) so we bought them banks and have begun to give them "jobs" so they can earn money towards a guinea pig. After the first day of school Ginger was asking them about the names of some of their classmates and they told us that "we play with our friends but we don't know their names." So as you see in the video we made a deal with them that if they could tell us a new friend's name at school that we would put some more money in their banks. They came running out of the room on the second day and said "dad, we call our teacher "Pani" and one of our friend's is named "Emilka." It's always hard to send your babies to school and it was especially tough for us this time knowing that they'd have this language hurdle to cross as well but it's thrilling to watch them work together and to see them conquer this hurdle one day at a time.