Anneka's First Day of Preschool!

Anneka started Russian preschool yesterday! She has been asking for a long time to go to school. (this was before we even talked about school or had even decided we would send her!) I'll do little preschool lessons with her and call it "school", but she says, "No, this is not school. I want to go TO school". A lady from our church told us about this new preschool and it seems like the perfect fit for Anneka. Leif and I checked it out before we took Anneka there, and I stayed with her the first day to check it out even more. And we're all really excited about it!



I took a few pictures, but they were on a setting without flash, and I didn't want to call attention to myself, so they're not the best. This first picture was when the kids had just gotten little lumps of clay to make snowmen. The clay is really hard, so the teacher was showing the kids how to blow into their hands to warm it up and soften it a bit. It probably took 5-10 minutes just to get the clay warm! They have little organized lessons and different teachers- art, P.E., music, storytelling, puppet theatre, dancing, proper Russian diction, and a psychologist comes in (I'm not sure what that part is, but I'll find out soon!). In between the kids have relaxed playtime and a snack time. It's for 3 hours, and we're just going to have Anneka go for 2 days a week (but it's open all 5 days).



So far there are only 6 kids (one wasn't there yesterday), ranging from ages 3-6.
In this little song, the kids danced around the one in the middle and then after the song, the middle child has to do a little dance and then choose someone else to go in the middle.



The head teacher seemed really sensitive to the fact that Anneka doesn't speak Russian and was very encouraging. Here, she was teaching different colors of blocks. When Anneka got home, she started saying "maladietz", which means "good job". She'd heard it enough all morning to know it. =) The teacher thought that Anneka understood a lot. I asked Anneka later if she understood and she didn't, but she was good at faking it! At one point, Anneka and Dasha (the only other girl) were drawing on the chalkboard together. It was during a time that the teacher was teaching the kids a song, so I was curious how she would handle the girls. She looked at me and said, "it's good for them to play together. That's how Anneka will really learn the language". And I think it's true! I was really happy, as often teachers here use shame as a motivator or are really rigid and strict. And I've heard of a lot of preschools that are really academic and the kids sit and work a lot. But this one is fun and varied and encouraging!




Anneka's FAVORITE part of preschool was when the "choreographer" came and taught them to dance to songs. She was super cute, following all of the moves. They had little exercises and then danced through 8 songs. The teacher told me that Anneka is a special little girl. I agree!

Today Anneka was more brave in playing with other kids outside at our neighborhood playground and at a cafe this afternoon. She also spoke in Russian a little to our neighbors. It's like the first day of school helped her to be more brave in other contexts, too! Today is a holiday and tomorrow is our team's day of prayer in the morning so Anneka won't go back until next week. When I told her she seemed disappointed. We prayed a lot about whether we should do any kind of school with Anneka here, and we feel such peace and excitement about this answer! And I'm looking forward to getting to know some of the other parents, too.