The School Year Has Begun!

     Fall is here, and so is school!  Our sweet Ella is now a kindergartner.  She goes 5 days a week and comes home tired, but she is doing so well!  Already she has homework and has to memorize riddles.  She seems to understand much of what is going on, as she'll tell us what the days' lessons are about.  She has friends, and the other little girls are always sweet to greet her each day.  We're so proud of how well she's transitioning, as it's not easy to do everything in a second language!

Ike likes riding his bike to school

     Ike has a new school, too.  His preschool class from last year was simply too crazy to put him in again (32 screaming two and three year olds and one exasperated teacher).  There's a private preschool less than a block from our home, and they agreed to take him two mornings a week.  He goes for 4.5 hours each time (this includes breakfast and lunch), and it is a long time for a little guy.  One day last week he said he didn't want to go, that he didn't like school.  We all prayed together, and when I went to pick him up, his teacher said he was so happy all day.  He told me, "I got used to it!  I like school now!"  They have little classes like music, drawing, math, and even English.  We are thankful for this opportunity, and it's helping him to better understand Russian. 

     Until Anneka's teachers return from the States, I get to have time homeschooling her.  We had a little back-to-school lunch out together.  She's a hard worker, and a good sport about having Mom as her teacher.  She's also going to a Learning Center for Russian lessons once a week.  This way she can grow in her reading and writing in Russian.

     We try to integrate fun activities into our days.  She loves to paint.  Right now she's working on a past/present/future storyboard with paintings to tell the story.  This picture is one that she made especially for Heidi. 

     We have a book of science experiments you can do with kids.  This one was more science and art combined- structures made from beans and toothpicks.  We had fun as a whole family making them.

     Three days a week, Anneka is in a theatre class.  We originally thought we'd enroll her in an art class, and then she found out about the theatre program, and she REALLY wanted to join!  I was a bit hesitant about it because to me, that seems hard to learn lines in a second language!  But we prayed that God would lead us to just the right thing, and so far this has been wonderful!  There is one other girl who is new to the theatre program who is Anneka's age.  They became fast friends.  There is also another boy their age, as well as 20 or so other kids their age and older who have already been in the program at least a year.  They do all sorts of exercises from playing charades to doing cartwheels, to memorizing poems and practicing reciting them with motions, to impromptu acting out what the teacher whispers into their ears, to acting like animals (and studying more about the animals) to finger exercises to stretching, to mime work, etc, etc.  We're really impressed.  We are thankful for this door that the Lord opened that we didn't even know was an option!

     Ella and Ike love to go and drop Anneka off at her theatre class because there are usually other kids to play with outside.  There's this monument that the kids slide on, as well as a skateboarding ramp that they run around on.  This day we ran into a girl who's Grandma goes to our church (and she sometimes comes, too). 

     One weekend Anneka went with Leif to the village, and Ike and Ella and I had fun with playdough.

     Ike is our buddy while Anneka and I have school.  He likes to join in with as much as possible.
He often prefers to color the water with paint than to put the paint on the paper!

     We go on little field trips as exhibits come to town.  This was at the Tropical Animal Exhibit.  Anneka must have held 4 or 5 huge and scary snakes among other crazy animals and huge lizards that day!

     A butterfly exhibit came to town.   The kids all loved having the butterflies resting on them!  It was so interesting watching them hatching out of their cocoons and the drying their wings before flying and eating for the first time!

Feeding a monkey a cucumber!

     May we always love learning and use what we learn for God's glory!