School Visit

V and I caught a ride with another expat (that has a car) to the alternative school Friday. We were showed around and hung out all day then met with the director after school. It is Montessori based. The kids sign up for activities each day and the ages are mixed together, teachers volunteer on different days. There are some regular classes (math, grammar) during the week, but much of the time it is self directed. It is also much smaller, around 30 kids. There is a large school ground and the kids build slides and clubhouses and maintain gardens. I think T and M would do very well there, essentially take the pressure off so we can homeschool with the Calvert school curriculum in the afternoons. The director was a bit ambiguous during our meeting. He discussed his theories of personality development and that he did not want to accept new kids to the school, but that T and M speaking English was a plus because they could help teach the other kids English. We gave more background on T, that he was accepted to a Montessori school in the US but it was too expensive for us so he couldn't go and that we homeschooled until both of us had to work full time and had no other choice but to send him to public school. V put together a folder of pictures of T working on various modeling projects, acting in plays (that he helped write) and a working electric motor that he built completely on his own after seeing me put one together, as well as some pictures of M. The director said he wanted us to think about it over the weekend then call back on Monday (today) to see if we were still interested in pursuing it, so we did. The next step is the school is sending someone to observe T and M at the public school on Wednesday, then they will make their final, final decision. In the meantime we are drafting a letter to fax to the school to state our case to the committee.

Over the weekend we went to Eutin and walked around the town for fun, and got some winter clothes for the kids. I also took the kids buckeye hunting. M brought a bag to carry them in. I explained that they were supposed to be good luck and one of my grandmothers carried one in her purse. We got "lost" on the way back and used the buckeyes to find our way (tossing them on the ground and seeing which way they went). We met a british couple that were cleaning their yard at a second home they keep here. They seemed pleased to speak to someone in English and gave us some walnuts to carry back. The buckeyes "found" the way back to our apartment, proving to the kids that they were indeed very lucky. M picked out some to give to people as gifts.