Halloween

The kids have really been looking forward to Halloween this year, because there is a big party at school and they get to go trick or treating.  As the Spanish do not do trick or treating, the American school organizes trick or treating around the vicinity of the school.  About 20 houses participate.  We always participate because we live right behind the school.   I also volunteered again this year to help out with the Halloween activities at school.

Ciara was very excited to be a "goth girl" for Halloween, because she does really like vampire stories.  Rylan and Cole were Minecraft characters.  Rylan was a Creeper, and he painted his costume pretty much on his own and Cole was Steve and he also helped to paint his costume.   Nathan didn't have to wear a costume to school.

I made my costume this year from an idea I saw on Pinterest.  Of course I thought that it was a pretty clever costume, but probably less than 10% of the people who saw me knew what I was supposed to be.  I got everything from a sheep wearing a parachute, to a snowman, a Ninja Turtle and even a bumble bee.  I will post the picture and you can decide what you think my costume was.

goth girl

Minecraft Steve and Creeper

Tell me that it's not obvious what I am supposed to be.

The Next Door Neighbour

Here is an update on Ciara's schooling.  So far she has not been upset about going to school every day. I spoke to her teacher and she says that Ciara is doing fine.  Once she got really frustrated with her math homework, but other than that, she has been doing her homework without any problems.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that Ciara all of a sudden started playing with our next door neighbour.  Since that day, they have been talking to each other almost every day.  Now they have started writing notes to each other as well and putting them in the mailbox.  I am very happy that Ciara has found someone she really enjoys being with and vice versa.  Elena is only in grade 3, but I think that it is easier for Ciara to associate with girls younger than she is because they have the same interests.  It's like Ciara finally has the little sister that she always wanted :)

Here is a link to a funny Halloween video I made today:

http://www.storybots.com/halloween/view/hTPRcEe1jA

Getting a Spanish Driver's Licence

Since I have expanded the scope of this blog, I can write about some interesting things we did in the past.  Back in February, I took the preparation course for the written portion of the Spanish driver's licence exam.  Even though I have been driving for over 24 years, anyone from Canada or the US (as well as most other countries outside of the EU) have to take the exam to get a Spanish licence.

I didn't think that it would be a big deal because you can take the written test in English.  We were warned after we arrived in  Barcelona that the written test was not so straightforward, and they were right.  So after 3 weekends of classes and over 4 weeks of studying, I took the written exam and passed, thank goodness!  I was also able to pass the driving portion of the exam as well a month later.  The whole process took almost 3 months and over 800€ (about $1130 CND).

Studying for the written test involved taking a series of practice exams with questions that could appear on the test.  The problem is that a certain percentage, like say 30% of the questions make no sense, so you have to just try to memorize the correct answer.  There are only 30 multiple choice questions on the test, but we had to do over 80 practice tests in order to be sure that we had seen all the possible questions that might be on the exam.  This meant doing hours and hours of practice exams.

Here are a few examples of exam questions, and you will see why you need a little more than common sense to pass the exam.

This is one of the best examples of strangely-worded questions.  I don't know how many times I have read this, and I still have no idea what it means. 

The exam was full of useful information.  The correct answer is in green. 

 

More useful information, for the next time I plan to drive a cycle convoy vehicle on a road with a hard shoulder fit to traffic.

Now I know that dawn and early afternoon are favourable to drowsiness.

At least now I know how to treat older drivers dealing with complex driving situations because before I used to regard them as children.

You'd better slow down, because bursting out fatigue sounds painful.

I see an age discrimination lawsuit here!

I don't know about you, but I'm going to give priority to the tram, even if I have the right of way.

Transporting Cupcakes

Yesterday, Ciara made cupcakes to take to school today to celebrate her birthday.  Since she has 17 kids in her class including herself, and 1 teacher, we needed to pack up 18 frosted cupcakes without ruining the frosting.  I don't own one of those fancy cupcake holder containers, which is maybe why my kids have never taken cupcakes to school before.  So I have this covered tray that would fit 18 cupcakes perfectly, but I would need to stack some on top of each other.  I realized that I could use Lego to make a platform for the second layer of cupcakes.  My husband and kids thought I was crazy.  I thought that it was pretty ingenious.  See pictures below:

A fine piece of engineering

So today, everyone in Ciara's class got to enjoy a cupcake with frosting intact!  I wonder if I should send this picture into the Lego magazine? 

New Toys

Ciara loves to rollerblade.  When we still lived in Canada she received an old pair of rollerblades from a  family friend.  She used them until the wheels were no longer round, they were more like squares.  Then she started using my rollerblades.  Nathan used to wear my rollerblades and now he uses Bob's rollerblades.  Needless to say both Bob and I may never rollerblade again.  Ciara used my blades every day.  The latches broke, so I used duct tape (my best friend) to attach velcro straps so that she could continue to wear them.  Last week, I noticed that the entire outer casing of the rollerblades was falling off.

On Saturday I told Ciara that we would have to throw them away, but that I would buy her a new pair for her birthday.  Oddly enough, she protested.  She did not want to get rid of my old rollerblades.  Fortunately, the German school, which is just down the street from us, was having its semi-annual yard sale.  It's a huge affair and so I convinced Ciara to come with me to check it out.  Cole also came because he needed a scooter.  He destroyed our old scooter a few weeks ago.  Seems like our kids are really rough on recreational equipment.  We were very lucky to grab a pair of rollerblades for Ciara in great condition for 5€.  We found an old beat-up scooter for Cole for 2€!

It was a beautiful day and I had promised Nathan awhile back that we could go to the beach.   We headed towards Castelldefels, which is about 20min away.  On the way we stopped at Decathlon because they were having a sale on all their summer stuff.   The kids ran in to look at the skateboards.  Ciara decided to use the birthday money she got from her aunt to buy a penny board, which is a small sturdy plastic skateboard.  I assume that she had some pressure from Nathan, who has been interested in getting a penny board for some time now.

At Castelldefels there is a very long concrete walkway that goes along the beach.  The kids got to try out all their new toys: the rollerblades, the scooter, and the penny board.  I had never seen a penny board before Saturday.  It was actually much more fun and easy to use than I expected.  It feels safer than a skateboard.  So there you go, another thing that we have tried in Barcelona!

Ciara on the new penny board

Ciara's Birthday

Today was a PD day, so no school for our kids.  It was also Ciara's birthday.  To celebrate we invited a few friends to have lunch at Ciara's favourite Japanese restaurant in Barcelona.  Here's a link to the review I wrote on yelp.com:  http://www.yelp.com/biz/chi-ei-barcelona?hrid=AZvypDe5zdlZhV_2IVeFUw#src:self.  It's the cheapest sushi in town!

After stuffing ourselves, we headed to Parc de Joan Miró to burn off a few calories.  It was a beautiful day, an unbelievable 26 degrees and it's almost November.

Ciara's Second Day of School

All 4 kids headed out the door this morning for school and I wouldn't see them again until 4:05pm.  So now I was faced with 7 hours of unscheduled time.   I began my first free day by wasting time on the Internet.  It's amazing how much interesting stuff you can find, when you aren't looking for anything in particular.  My plan was to head out shortly after the kids went to school to do some grocery shopping, but I actually ended up leaving at around 11:30am.  Since I was not on a schedule, I decided to head to Alcampo (kind of like a Walmart Supercentre) which is part of a huge shopping complex in Sant Boi.   There is also a Decathlon (my favourite sporting goods store) in the complex.  So between Decathlon and Alcampo, I took my time to shop carefully and didn't get home until 2:45pm.  When I was homeschooling I would try to get to the store, shop, and get home within an hour.

So ironically even though I have way more time, I'm not necessarily getting more done.  I am going to have to discipline myself and try to stick to some kind of schedule because there is lots of stuff I need to do.

Ciara was fine when she got home from school.  She told me briefly about her day, and it was all pretty positive.  Ciara has judo every Tuesday and Thursday at 6:30pm, Nathan does his judo class right after at 7:30pm.  Ciara never complains about doing judo, but she doesn't seem to interact much with the other kids in the class.  I challenged her last week to at least say good-bye to her classmates. When I picked up Ciara after her class today, she told me that she said "Adios" to all the girls and smiled before leaving.   It's just a small thing, but it's a big improvement :)

I'm still trying to figure out what will be the purpose of my blog because I no longer have to track what we are doing for homeschooling.  I guess I can just blog about our day to day life in Barcelona, but I definitely won't blog daily, once a week should be enough.  Stay tuned!

Ciara's First Day Back in School

This morning everyone got up fairly early, so I decided since it was Ciara's first day back at school I would make a special breakfast.  I make big breakfasts for the kids quite often, mostly because I don't like making bag lunches.  I figure if they get a nice big breakfast, it won't matter so much what they take for lunch.  Ciara wanted pancakes, so I made pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries and bacon on the side.

The boys left for school together and I walked Ciara to the front of the school. Ciara seemed pretty calm.  We waited outside the elementary school until all the other kids had gone inside, then we made our way to the reception desk.  The secretary took Ciara to her new class.  Ciara looked a little nervous, and I could tell just by the way that she interacted with the secretary that she was back into her just-smile-and-say-nothing-mode.  Ironically her first period back at school was an assembly with guest speaker Bob Love, former NBA star.  I learned that Bob Love had a terrible stuttering problem and could not even put two words together, but later overcame his disability and became a great public speaker.  Ciara loved this presentation.

It felt really strange to be at home all by myself after dropping Ciara off at school.  I realized that it was probably my first time alone in the house since the kids finished school last June.  I only had until 12:50pm, then I would need to pick Ciara up from school as Wednesdays are half day school, half day homeschool.  I decided that now is the time to start reorganizing my blog.  I probably should have used the time to reorganize the house, which has not had a good cleaning in many weeks, but revamping the blog is so much more interesting.  I added 2 new pages!

When I picked Ciara up at 12:50, I got to meet her teacher Miss Natalie for the first time.  She seems really nice and gentle, I think that Ciara felt at ease with her right away.  Ciara didn't have too much to say about her first half day of school.  I kept asking questions about the kids in the class, but she just said that they were okay.  Ciara is really good at giving vague answers.

Right after a quick lunch Arantxa came to give Ciara her Spanish lesson.  Ciara will have Spanish in school too, but I know that she will learn a lot faster working one on one with Arantxa.   Normally Ciara will do Discovery with Verina Monday and Wednesday afternoons, but today Verina was sick, so we took the opportunity to read some of the book they are readying in class.  The book is "Hatchet" by Gary Paulson.  Nathan read it last year and loved it.

We'll see how Ciara fares tomorrow, it will be her first full day back at school.

Week 6, Tuesday

This morning we were greeted by the noise of some kind of street work in our complex.  The smell that accompanied the noise told me that someone was working on the sewers.   It's something that we have kind of gotten used to over the past year.  The smell of raw sewage permeates the air in several areas around the city and once in a while in our neighbourhood as well.  After the boys left for school, I decided that it would be best for Ciara and I to go out for awhile.

I thought about all the interesting outings that Ciara and I didn't get the chance to do.  Over the past month I was so concerned about keeping up with the curriculum that I forgot to plan any real field trips.  It's a shame, as Ciara goes back to school tomorrow, it will be more difficult to do any outings together.   Our outing this morning consisted of going to the gas station and then we made a run to Lidl, which is a grocery store that sells a very eclectic selection of food item.  The purpose of our trip was to buy pretzel buns (the only grocery store I know that sells them), but we always need something else and so we ended up with a basket full of groceries.

By the time we got home, the smell of sewage was gone, yippee!! We worked on multiplying and dividing fractions, had a lesson on how to fix run-on sentences and coma splices, made brownies and then learned about cells.  While I was looking for some resources to use for our writing class, I came across this website: http://www.time4writing.com/free-writing-resources/.  There are a whole bunch of free mini-lessons on writing that you can use to supplement your writing curriculum.

Tonight after Ciara and I read together, we talked a bit about going back to school.   She has not shown any apprehension or nervousness since I started telling her that it would be a probability.  Tonight for the first time, she told me that she didn't want to go back to school.  I told her that it would be much easier this time as she will be going back into grade 5 and she will already know pretty much everything.   She seemed okay with that and went to bed.

I think tomorrow I will have to change the title of this blog as "Homeschooling in Barcelona" seems a bit of a misnomer now.

Week 6, Monday

I sent the boys off to school this morning and although Ciara was up at the same time as the boys, she was clearly not ready to start working.  We did some of her discovery homework and then that was it until Arantxa came to do her Spanish class at 10:30.  Fortunately, Arantxa is really good at keeping Ciara motivated and speaking Spanish.  After lunch we did math.  Along with our daily lesson, Ciara also goes on Math Magician and does a few challenges.  I  will share the link, it's a free resource that is great for all ages and helps to improve your mental math skills http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/mathmagician/cathymath.html.

Another activity that Ciara has never really shown interest in, is board games and card games.  All the boys love playing any kind of game, but in the past whenever we played a game together as a family, Ciara would usually not want to participate.  Lately though, she has been asking to play cards or other games.  Today we played "Alarm" which is a more challenging type of memory game.  Last week we played "Quiddler" which is a great game for improving vocabulary, spelling and math skills too.

Quick update on our pansies, we have been watering them daily since we planted them 2 weeks ago.  Here is what they look like now:

The seeds planted outside

The seeds planted indoors

Week 7, Sunday

Well, I don't usually blog on a Sunday, but I forgot to blog last Friday.  Ciara had her first swimming lesson on Friday.  She was completely fine, no apprehension whatsoever.  I find that lately, Ciara is the most adventurous of all the kids.  She wants to be out all the time!  It's such a difference from last year.

I just want to mention something really neat that happened today.  Our next door neighbours have a daughter named Elena who is in grade 3 at the American School.  The daughter is extremely friendly and very bright, I think she speaks 5 languages.  For the past year, Ciara has shown no interest in Elena whatsoever.  Elena on the other hand always says hi to our children and is excited to see them.

This afternoon, out of the blue, Ciara says she is going over to the neighbour's house.  I wondered what neighbour?  Well, she was off to Elena's house.  Then 15 minutes later, Elena was over at our house.  Much to my horror, Ciara took Elena to her really messy room and proceeded to show her around the entire house.  I guess the tour of the house didn't scare her off because they were talking about having a sleepover next.

This was just a short encounter with the girl who lives next door, but again it shows the progress that Ciara has made in the last month.  A few months ago, she would never have said hi to Elena, she would have tried to avoid her.  Now she is already planning on inviting her to her birthday party (which we have not planned yet).  I am cautiously optimistic that Ciara will continue to be friendly and social when she starts school next week.

Finally, I just want to mention that Ciara and I finished another book on Friday.  It's called "Dogs don't Tell Jokes" by Louis Sachar.  Again, we both really enjoyed this book about a boy in grade 7 who tells jokes all the time.   We read this book, because during the summer we read "There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom" which was also written by Louis Sachar.  Ciara's grade 5 teacher last year gave her the book to read over the summer.  We enjoyed that book so much that we wanted to read another book by the same author.   So we highly recommend both books again for anyone grade 5 and up.

Week 6, Thursday

Ciara woke up with the boys this morning.  It was nice to get started at our normal time because I had a meeting with the elementary school principle at 10:30.  We were meeting to discuss Ciara's return to school next week.  The principle, Johanna Cena, is very understanding.  I think that she really gets Ciara's situation, but she also has to comply with whatever conditions the director has set.

Ciara will be going back into grade 5, but with a new teacher, Ms Natalie.  The class size is a bit smaller, currently 17 kids and Johanna mentioned that about half of the kids are new to the school this year.   It will be good for Ciara to start with a new teacher and new students.  Hopefully she will feel less embarrassed because very few students will know who she is.   We also discussed a reduced schedule and settled on Ciara coming home Mondays and Wednesdays at 1:35, just before lunch.  This way, she can continue to do Discovery with Verina every Monday and Wednesday afternoon.

Hopefully the reduced schedule will also help Ciara to not get overwhelmed when she goes back to school.   In any case, Johanna decided that it would be better for Ciara to start on Wednesday the 22nd of Oct. instead of the Monday.  This way, her first day back to school will be a half day, Thursday will be a full day, and then on Friday the 24th there is no school (it's a staff development day and also Ciara's birthday, how nice!)  Ciara's start date has changed at least 3 times already, we'll see if this new date actually sticks.

Week 6, Wednesday

One of the things that I really appreciate about homeschooling is the flexibility to change things when needed.  Last night, Ciara just couldn't fall asleep.  She has had this problem before.  I'm not sure what causes it.  Unfortunately, when Bob and I are both tired and it's the middle of the night we are not so understanding.  I really didn't know what I could do for her.

This morning, when the boys got up and got ready for school, Ciara didn't budge.  I just let her be, until the boys left for school.  Then I told her that it was time to get up and get moving.  Ciara was in a horrible mood, as can be expected from a ten year old who stays up past midnight.  I decided to let her be, just a little bit longer.  Finally at 10am she got out of bed.  Nathan had forgotten his lunch again, so I told Ciara to eat breakfast while I ran Nathan's lunch up to the school.  When I got back, we were finally ready to start working.

So this is what I noticed today, even though we got off to a late start, we were able to do everything that we needed to.  We did math before Arantxa came at 11 for Ciara's Spanish class.  After lunch we did mental math, Ciara read a book online and then we learned about the Olympic games in Ancient Greece.  I had no idea that they used to run the races naked!

Ciara went to bed at a normal time tonight, so let's hope that we'll be back on track tomorrow.

Week 6, Tuesday

This morning I went to the school and picked up the all-important document that proves Ciara is registered in school full-time here in Spain.   Tomorrow, Bob will hand it over to Ernst & Young and then hopefully we won't have to deal with residency issue again for at least another year.  I have heard that many people get their residency permits renewed for 2 years after they have lived in Spain for one year.  I hope this will be the case with us, so that we don't have to go through this again next year.

Today Ciara was in a good mood and we were able to get quite a bit done.  We got rhythmic writing and Discovery homework done without a problem  For math we worked on probability.  We did a short lesson on figurative writing and for science we learned about germs.  Ciara had her Discovery session at 3pm as usual and she was more attentive and cooperative than I have seen her in a long time.

Last week we started a new program in our family based on the book "Have you Filled a Bucket Today?" by Carol McCloud.  I wanted the kids to be more aware of the way they treat others.  In the book, it says that we all carry imaginary buckets which can be filled with all the good feelings we have about ourselves. We can fill someone else's bucket by saying or doing kind things.  We can also be a bucket dipper when we are rude, inconsiderate or angry towards others.  So each member of the family has their own bucket (really a plastic cup) on the mantel and whenever someone does something nice for someone else, they get to put a star in that person's bucket and also in their own.  The opposite also happens if they do something to hurt someone else, they take a star from that person and they also lose a star.  At the end of the week, we count up the stars and then they get one piece of candy for each star they collected.

I like to ask the kids at the end of the day "Have you filled a bucket today?" So far the bucket program is working well and it's an easy way to recognize and encourage small acts of kindness.

Our buckets

Week 6, Monday

We made it to week 6!  We also had an excellent weekend.  We celebrated Cole's 6th birthday on Saturday morning.  We had a joint birthday party with one of his classmates.  The party was great, because we had great weather and the kids all had fun.  The best part of the party for me, was Ciara.   Last year for Cole's birthday, we did a similar party in a park, but last year Ciara did not want to go to the party.  We couldn't let her stay home on her own, so let's just say that it got pretty ugly.  I still remember how miserable she was that day and she let everyone know.  This is why I was so pleasantly surprised when Ciara willingly came to the party and participated happily the whole time.

Lately Ciara and Cole have been getting along better and better.  I don't think that Cole has changed at all, but Ciara's attitude towards Cole has improved significantly.  It's a huge change from just a few months ago.   They actually play together now.

On Sunday we witnessed more evidence of Ciara's change in attitude.  Bob met a man visiting from the US at church on Sunday and invited him over after church to have dinner with us and the missionaries.  As there was time before dinner, Bob suggested to our guest that they walk up to the top of Coserolla to get a view of the city.  He asked the boys if they wanted to go with them.  Nathan did of course, but Rylan and Cole declined, and the strange thing was, Ciara wanted to go with them too.  It doesn't seem like such a strange thing, but it's actually a huge improvement from just a few months ago.  Before when we would ask Ciara to go for a walk or even to the park, she would refuse to go and then we would either have to force her out of her room or someone would have to stay behind to be with her.

So this morning I was feeling pretty good about our homeschooling experience, knowing the benefit it has had on Ciara already.  Well, today wasn't the easiest day.  Ciara has decided that she doesn't want to do rhythmic writing anymore.  I told her that we didn't have to do it first thing in the morning like usual.  I figured that the best thing to do was keep things positive so that we could get other things done instead of wasting time arguing about it.  I think that this was the right approach because in the afternoon after we went for a bike ride and she was in a good mood, I was able to slip in rhythmic writing.  "Keep things positive" is going to be my new motto.

Today we learned a little bit about Albert Einstein and also why leaves change colour in the Fall.  It was fascinating.

Week 5, Friday

This morning after the boys got off to school, Ciara and I got right into gardening.  We took our pansy seeds that we had soaked in water for 3 days and planted them in egg cartons and a few in an empty planter box off our back terrace.  I honestly haven't planted anything in years.  I am glad that Ciara has shown interest in gardening as this may help me to take care of what few plants we have here.  One of the nice things about living in Barcelona is the fact that we can garden almost all year.  I'm sure that we planted over two hundred pansy seeds, so let's hope we get at least a few flowers.

After we finished our gardening, Ciara wanted to learn more about Marie Curie.  I remember that she read a book about Marie Curie at my parent's place when we visited them in Vancouver this past summer.  Ciara and I watched a short video about her life, you can see it here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xx3tw5_marie-curie-biography_lifestyle.  I have to admit that I was wiping back tears at the end of the video.  I am glad that Ciara is interested in studying about such a great woman.  I am hoping that it will inspire her to achieve great things in her life.  Ciara took notes and then later made her own short movie about Marie Curie using Flipnote Studio on her DS. 

I received an e-mail from the school director this morning confirming that Ciara will be attending 5th grade and will be starting on Monday Oct. 20th.  So that means we have at least one more full week of homeschooling, yeah!

This afternoon for our cooking class, Ciara finally perfected the rainbow cake.  I hope that now we can move on to other recipes. 

For social studies this afternoon, Ciara wanted to take a break from Ancient Greece, so I let her choose what topic to study.  She chose the Black Plague and the history of chocolate.  Two very different topics, but both interesting in their own way.

Growing pansies

Maybe we'll get hundreds of pansies

Ciara watering the plants

Check out the awesome rainbow cake!

Cole enjoying some cake

Week 5, Thursday

All the boys were healthy enough today to go to school, so it was a relatively calm day.  Ciara and I started a new unit in math on transforming fractions into decimals and vice versa.  I was worried that this unit would be challenging for her, but she grasped the concepts really quickly and we sailed through our lesson without any problems :)

Arantxa came over for Ciara's Spanish lesson and I was able to go to my Spanish class.  This school year I am continuing to learn Spanish with a group of mother's from the American School.  We do the class in the club room in La Mallola where we live, so it's really convenient for me.  I really enjoy this class because it is a small group and we get to discuss literature, culture as well as grammar.  It gives me a nice break from homeschooling as well.

I am realizing that another great benefit of homeschooling is how much I am learning.  Last year I was focussed on learning Spanish and how to live in Spain.  This year, I am learning so much more because of Ciara.  It's kind of like I get to be back in school.  It's a lot of work, but I will really miss this when Ciara goes back to school next week.

This week has been so busy with homeschooling, getting Ciara enrolled in school, so many errands, taking care of sick children, preparing for Cole's birthday party and chauffeuring kids back and forth from their after school activities.  Thank goodness for Nathan, who is a huge help to me and has done his fair share of child-minding this week.  I can't wait for Bob to get back tomorrow.

Week 5, Wednesday

Today was a pretty hectic day again.  It started when Nathan forgot his lunch, so I ran to the school to bring it to him.  Got back home and decided to let Ciara determine what class we would do first.  I often have to change the schedule because of different things that come up during the day, so this time I thought it might work better to let Ciara make some decisions about our daily schedule.

She decided she would like to do Library first, which was great because it gave me time to hang up the laundry and eat breakfast.  Next we moved on to math.  While we were practicing our mental math, the phone rang, and it was the school.  Rylan was sick and needed to come home.  So I ran off to the school again to pick up Rylan who was complaining of a stomach ache.  He had been complaining that his stomach hurt this morning before school, but I told him that it would pass.

Now with Rylan home, this made things a little more complicated.  I had a meeting with the school Director at 2pm and I couldn't leave Ciara home with Rylan being sick, so I had to call Arantxa to come and watch them.   Fortunately Arantxa was able to come over and two minutes before I left for my meeting, Rylan threw-up on the floor.  So I quickly cleaned up the vomit, ran to the school and arrived only a few minutes late for my meeting with the Director.

The consultants want the documents 2 weeks ago and so I basically told the Director that we were prepared to enrol Ciara immediately and then we could sort out her schedule later.  I told him that I preferred Ciara stay in 5th grade.  I just could not see her going to middle-school.  I don't think that she is ready for it emotionally and I think that she would struggle a lot academically too.  The Director agreed that it would probably be best due to the fact that 6th grade is full with 23 or 24 students per class and 5th grade has 17 to 18 students per class.  Ciara also has a late birthday and in many parts of the US, she would have started a year later anyways.   He also agreed that it should be no problem if she left early a couple of days a week, so that is something.

After my meeting I ran back home.  Rylan was still feeling bad, but I was happy that Ciara had done her writing work like I had asked her before I left.

At 4pm I ran back to the school to meet up with Fareeda.  She came over so that we could make some piñatas.  Cole and her son Alexander are having their birthday party together on Saturday.   With the piñatas made and put out to dry, I went back to the school.  This time I had to pick up Cole who was at soccer practice.   So in all, I was at the school 5 times today!  It's a wonder anything gets done at all during the day!

Week 5, Tuesday

The whole residency renewal issue is such a bummer.   We are pretty sure that BASF will not allow us to stay in Spain if one of our children is undocumented, although quite a few people have suggested to me that it wouldn't be that big a deal.  In any case, as our time is running out and Bob is being pressured to come up with the school documents, we have to get Ciara registered as soon as possible.   Tomorrow afternoon I get to meet with the school director again to arrange for Ciara to be admitted into the school.

In the meantime, homeschooling must go on!  Today we did a little bit of geometry and learned how to calculate the volume of a prism.  As part of our math class we have started using BrainPop, which is a great website for kids (and adults) of all ages.  We especially like the math games.  

Ciara worked on her story that she is writing about an orphan girl named Katy who is adopted by monsters.  The past few weeks, we have been working on the plot, characters and setting.  Today she wrote the first page, and it was pretty entertaining.  Speaking about stories, I forgot to mention that Ciara and I just finished "Wonder" by R.J. Palacio.  We read together every night after I put the younger boys to bed.  We laughed, we cried and we were uplifted by this story of a boy who was born very different. We thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it for anyone grade 5 and up.

Here are a few pictures of other things we have been up to recently:

Some drawings for the board game Ciara is making

Here are the game tokens all painted

Ciara made a giant cookie

And an apple pie

Saturday walking along Puerto de Barcelona

The kids love to climb on the lions that stand at the foot of the Christopher Columbus Monument

Ciara decided to make postcards of her Littlest Pet Shops

Pretty cute eh?

Since we started homeschooling Ciara has been interested in gardening, so we are going to plant some pansies.  First we need to soak the seeds in water for 3 days. 

Week 5, Monday

Well, it looks as though my homeschooling experience may come to an end after only 5 weeks.   On Friday I was feeling pretty optimistic about Ciara doing homeschool part-time and regular school part-time.  This afternoon I got an e-mail from the school director letting me know that the lawyers for the school said that it was against the law and Ciara would have to be at school full-time.

So today was kind of a hectic day.  Ciara did her best to complete all of her studies.  I feel so bad for what she has had to go through: homeschooling, no homeschooling, part-time schooling, full-time schooling, all the uncertainty, me constantly making phone calls, writing e-mails and going to meetings.   I wanted to homeschool, to give Ciara a sense of security.  I wanted her to feel comfortable and at ease while she was learning.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to provide such an environment during these past 4 weeks.

Still, I am happy that we tried, and I am happy with what Ciara has accomplished and especially how she has become a little kinder, a little friendlier, a little happier :)

We will see what the future holds...

Week 4, Thursday

Today, I'm feeling like something is not working.  Ciara has been making a lot of progress on the social and emotional front, but within the last couple of days I find that she is slipping back into her old ways: a lot of negativity, stubborness and anger.  I really don't know what it is and I have a feeling that Ciara doesn't know what is bothering her either.

Well, when I started homeschooling, I knew that it wouldn't be easy.  Every day won't be wonderful.  I need to take each day in strides, and also remember that I have 3 other children and a husband.  Because I spend so much time with Ciara each day, it is very easy for me to be affected by her mood.  I can't let it bother me so much.

I think that Ciara needs some close friends.  That's what she has been missing since we moved to Spain.  She has one friend at church, but there is a communication barrier which makes it difficult to really share her feelings.  She has had such a hard time making friends at school.  She wasn't able to find anyone who was interested in the same things she was and she was intimidated by large groups of kids.  Sadly, even her teacher and school counsellor could not think of anyone in her class last year that would've been a good fit for her.  I hope that going back to school part-time in grade 5 will be good for Ciara.  As she will be doing the most difficult subjects at home, maybe school will be a less intimidating environment and she will feel more comfortable socializing.  Let's hope so :)

Week 4, Wednesday (thoughts on quiet children)

For a long time I've been meaning to write something about a book that I read over the summer.  It's called "Quiet" and it is written by Susan Cain.  Another parent who has children at the American School of Barcelona lent me the book as we were talking about our children and their difficulties with school.  The subtitle of the book says: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking.

At first glance, I figured that the book would relate more to Nathan (my eldest son) who has always been extremely quiet.  In fact his middle name is Kiyoshi, which in Japanese mean quiet or peaceful child.   But after just a couple of pages, I realized that this book was really about Ciara.  In fact I had never thought of Ciara as an introvert, but she displays pretty much all the characteristics.  After reading this book I really felt as though I had misdiagnosed Ciara's behaviour all these years.

The first part that really caught my attention was the study by Jerome Kagan, a developmental psychologist, who studied 500 four month old babies to see how they reacted to new experiences.  Kagan found that infants who reacted strongly to new sights, sounds and smells had a good chance of becoming future introverts.  Anyone who knew Ciara when she was a baby, knew that she was a highly reactive baby.  We didn't know why, but everything used to upset her.  At the time, we could only define it as colic, that mysterious, unexplainable constant crying.  We used to have to wrap her up as tight as we could, put her in pitch darkness and make sure that there was absolutely no outside noise in order for her to sleep.

According to Jay Belsky, a psychologist and child care expert, the nervous systems of high reactive children are quickly overwhelmed by childhood adversity, but also benefit from a nurturing environment more than other children do.  Kagan found that a quarter of the high-reactive kids he studied suffered from "social anxiety disorder," a disabling form of shyness.

I have never thought of Ciara as shy, because at times she seems bolder than most kids, but it's the crippling social anxiety that makes her seem shy to others.  This is why Ciara has always  seemed like such a paradox to me.   On one hand, she can be very expressive, outgoing, determined and adventurous but when she is in an uncertain or challenging situation, like school, she shuts down and has problems even speaking.

So I highly recommend you read "Quiet" if you are or live with someone who is introverted.  It was really an enlightening book and helped me to realize that homeschool for Ciara really made sense.