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.
Showing posts with label Meeting with ASB. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meeting with ASB. Show all posts
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
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!
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!
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Week 4, Tuesday
It was another rainy day. We don't get many rainy days in Spain. We do get some terrific thunder storms though. I don't know why, but the thunder seems way louder here than it was in Canada. Sometimes it sounds like a bomb is exploding right on top of you.
There was rain today, but no thunder storm. All day I was anticipating my meeting with the director and elementary school principle to discuss what Ciara's new schedule will look like. The meeting was at 3pm and so all day Ciara was a little on edge. We had to move around our schedule, so she was having a hard time focusing during her Discovery session this afternoon.
I thought the meeting went well, they proposed a good schedule that would have Ciara attending classes after lunch every day with the 5th grade class. There were a few classes that probably wouldn't make much sense for her to attend on Monday and Tuesday, so I proposed that she come to school Wednesday through Friday afternoons. The Director wasn't sure if this was enough to qualify as attending school at ASB. He is going to check with the school lawyers and will get back to us on Friday.
So it's more waiting and wondering. 4 weeks of researching, inquiring, pleading, negotiating and stressing, just to get a document that says Ciara is registered in school, so that we can renew our residency cards. Bob's company is pressuring us to get the documents ready to be submitted as it could take months to complete the process.
I am just going to try to do the best I can until we know for sure what Ciara will be doing for the rest of the school year. I hate having this unsettling feeling: the fact that we can't comply with the law and we can't not comply with the law.
There was rain today, but no thunder storm. All day I was anticipating my meeting with the director and elementary school principle to discuss what Ciara's new schedule will look like. The meeting was at 3pm and so all day Ciara was a little on edge. We had to move around our schedule, so she was having a hard time focusing during her Discovery session this afternoon.
I thought the meeting went well, they proposed a good schedule that would have Ciara attending classes after lunch every day with the 5th grade class. There were a few classes that probably wouldn't make much sense for her to attend on Monday and Tuesday, so I proposed that she come to school Wednesday through Friday afternoons. The Director wasn't sure if this was enough to qualify as attending school at ASB. He is going to check with the school lawyers and will get back to us on Friday.
So it's more waiting and wondering. 4 weeks of researching, inquiring, pleading, negotiating and stressing, just to get a document that says Ciara is registered in school, so that we can renew our residency cards. Bob's company is pressuring us to get the documents ready to be submitted as it could take months to complete the process.
I am just going to try to do the best I can until we know for sure what Ciara will be doing for the rest of the school year. I hate having this unsettling feeling: the fact that we can't comply with the law and we can't not comply with the law.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Week 3, Tuesday
This morning, at 9am we had a meeting with the director of the American School of Barcelona to talk about how we could get Ciara registered in school and still homeschool at the same time. The meeting went pretty well. The director is supportive, but will not sign a document saying that Ciara is attending school this year, when she really isn't. So he came up with a compromise: we register Ciara and she attends school part-time and then I homeschool part-time. We agreed that this could work for us. How exactly it will work, we won't know until the director meets with the elementary principle. Since grade 6 is pretty full, she might have to work with the grade 5s.
In any case, I am kind of relieved that we at least have a solution in the works that will allow me to continue homeschooling while also allowing us to comply with Spanish laws. Ciara may benefit from attending school part-time as well. It will mean that I will have to redo our awesome homeschool schedule, but at least I wrote it all in pencil.
Today we continued to work on improper fractions, this time the questions were word problems. Word problems are a difficult for all of my kids. Nathan, who works so hard in math, just can't seem to figure them out. When Rylan and Ciara encounter a word problem they just look like deer caught in the headlights. The word problems we did today, were pretty difficult. Ciara has the skills to solve them, she just has a hard time determining which equations to use. We did all of our math work on the chalkboard so that we could draw pictures and break down the problem into small steps.
For social studies, we are still looking at Greek mythology. Ciara is fascinated with the stories about the Greek Gods. Today she learned about Pandora's box. Ciara was so excited about Pandora, that she had to recount the whole story to Verina when they began their Skype session.
Tonight, I took Ciara to her judo class again. She was a bit apprehensive as we entered the gym. I think that she always feels a wave of anxiety whenever she enters a crowded place. Since she liked her first class, we signed her up and bought her a judo-gi. She felt good about wearing her new judo-gi and when I picked her up after class, she said that she had a good time. I was so relieved. Nathan also decided to try a judo class and he liked it too. So we will probably have two kids in judo. I also signed Cole and Rylan up for swimming lessons at the local rec. center. I feel like we are really broadening our horizons. This is the first time any of my kids have attended extra-curricular classes outside of the school.
In any case, I am kind of relieved that we at least have a solution in the works that will allow me to continue homeschooling while also allowing us to comply with Spanish laws. Ciara may benefit from attending school part-time as well. It will mean that I will have to redo our awesome homeschool schedule, but at least I wrote it all in pencil.
Today we continued to work on improper fractions, this time the questions were word problems. Word problems are a difficult for all of my kids. Nathan, who works so hard in math, just can't seem to figure them out. When Rylan and Ciara encounter a word problem they just look like deer caught in the headlights. The word problems we did today, were pretty difficult. Ciara has the skills to solve them, she just has a hard time determining which equations to use. We did all of our math work on the chalkboard so that we could draw pictures and break down the problem into small steps.
For social studies, we are still looking at Greek mythology. Ciara is fascinated with the stories about the Greek Gods. Today she learned about Pandora's box. Ciara was so excited about Pandora, that she had to recount the whole story to Verina when they began their Skype session.
Tonight, I took Ciara to her judo class again. She was a bit apprehensive as we entered the gym. I think that she always feels a wave of anxiety whenever she enters a crowded place. Since she liked her first class, we signed her up and bought her a judo-gi. She felt good about wearing her new judo-gi and when I picked her up after class, she said that she had a good time. I was so relieved. Nathan also decided to try a judo class and he liked it too. So we will probably have two kids in judo. I also signed Cole and Rylan up for swimming lessons at the local rec. center. I feel like we are really broadening our horizons. This is the first time any of my kids have attended extra-curricular classes outside of the school.
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