A Day at the Pre-School

We attended the first parent-teacher's meeting last Tuesday at Louna's pre-school. The purpose of the meeting was to present the parents the nouveautés, the different schedules and activities this school year, and to explain how a day at the pre-school goes for a young kid like Louna.

Like all the other schools, they will open their door to different languages in Europe with a highlight on the English language. But aside from the normal English course included in the curriculum, they propose an immersion to the language with a twice a week (an hour per session) course with an English speaker within 12 weeks. Fee would be 80€ but parents are only requested to pay 40€. The other 40€ will be shouldered by the school and the parent-teacher association. That's really good news as I want Louna to be more exposed to the language. Dora (and her other DVDs) is good but she needs a wider reference now.

We talked about other activities like museum visits, class picture, sports activities (an hour every Tuesday and Friday with an specialized teacher), catechism, birthday celebrations, etc. Louna's calendar starts to fill up too.

Then we talked about the normal day at the pre-school. You know, sometimes, I feel like installing a webcam so I could observe how my daughter spends her day at the school. Of course, after the meeting, I had a clearer view of her daily activities which go as follows:

8:30am - arrives at school with her Papa. She then stays with other kids in a room dedicated for kids who arrive earlier. An assistant will take care of them during this short period.

8:45am - start of classes. Kids will be organized in small groups. The classroom has small dedicated corners like bedroom, kitchen, garage, tables and boards where they could write and draw and a corner where the teacher reads a story while kids attentively listen. The teacher is helped by an assistant especially in taking kids to the toilet, dining area, playground and bedroom.

Learning skills are focused on:

Language - kids are encouraged to tell what he thinks of a picture or a drawing

Mathematics + Socialization - like counting the number of absentees by using picture cards. They first take their own cards (because it's important for kids to recognize themselves in a picture) then give the names of the absentees (it's quite hard for kids to remember their friend's name, apparently) and count them.

Graphics - drawing, shapes, colors

Motor Skills - like cutting with a scissor, holding a pen, etc.

Their activities will of course progress in function of each child's developmental milestones.

9:30am - kids will go to the toilet in small groups then proceed to the playground.

10:30am - story time.

11:45am - fetch Louna from school. We take our lunch together while she recounts how her morning was.

1:45pm - start of afternoon class.

2:00pm - kids will be accompanied to their bed for a little nap

3:00 - 3:30pm - end of siesta. They will then do different activities till 4:45.

4:45pm - fetch Louna from school.

Louna seems to love this new experience. Ask her where she spends her day and she would voluntarily answer école. She learns to socialize and follow rules which is great for her age. We started bringing her only to the morning class but since she loved the experience last Tuesday where she spent the whole day at school, including lunch, we would then bring her in the afternoon too. But she would take her lunch at home while Maman is on maternity leave.

Since schools in France are close on Wednesdays, and I'm planning to take all my Wednesdays off when I get back to work, I thought of enrolling Louna on different activities around the community. We tried music and gym classes yesterday and we will try skating on Saturday. I'm still having second thoughts on the gym classes as she's got sports activities twice a week and I'm afraid it's just a repetition of what she's already doing at school. I think I'll have my decision finalized once I see the benefits of skating to Louna.

Whew! I didn't realize that I could be this busy.. and my, I'm just a mom to a pre-schooler!