More Good School News

Last night Terence brought home this week's school lunch menu. He pulled it out while I was cooking dinner and told me that his teacher, Celine, told him to practice reading it. This is where I'm useless at helping him as I cannot pronounce French words properly. Even if I tried I do not want him learning to pronounce anything French from me as it wouldn't be correct.

So, I told him to start practicing and when I had a minute I would sit with him to listen. He practiced by slowly sounding out the words and reading them out loud. When I sat with him finally, he told me that he and Julia (from his 1st Grade class) were chosen to read to the Kindergarten kids the following day. I know Julia is very smart so I worried as Terence is really struggling with reading and writing... and speaking for that matter! It's only his 2nd year at the French school and he hears French no where else outside of school! Wait, I take that back. He plays on a French football team on Saturdays. Anyhow, it's minimal...

We practiced and I thought he sounded okay. I knew he had trouble with a few words like mushroom which is really long and sounds like 'champion' but seems to have about 5 too many letters in it!

This morning when I dropped him off I wished him luck. He wasn't nervous to go to school like I thought he may be. Instead he was very excited as Tuesday is one of his favorite days as he has gym on Tuesdays (and Fridays) and he loves gym. He's also signed up for an extra hour of sport on Tuesdays after school (3-4pm) which he also thinks is great. When I picked him up at 4pm I didn't say anything as I wanted him to bring up the reading session. After we were on our way in the car he told me he did it without making any mistakes and Samuel (the K teacher) told him he did very well. He said that the best part was that when he read the dessert of the day 'Danette au Chocolat' (Sheila - did you know there was such a dessert with your name in it??) the entire class cheered with excitement. That must have been a nice way for him to end his menu reading. He said it was really funny.

Phew! So glad he did well. The last week has been great for his confidence!

Terence's French Poem

First Grade at the French Lycee de Budapest is not very easy. Terence's homework assignment over the 1 1/2 week break (which they call ski break) was to learn to spell out in cursive / script / handwriting numbers 0 - 9; 20 - 69. Other numbers follow a different rule and that is why they are left out. He also needed to learn the months of the year, days of the week and spell all. There were about 20 words that he needed learn to spell upon hearing them (ie de, des, qui, que, le, les, etc). Lastly, he had to memorize this poem and recite it in front of the entire class. How scary! He said he screwed up a bit but think it was more a stage fright rather than forgetting. Here he is saying it perfectly. Or at least it sounds perfect to my ears.

Terence Doing Homework

Terence is having such a hard time getting the curvy motion of his script letters. Here he is at breakfast (Sunday) practicing.

Terence is getting by at school. Curt and I were both talking today that if he were at an English speaking school (or possibly even at a Hungarian speaking school) he would be cruising with ease. It's only his second year at the French school and now being in the 1st grade it is tough. On Thursday and Friday after school he fell into a deep sleep in the car. He's mentally exhausted and finding it a huge challenge. Rather than getting a tutor to help him at home, the French school has offered for him to spend an extra hour after school on Mondays with his teacher. Additionally, I have him in a French after school activity on Tuesday and on a football team on Saturday mornings. This way he gets extra practice speaking French or at least being in a French environment. We've also started having more playdates with French speaking kids from his class / school. The weekend in Slovakia was also helpful as Bruno is Belgian so Terence spoke a bit of French with him and his children: Sophia, Matthias and Arnaud (well not really Arnaud as he's only Ali's age). I don't think the only challenge for him is the language but also the writing. They are learning to write in script (aka cursive) and it is not easy! I've scanned how the French curriculum writes their letters. A bit different than how I learned:



The other day Terence asked me, 'Mom, you know how we call letters the alphabet, what do we call numbers?' Good question! I told him there was no name other than the 'numerical system'. Am I right?
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Terence drew this picture below at school in October. He brought it home recently to show me. He named all of us and Dada was last. Guess which one he is? The one with the frown. Terence said he drew a frown on him because he seems so sad from working such long hours / days all the time. He also described Curt as having a 'square neck' - not sure what that means... Mia is the one with the big teeth because she smiles all the time.




Side note: Terence's feet right now are size 36 European this is about a size 3 US

Terence's School Work

Here are 2 samples of what Terence does in C.P. (1st grade) at the French school.

This is from his mathematics book. He had to fill in the missing numbers then do a connect the dots number game. He didn't do perfectly but he did okay.



This is from his script (cursive) notebook. Every day they make them write out the day of the week, date, month and year. He often runs out of room like he did here with the 2007. Then, they practice a new letter each day. They are working their way through the alphabet. They have to practice the letter in a classmates name (ie Jack).