As of last week, we officially have three kids in three unique schools. It's everything you're probably thinking. Chaotic, stressful, busy. But it's also amazing, for the record, and we're thrilled with how each school is meeting our kiddo's needs for this exact season. Also abundantly grateful to have the options before us.
Here we are walking Lily to her first day at the local French public school. She requested that all five of us walk her over, which was so sweet, and really quite symbolic. See, our vision for sending our kids to the public schools is that our whole family is going together. We're going in to build, support, improve, question, help and love. We're making friends with teachers and parents alike in hopes of being a true presence in our neighbourhood school, where every child living near us goes.
In Quebec, only those who attended English school as children can send their kids to English school, so technically our family is eligible to use the English schools. We always knew this, but the English system has never been on our radar. We're gladly sending our kids to the French local school, and have been really happy with the school and school board in general since starting in it last year. Because we speak English at home, a French school was a clear choice for us in wanting our kids to be bilingual. It's also where all of the neighbourhood children go, which is more or less how we decide where we're sending our kids. Oversimplistic maybe, but we are pretty big on being present in our 'hood, and it's been the most seamless natural way to meet literally hundreds of people and build strong bonds in our community. So, why was I talking about English school earlier?
48 hours before the English schools started their year, we learned that the local English school has Pre-Kindergarten/Junior Kindergarten, starting at age 4. Our French school does not, and so Lily started there in Senior Kindergarten/Kindergarten the year she turned 5. She was fine not having attended Pre-K, but she is also the youngest in her class. Oli is the oldest, being born just a few weeks after the cut off, and he has also been begging to go to school. He's writing and reading at the same pace as Lily, who is two academic years ahead of him. He's eager to learn, and his playschool where he was attending just 3 short mornings a week wasn't enough (and also wasn't free!). We prayed about it and discussed it, and I got the input of a few teacher friends of mine, and everyone's conclusion was YES. Let's send him for this year in English. A great way to get his feet wet before jumping into French Kindergarten next year.
Chloe is mainly at home, but she does go to playschool two mornings a week from 9am-12:30pm, so on some days I do three unique drop offs and pick ups. It's only about six hours of care per week, but it's just enough for me to do free-lance writing, work on this blog, and manage Beautycounter sales.
It's a lot to juggle, and I'm so looking forward to Oli and Lily being together next year, though by then Chloe will be at Oli's current school doing the pre-K program. It's several more meetings and teachers to get to know, countless more kids and parents to befriend, and three schedules to arrange. But it's good, and I'm embracing this new season.
Here we are walking Lily to her first day at the local French public school. She requested that all five of us walk her over, which was so sweet, and really quite symbolic. See, our vision for sending our kids to the public schools is that our whole family is going together. We're going in to build, support, improve, question, help and love. We're making friends with teachers and parents alike in hopes of being a true presence in our neighbourhood school, where every child living near us goes.
In Quebec, only those who attended English school as children can send their kids to English school, so technically our family is eligible to use the English schools. We always knew this, but the English system has never been on our radar. We're gladly sending our kids to the French local school, and have been really happy with the school and school board in general since starting in it last year. Because we speak English at home, a French school was a clear choice for us in wanting our kids to be bilingual. It's also where all of the neighbourhood children go, which is more or less how we decide where we're sending our kids. Oversimplistic maybe, but we are pretty big on being present in our 'hood, and it's been the most seamless natural way to meet literally hundreds of people and build strong bonds in our community. So, why was I talking about English school earlier?
48 hours before the English schools started their year, we learned that the local English school has Pre-Kindergarten/Junior Kindergarten, starting at age 4. Our French school does not, and so Lily started there in Senior Kindergarten/Kindergarten the year she turned 5. She was fine not having attended Pre-K, but she is also the youngest in her class. Oli is the oldest, being born just a few weeks after the cut off, and he has also been begging to go to school. He's writing and reading at the same pace as Lily, who is two academic years ahead of him. He's eager to learn, and his playschool where he was attending just 3 short mornings a week wasn't enough (and also wasn't free!). We prayed about it and discussed it, and I got the input of a few teacher friends of mine, and everyone's conclusion was YES. Let's send him for this year in English. A great way to get his feet wet before jumping into French Kindergarten next year.
Chloe is mainly at home, but she does go to playschool two mornings a week from 9am-12:30pm, so on some days I do three unique drop offs and pick ups. It's only about six hours of care per week, but it's just enough for me to do free-lance writing, work on this blog, and manage Beautycounter sales.
It's a lot to juggle, and I'm so looking forward to Oli and Lily being together next year, though by then Chloe will be at Oli's current school doing the pre-K program. It's several more meetings and teachers to get to know, countless more kids and parents to befriend, and three schedules to arrange. But it's good, and I'm embracing this new season.
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