German Kindergarten

Drama drama, for this devoted mama! :) Oh the hard choices we must make as mommies. Home school, part time preschool, all day school... well, I knew I didn't really like either extreme. But there are, surprisingly, lots of choices here at Ramstein. And after lots of deliberation... we decided to try German kindergarten... or as I like to call it, the magical land of play. It is every day, which I am not totally sold on, but everything else about it met what we were looking for... so...

We enrolled you in German kindergarten in our village here in Germany. We were excited to get in actually, as most of the village kindergartens have long waiting lists. They are required by law to take all of the German children in the village first, as it should be. And then, there are often numerous American or other foreign children in line for any spot that might be left over. So, when we found this fantastic village (see another post :)) we called the village kindergarten to inquire about enrollment and were invited to visit by the principal. We were excited, thinking maybe she was going to let us add Benjamin's name to the waiting list. So, we visited and she just started filling out the enrollment paperwork, giving us all the necessary information and then told us we started in 3 days, on the following Monday morning! We were hoping to have the opportunity to try it out, but I for one wasn't prepared to have you start attending so soon. I felt like I was still mulling it over. But we had the opportunity we were hoping for, and you were excited to start playing with all the kids and toys and on the super cool playground... so we got ready.

The first week, Mommy was invited to go with you to help you get used to it. And Liam came too of course. And that went well. I enjoyed getting to know the teachers, kids, school house and routine. By the end of the week, you were even telling me I could leave because none of the other mommies or daddies were there. So the second week, they told me to bring you for only an hour or so the first day and build on every day after that. The end goal was from 9-12. Three hours of playing and building and creating and snack time and playground time outside... always playing outside. It's very important to them that the children play outside every day. I think this might be the thing that really drew you in. You see, you LOVE your mommy and learning from your mommy and playing with your mommy and just being with your mommy... but you do really like to play with other children, especially on a playground. And this kindergarten has a really cool playground with the biggest sand areas we've ever seen, about 100 shovels and digging trucks and a kid sized street ("strasse") running down the middle with tons of ride on toys and bikes and even a small soccer field! So, with the possibility of planned play dates and playground time, time mommy could use to exercise, do housework, make not-so-fun appointments, spend a little one on one with baby Liam... we set off to give it a try. And, of course, there was the added bonus of learning another language. So mommy, somewhat reluctantly (parenting seems to be a constant balance between holding on tight and being brave enough to let go a little), took you in for your first morning without me. And when I say without me, I mean that I just wasn't right in the room with you. Instead, Liam and I waited in my minivan about 100 yards from the school with my cell phone at the ready, in case they called. I listened to my first German lesson on CD, so I could learn to communicate with your teachers and friends more easily, and counted down the minutes until I would walk back in and pick you up. You went in excitedly, had a great time, and asked if you got to go back tomorrow... but, it wasn't exactly that easy for the next month and a half.

I couldn't possibly type all the details here, it would take books and books... but here's the gist of it. You are such a dear heart! I am blessed to have had the opportunity to walk through this adventure with you. You have been so brave and have learned so many important lessons already in this short time. And I am amazed at how faithful God has been to us through this process. Through the whole thing your daddy and I said we were going to give it a real try... but also that we wanted to make sure that you didn't suffer while we made you stick it out through a bad experience. That's where it got tough. I am your mommy after all! So, what constitutes a bad experience in my eyes it's anything at all unpleasant, unkind, scary or just not fun. I know, a bit much. So I was ready to pull you every time you struggled with making friends (you know, the whole language barrier on top of the little clicks that were already established since you were walking in at the end of the school year), got caught up in a scuffle (the little boys are really allowed to be little boys here, and are definitely rougher then your friends back in Oklahoma), and were trying to learn and understand all the new rules there (good different, but very different from what we had experienced before... sort of a Montessori/Reggi Emelia mix).

But here we are 4 months into it and you are doing great! You love your teachers, have all sorts of good buddies, are learning lots of German and look forward to your special play date every day. Mommy and Liam have had good one on one time, mommy has gotten into a good house chores routine, and has been able to get some shopping trips and appointments out of the way freeing up lots more time for us to have the best rest of the day together. You get some energy out, I get some alone time when L naps, and we're all so excited to be back together again. We're very blessed with the whole situation.

Here are some pictures and other tidbits that we want to remember.

The outside of your kindergarten. You are assigned to the downstairs yellow group. You have one lead and two assistant teachers. Frau Bohn, Frau Braund and Frau Keller. You have 24 classmates and new friends ages 3-6, the most special to you being Florian, Joshua, Luca, Lucas and Julian. There are kid sized cubbies, benches, chairs, toilets, sinks, everything is kid sized actually. There's an inside active room, a kitchen for cooking projects, and a gymnastics room. Your classroom has a snack area, a drawing area, a building corner, a truck and train area, a doll area, a house area up in a tree house you can climb up to and down from, puppets, dress up clothes, puzzles, games, manipulative's, Lego's, and more! The outdoor playground is equally impressive. And everything is decorated with basic projects you all make together... handmade and simple and wonderful! It's about .7 miles from our house and we can walk and bike on most days so far.

The sign outside the door showing the name of the school, which is Kindergarten Rainbow in English.

Inside the entrance where the children hang up their coats and their backpacks containing second breakfasts (which is what they call snack, so cute, like their all hobbits :)), take off their shoes and put on their house shoes... adorable!
There is parent information board, of course all in German... so I take my German dictionary, but if it's too much, I take a picture with my digital camera and take it home to translate with a little help from Marc.

Ben at the door of our TLF all ready for his first day of German Kindergarten back at the end of May.

Such a dear heart!

And after a 3 week summer vacation (so short!) here is Ben on his first day back to school. Like I said earlier, he rides his balance bike (and now his regular bike without training wheels... a whole other exciting post) while I walk pushing Liam in the stroller on most days.
In front of our front door picture... a tradition in both our homes growing up, (although Marc says I have to stand outside in my bathrobe in front of all the other kids from the bus stop for it to be what he remembers :)). My big boy!

And being in school in our village means Ben now has lots of local German friends... which makes going to our village pool all the more fun! Here he is playing with some of his buddies.

You can tell he's the American in the picture because while all his friends are wearing speedo type suits, he has swim trunks on, a swim shirt and his goggles :)

Some random fun notes:

-They don't pronounce J's like we do, making a Y sound instead, so we've had to get used to them calling him "Ben-ya-mean".

-And we've had to get used to saying "Yoshua", "Yulian" and "Yonathan".

-His stories about circle time crack me up, because he still has so much to learn yet when it comes to the German language... at first he would get really sad because he didn't understand what they were all saying and singing... but now he just tries his best to join in. He's got a few of the songs down and understands a lot more of what his teachers and friends are saying. But lots of days, when I ask "what did you learn in circle time today?" I get answers such as these... "I don't really know mom, they weren't speaking English" or "I think she was talking about spoons or something, because she was holding a spoon" or "I can't tell you mom, you wouldn't understand what I was saying".

-He loves playtime outside the best. The first few weeks, his teacher would tell me that at random times he would go up to her and ask, "is it time to go outside yet?".

-He's doing a great job working on learning the language, but he is very comfortable now and so I keep trying to encourage him and use it at home too. I can tell he's getting it a lot more though because he used to just say "ya ya" to everything... and now he says some of the following (spelled completely wrong but you'll get the idea :)):

"gook-a-mal Florian"

"alles gute"

"nine, ich mach das nicht"

counts to twenty

"auf yetz"

"sprechen zie auf deutch"

"das ist minen"

"kahn ich speilan mit das?"

"speilan bitte"

"hilfa bitte"

"come yetz"

"ich bin hungrig"

"ich bin durstig"

and lots of individual words like fish, train, car, street, flower, lion, etc...

-Favorite crafts to do are make paper masks, fold paper airplanes and boats.

-Favorite snack, or rather second breakfast, is a roll from the bakery or an apple.

-I've been thankful, actually, that he's in karate and is learning how to fight back a little, I can't believe I'm saying that! But we still encourage the working things out, using your words, avoiding bad situations and walking away... but that doesn't always work, especially not here. Thankfully, he hasn't gotten into any fights, that he's started at least. He learned how to avoid conflict quite well, after a few scuffles and even a bloody nose - can you believe it!?! But then had a little bit of a run as a vigilante, which although I am proud of him for wanting to protect others, that was also something we had to reign in a little :)

-Marc had a great conference with the principal when we had some concerns and I was so impressed with how they handled it. The staff has been great helping Benjamin adjust and us learn what we need to know. There is one teacher in particular who's English is pretty good and she is very helpful. And of course, I'm trying hard to learn and use German.

-I have made a wonderful friend in one of the moms who can speak really good English and I'm looking forward to further developing our friendship. She's helped us get even more involved, like in the village soccer club, again that will be another post all in itself!

-I could go on and on, as there's a new story every day it seems but here are the last few for now:

--As an end of the year celebration in August, we (meaning the teachers, parents, and students from 2.5 yr olds to 6 yr olds) hiked to the zoo... a 2 HOUR HIKE! With kids that young. Who walked the whole way... stopping just to do some fun activities and challenges. I couldn't believe it. They are really into the outdoors and being active here. We sang songs and walked through the woods and then walked through the zoo, and THEN walked back home! Which only took 1 hour without the stops... but that's just CRAZY! Did I mention no stroller, except for the baby brothers and sisters. Yikes.

--He came home one day all frustrated because he said his friend Florian, a favorite indeed, didn't listen to him sometimes. He said sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn't. Mind you Florian speaks German of course. So I reminded Ben, after almost 4 months of kindergarten, that his friend speaks and understands German but not English, so we have to work on using our German with him. Ben said, "but sometimes he understands my English... OK mom, I will speak my German with him."

--He's even gotten into trouble once, just a little time out for splashing water on the mirrors in the restroom. But while I was disappointed and sorry, the teachers said it was good because although he shouldn't do it, he won't again, and this shows that he's getting more comfortable! And they said, don't ever be sorry. We just like to tell the parents what happens. And I really do appreciate that. I love to know everything :)

I'm sure that by the end of our time in German kindergarten, I could write a book about our adventures... what a wonderful opportunity, we are so blessed!