In April, D started at another preschool two mornings a week. It took quite a bit of research to find a school we liked which could be paired with his daycare. I've learned that places that call themselves preschools, rather than daycare centers, tend to follow the public school schedule, meaning that they close all summer long, in addition to winter, mid-winter and spring breaks. Giving up our daycare was really not an option and I would have been sad to give up the community we have there. The other obstacle was that the daycare requires three adjacent days of the week as the minimum for part time, while many preschools offer only M/W/F or Tu/Th options for part time. Finally we managed to find a great school that was flexible about dates. His grandparents pick him up and spend two afternoons a week with him.
The school is French immersion, which is pretty exciting. The staff is wonderful and all those holiday breaks make them very energized. Two days a month they spend the whole morning in one of my favorite Seattle parks. They have a great balance of structure and freedom, fun toys and a good outdoor space, and they send us pictures every day so we get to see just how swell everything is.
So the obvious question is, how much French has D learned? The short answer is, not that much, but I'm still happy about it.
The longer answer follows. We wanted to give him this opportunity, primarily for the mind expanding exposure to a new language during this developmental window. Our ability to participate more in French than other languages made it a good choice, but beyond that it's not really about the specific language.
In March, before he started, I taught him to count to 10 and he picked it up quickly. Three and half months later he says only a few other things like greetings. Comprehension is much harder to judge. He seems to understand some questions and instructions about food and things he likes. Mostly though, the French immersion seems to have magnified his comfort with the idea of multiple ways to say things. He knows "bleu" (blue) and claims that red is "reh" (it's "rouge"). He asks how to say things in French and then tells me that some random combination of sounds is how you say something else in French. These last few months he has strongly preferred to sing his own made up song lyrics (some with real English words and some with nonsense), where he used to like singing songs we had learned together. Now he knows that most of the time we speak English. He is unencumbered by French spelling (think of all the extra letters) and has generally excellent pronunciation. He's been much less frustrated by not understanding things at school than I thought he would be. Today he told me he loves his main teacher there.
Here are some of my favorite school pictures from this spring.
The school is French immersion, which is pretty exciting. The staff is wonderful and all those holiday breaks make them very energized. Two days a month they spend the whole morning in one of my favorite Seattle parks. They have a great balance of structure and freedom, fun toys and a good outdoor space, and they send us pictures every day so we get to see just how swell everything is.
So the obvious question is, how much French has D learned? The short answer is, not that much, but I'm still happy about it.
The longer answer follows. We wanted to give him this opportunity, primarily for the mind expanding exposure to a new language during this developmental window. Our ability to participate more in French than other languages made it a good choice, but beyond that it's not really about the specific language.
In March, before he started, I taught him to count to 10 and he picked it up quickly. Three and half months later he says only a few other things like greetings. Comprehension is much harder to judge. He seems to understand some questions and instructions about food and things he likes. Mostly though, the French immersion seems to have magnified his comfort with the idea of multiple ways to say things. He knows "bleu" (blue) and claims that red is "reh" (it's "rouge"). He asks how to say things in French and then tells me that some random combination of sounds is how you say something else in French. These last few months he has strongly preferred to sing his own made up song lyrics (some with real English words and some with nonsense), where he used to like singing songs we had learned together. Now he knows that most of the time we speak English. He is unencumbered by French spelling (think of all the extra letters) and has generally excellent pronunciation. He's been much less frustrated by not understanding things at school than I thought he would be. Today he told me he loves his main teacher there.
Here are some of my favorite school pictures from this spring.
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