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First Week of School

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We have NEVER been prouder of Henry. This week was full of change and transition, crazy transportation issues and  language barriers. Henry was such a champ! He took it all in stride and had a smile on his face at each pickup. He is making friends from all over the world as well as France. 
He has three main teachers. A homeroom type teacher where he spends the bulk of the day which is all in French, Madame Chirac.  

He gets pulled out to go to French class for English speakers and this teacher, Madame Laurent, is French but taught at Blythe in Greenville!!! 

His third teacher is his English teacher, Mrs. Johnstone, who is British and lived in Greenville for a few years since her husband works for Michelin! He has a dream team of teachers. Not to stereotype, but I'm about to stereotype! The French are just not particularly warm -especially at first. But when we went to the school and met Madame Chirac, I was astonished by how warm and kind she was. She is gracious and seems so helpful and caring. 

Henry and Madame Chirac
See how she is hugging him a little?!? They don't really do that here! So sweet! 

Ok- and on to the school supplies. You have NEVER seen so many school supplies. It is almost funny. Here is ONE page of the list- wow. That was crazy to translate! 


Sorting through one bag of supplies! 

All of the notebooks have this kind of paper. It looks like in order to be writing on a line you either need to write really small or really big! 

If you can't get in touch with me it is because I am riding this!! Here is Henry's schedule. 
M, Tu, Th, and Fri 8:30-11:30/ 1:30-4:30 he is at school. Wed he only goes from 8:30-11:30 and then they play sports in the afternoon on Wednesday. He comes home for lunch everyday from 11:30 to 1:30 but because we ride the bus it is 8 trips a day for me on the bus and 4 for Henry. I will definitely walk some of the time after I take him but either way it is a LOT of time in transport. Gant is going to help me in the morning and we have a neighbor we might trade off with to cut down on all if that bus riding. At least the bus is clean and nice! 

First day of school pic! 

I was SO overwhelmed- we all stand in a big courtyard with absolutely no signs or anything and there is someone on a microphone just calling out the kids names by grade. It was well.... Interesting. 

It was hard to hear and SEEMED to me TOTALLY unorganized but hey, seems to work for them! I really want to let the people here know about the whole concept of the table with A-M and N- Z!!! 
Ha! When you come to pick them up, they open these big gates and all of the children just come running out! It's wild! 


I couldn't find Henry too well in this crowd so we made a little meeting spot. 
All of the ex-pat parents are so helpful and just show me right where to go and what to do!! It is very helpful and reassuring. They are an amazing group! 

Henry's homework journal- they write in cursive here which we learned 2 days before school started. I totally forgot about it! Oops! 

So- we celebrated Henry's first week with a fun dinner out last night. We don't eat out much here because all of the restaurants don't usually open until 7/7:30. But we had a great meal and came home and played Clue, Henry's favorite game right now! 

Phew- First week of school in another language in another country!! We did it! Thank you for all of your prayers - we felt them! 
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