she has promise

Monday was a holiday for us (thank you, Columbus), so with first grade looming in the near future & no school yet selected, we decided to attempt to visit a few recommended private schools.  La Scuola Elementare.  A few weeks ago Maddy returned home from preschool telling me that her teachers talk a lot about elementare now.  She wasn't quite certain what that meant, exactly, but she knew it to be something important.



In two of the schools, we did not make it past the secretary.  Honestly, I expected as much.  I'm told that it's important to visit & show interest, nonetheless.   We had conversations with nuns, learned that one school has swimming as part of the school day, saw some little faces of color inside one of the schools,  didn't hear any screaming teachers in any of the three, and received the news we expected from each -- they have many requests for spots & are just starting to sort it out.   The kids who attend their perspective preschools have first dibs, of course.  Of course.  We gave each our name & number but not before dropping the important connections (not so sure how important they are to the schools);  I ended with a hopeful, optimistic feeling.  This hope is just a feeling, a feeling I didn't have before today's visits.



HOWEVER . . . last week we received a message from the reading teacher that Maddy is behind the curve on the reading front.  She insisted that we work more at home.   I suppose she was able to tell that we snuffed it off this summer in favor of more interesting pursuits, like swimming.  So each night we do a bit of decoding, which is really easy in Italian because the sounds don't change, don't really blend, don't have long and short sounds or soft and hard sounds, or at least not nearly to the extent as they do in English.     I think that she is doing quite well, for five. She knows all letter sounds and the common consonant / vowel combos, like: Ma, Mi, Me, Mu, Mo.  She can generally decode 2 syllable words.    Hopefully the reading teacher will think the same in the near future.  This year she visits Maddy's class twice a week for 2 hours each time.  Whew.  Rigor.


And, on a more positive note, today we received an invitation for Maddy to consider joining a Vicenza swim club.  She attends a pool once a week with her little preschool group, and according to her, they just play in the water.  The instructors at the pool are so very impressed with her improvement over the summer that they've extended an invitation to her to join the beginning class of their swim club whose purpose is to discover whether the child may excel in any element of swimming, from the traditional to nuoto sincronizzato, which I can only guess is synchronized swimming.   Perhaps all the time in the pool was not in vain.  She has promise, they think.  I laugh.  It's twice a week, for an hour each time.  I laugh more.  It's only 500 Euro and includes a t-shirt and swim cap. By now I am ROFL. . .rolling on the floor laughing.  I'll call for additional information despite the laughing fits. 


Gioca Danza, where we've reconnected with an old friend (who is likewise searching for the perfect school for her five-year-old), is a big hit with her, and I'm not so sure she's willing to ditch it for more time at the pool.  As expected, there was no big mirrored window looking into the studio, but rather a shut door with a note that it should not be opened during a lesson.  As expected, another mother opened the door, anyhow.  After the first lesson Maddy did comment that the kids didn't listen to the teacher; it concerned her.    I doubt that it will change much . . . the little girls listening, that is. Like Maddy says, "It's Gioca and Danza Mamma, not dance school, just dance and play." I'm happy with that, no need for rigor here.

If you've actually read through all of the above, I love you. Here's a photo from Sunday, just for smiles:

As cooler days approach, we spend more time indoors engaged in art & baking.

She & I did both together this weekend.