School's In!

I'm happy to say that school has been a success so far for Evangeline. As you may recall, we had some choices to make as to what type of school to send her to for kindergarten (In Hong Kong, the school system starts at age three with three years of "kindergarten" before going to primary school at age six). In the end, we went with the "local" school option, a Lutheran kindergarten in our village where the primary language of instruction is Cantonese. What were some of the factors that contributed to our decision?

1. Language. We really wanted to take advantage of being in another country and have her learn another language. Even if she doesn't retain very much of it when we move back to the States (although we'll try!), it's proven that speaking another language early in life makes positive changes to your brain that last forever. A lot of early childhood specialists think that age three is the perfect time to start an immersion program. Even if Mandarin is a "better" language to learn, we didn't see any programs in our area that guaranteed fluency, even after the full three years of kindergarten. Besides, we place a high value on her being able to speak the same language as everyone around us. Someone in our family should, after all!
2. Location. It's really nice to have her within walking distance, even if she takes the school bus most of the time. Some families here shuttle their kids all over the city to have them go to the right school. Besides, it's nice to be part of our village community. We've already seen several of her classmates and their moms when we've been out and about, which is fun.
3. Price. Because her school is non-profit, the students get a voucher from the Hong Kong government which greatly reduces tuition. After adding her school bus fee, we're still only paying around $130 USD per month. I think I've blocked most of the cost of international school out of my mind because I was so shocked by the prices, but they were much higher. One of the more exclusive Christian international schools in our area charges around $120 USD just to apply. And they can get away with it because Hong Kongers are so desperate to have their children get ahead that they're willing to pay anything. Call me naive, but I can't help thinking that it's just preschool! 

But as confident as we were heading into the school year, I definitely had a small freak-out when we were actually there on the first day. The school had an extremely gradual introduction to school life, so the first three days, the kids were only there for an hour per day and the parents were with them for most of the time. As I was sitting there with Evangeline, listening to a stream of unintelligible Cantonese, I wondered what had we been thinking? How could anyone pick this up? But Evangeline wasn't fazed at all, which gave me some courage. The next week, she was in school for an hour per day without me, which went just fine. The week after that was two hours, and then finally they started their normal schedule of three hours per morning. 

And she has been thriving. She has a little "best friend" already, a girl called Ma Te. Evangeline is excited to go to school every morning, especially because she gets to ride the school bus. It's hard to tell how much Cantonese she's picking up. She's singing a lot of new songs in Cantonese, and she definitely knows the words for stickers and for a kind of fruit they often eat for snack. But apart from that, we're clueless. The most important thing is that she is happy!

First day, wearing her dress uniform (Tuesdays and Thursdays)

Waiting for the school bus in her sport uniform (Monday, Wednesday, Friday)

Getting on the bus with the help of the "bus nanny"

Her triumphant return!

Special uniform for Activity Days

Oh, and a note about that last picture. She's carrying a lantern that we made for a school project. The parents were supposed to collaborate with the kids and make a lantern together. As you can guess, Evangeline's only real contribution was liking pumpkins; she just played the whole time. Oh well! The kids in the school are divided up into four houses (just like Hogwarts!), and they wear colored house polo shirts on Activity Day. Evangeline is in the "Believe" house, so she has a red polo. I couldn't get very much information from her about what they actually do on Activity Day, other than it was fun. 

I'll keep you posted as the school year progresses. It's been interesting so far, to say the least!