Getting Caught In The Rain

The sun goes down at about 9:00 p.m. giving us a lot of day time to enjoy.  So after dinner the boys decided to take a walk while Abby and I cleaned up and read for a little while.  The weather was nice when they left but that changed rather quickly.

First Day of School

It's weird to be writing that again but for Abigail and Walker they experienced another "First Day of School" yesterday with the other students at Putaruru Primary School.  They have been on summer break and just started back at school.  It was fortunate for Abby and Walker to be able to start with them on their first day as well.

Abby is in a combo class with 4th, 5th and 6th year students called the Challengers.  Walker is in a combo class with 2nd and 3rd year students called the Voyagers.  The school is rather small with only about 170 students in all. 

What we have learned on their first day is that shoes are optional.  The kids LOVE this.  It's not a joke.  I walked in to the office and the principal was not even wearing shoes.  It was awesome.  They swim each day for P.E. and so they wear Togs or what we call swim suits.  They wear uniforms and part of that standard uniform is a hat that is mandatory when they are outside.  They are serious about the sun here in NZ.

Campus is completely open to parents.  They just let you walk around, check out the class, stop by to see how your child is doing, bring them snacks during recess/snack time and bring lunches.  No need to bring anything to the office to drop it off.  No "visitor pass" or signing in or out.  They just said, "go ahead and walk on in to the class."  The encourage parents to come to assembly's and morning gatherings.  So welcoming and relaxed.

School is from 9-3 with lunch at 1.  This was a pretty late day the first day for Walker.  He even asked his teacher if they sleep there at school.  I bet he was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to go home.

Their homework policy is that homework is something they like to teach as a habit and not extra school work to be done at home that the teacher should have to monitor and keep after the children to do.  With that, homework will be kept to a minimum of 20 minutes a night.  HOLY COW!  What are we going to do with the other 2 hrs and 40 mins of homework time we've been doing every night?

Again, I think leaving NZ is going to be a hard adjustment in more ways than one as we are quickly learning.

A new beginning....

So before I begin on a new week, I've already covered a bit of what we did on Thursday and Saturday.  We didn't have a Friday because of travel and the time change.  How weird is that?  Monday was a holiday here so we drove around to check out some local sites close to us.

 New Zealand, Hamilton Temple

Then we came home and swam at the local pool that is conveniently located just across the street from our home.  We are pretty excited about that.  The kids were excited to jump in and get some practice before school started the next day.  They will have the joy of swimming every day for P.E. at school and didn't want to be rusty.  I have a feeling they are going to like school.  We'll see.