Grundschule

By the way, this is my seventieth post. It's only taken me three and half years! Thank you, eight readers, for coming along on this journey thus far. Hooray!

My fab friend, S, and I were enjoying a mom date at the local ice cream place when we got to talking about schools. Somehow we started talking about the German school process and she thought it was all fascinating and said I should write a blog about it. I don't know if anyone else will find it as interesting but here goes. I talked a little about it in a blog from one year ago when Tobin started first grade here.

Just like with first grade, I received a paper (below) with the full list of everything they need for the year. The top portion is all the academic books. The lower half is all the art supplies. Since you can't buy these books off the shelf, you take the list to any bookstore, or in our case, the little stationery/passport photo shop in town. They can either just order the books or they can order everything on the list and give it all to you in a bundle so you don't have to do any school shopping. Last year my neighbor helped me find all the art supplies at a regular store so all I needed to do was order the books. This year we already had many of the art supplies so I took the list to the little shop and two weeks later we had the books. All of the books and supplies cost about 200 Euro.

This is all the academic stuff. Writing, vocabulary, math, notebooks, and practice workbooks.

Plastic covers

Then we put the thin writing notebooks in the plastic covers. Yellow for German. Purple for religion. Blue for math, etc.

We had some leftover writing notebooks from first grade but I had to get different ones specifically for second grade. The lines are slightly smaller for second grade but the only major difference is that one has a 1 on it and the other has a 2. We easily could have just reused the first grade ones but that's not what you do. I also thought it was funny when I went into the shop in the middle of first grade to buy him a new pencil and they asked me what grade he's in, because it actually matters. It's all very specific!

A pencil case with the basics. Notice the large, three-sided silver pencil on the left studded with plastic circles for gripping. It makes me laugh at how age-appropriate writing implements are so fancy now. A chubby blue pencil just wouldn't do. And of course three-sided ergonomic colored pencils.

Another case for art supplies

Filling his book cubby on the Friday before school started. 

His art cubby

For art he needs a large folder to store his masterpieces, a large pad of painting paper, watercolors, clay, pastels, a sponge, color pencils, and numbers 8, 10, 12, and 14 of "bristle" paint brushes and numbers 4, 8 and 10 of "hair" paint brushes. Wouldn't one big fat paintbrush suffice for a seven-year old?? Apparently not!

I love the simplicity of the classroom

He also needs a gym bag with pants, a shirt and indoor-only sport shoes.

The second grade class schedule.

I'm not exactly sure what the process is for elementary school in the US nowadays, but here I get the impression that everything is the same for everyone across the country. This is what you do in first grade, this is what you do in second grade, etc. down the line. I'm not positive but it doesn't seem like there is much teachers-making-up-lesson-plans kind of flexibility. It seems like the country is unified in how things are done. I don't know...I could be wrong.

One (of many) things that I absolutely love is that Tobin is in the same classroom with the same teacher and kids as first grade. She already knows their personalities and learning styles so they can skip the whole weird getting-to-know-you phase. They're already comfortable with her and each other. I guess this would stink if the child didn't like the teacher, but fortunately we LOOOOOVE Mrs. Beautiful.

Last year when he started first grade the school gave us the option of Tobin attending GTS (Ganztagschule), or full-day school, until 4:00 after the normal school hours. First graders are done for the day at 12:15. GTS is there mostly for dual-income families who need extra childcare later in the day, but anyone can opt to do it and its free. We weren't sure about it at first because it seemed like such a long day. The school gets a certain amount of money from the government for each child in GTS, so once you sign up you can't get out of it because the school has already received the money. We ultimately decided to do it because we thought it would give him more time to get to know other kids and have an opportunity to learn the language outside of the class time. Plus he gets so bored at home and ends up fighting with Jonah. At 12:15 he and the other GTS kids had lunch in the cafeteria. It's required that he buy the lunch, but I don't mind because it's cooked from scratch every morning and it means all I have to do is pack a snack. Then they play outside doing whatever for a long time. After that there's different options for what they want to do like ukulele, pottery, and cooking, which changes throughout the year, and there is time allotted for doing homework together. So it worked out really well for us because everyday when I picked him up he was dirty and tired from all the playing and I really think it helped him learn German a lot faster. GTS was Monday-Thursday but not on Fridays so the pick up time was 12:15 when the other first graders got out. Now that he's in second grade the pick up time on Fridays is 1:15.

He FINALLY has two little teeth popping through on top. Maybe we'll have some front teeth by Christmas.

Jonah would be going into American Kindergarten this year, but has one more year of German Kindergarten which is more like preschool until age six. The big deal school event here is first grade, not Kindergarten. The oldest kids (Vorschulkinder) at the Kindergarten get separated sometimes to do "extra" things with the teachers like practicing writing, special field trips and I don't know what else. I like that there isn't a big push to read so early. First grade is when they need to start recognizing words, sounding them out and writing.

This picture reminds me of the holes. The patched holes have holes. These boys go through pants and socks like I go through chapstick and coffee. Its ridiculous. So much for handing anything down to Doren.

The first day back to school went fine, but I've already made one (almost two) blunders as #thatcluelessmom. At the end of last year Mrs.Beautiful gave each of the kids a tote bag that said something like Summer Vacation Chatter Bag. I thought, "Ok, whatever. Nice bag." It wasn't until the night before school started that I caught wind that you're supposed to fill the bag with memories of the summer break. Some parent on the chat group (whatever you call it) said something about "thanks for the reminder about the Chatter Bag" which thankfully clued me in. The only object we had from summer memories is a beach towel we bought that said CROATIA on it so that went in the bag. Whew! He was almost the only kid to show up with nothing to show to the class! These are the things that drive me nuts. I don't know what I don't know and I don't want to be that clueless foreign mom!

Bag? Chatter?

The real #thatcluelessmom fail happened yesterday on the very first day of school. In first grade the normal non-GTS time to get out of school is 12:15. Second graders get out at 1:15. Like I said, I will be picking him up at 1:15 on Fridays when there is no GTS. Since GTS doesn't start until Wednesday this week I assumed that the first two days of school would get out at 1:15, right? So as I was getting the younger boys ready to leave the house at 12:50 who comes walking across the lawn but Tobin. I quickly found out that he actually got out at 12:15, waited around for twenty minutes and then decided to just walk home himself. He's never walked home alone before. It's a little over half a mile down a hill with some streets to cross. I probably would have been arrested in America and my children would have spent the night in Child Protective Services because of a seven year old walking through a town by himself, but fortunately here it's perfectly normal for even younger children to walk by themselves. No doubt he passed some elderly gentleman on the street who patted his head and said, "Good lad. Now run along." So it wasn't what I intended for sure, but I'm glad he knew what to do like waiting for the walking light and using crosswalks and that he felt really pleased with himself.

This morning the church bells were bonging for the new first graders. Although it's a secular school, they still start the year with a church service. Last year it was at the Catholic church and this year at the Protestant. I guess they're keeping it friendly. Tobin was part of the welcoming group when the Principal spoke in the gym. He sang a song and played the ukulele which I have yet to hear him do. When I picked him up at 12:15 all the fresh, new, dressed-up first graders were leaving with their parents and grandparents who were, once again, cradling the precious Schultüten* like they were newborn babies.



*see link above from last year