Tips for the Day

Two important things, always use the tooths and never leave your baby on the road.

Naomi and Townes have now been in school for almost two weeks.  So far so good.  Naomi's in 6th grade which is officially secondary school here.  It's in the same building as the primary school, but like her friends in middle school at home, it means more subjects and different teachers for each subject.  There's only one sixth grade class in the school -- just 16 kids -- so it's not that much different from home.

Townes is in 4th grade which is supposed to be completely bilingual.  He has two homeroom teachers -- one English speaking teacher and one Chinese speaking.  I asked him what he's learned in Chinese class so far.  He said "Nothing! It's all in Chinese."  Duh.  There are two fourth grade classes, each with about 20 kids.  His favorite thing so far is the lab coats in science class.

Townes decided to try on his uniform -- as in every piece of it.  He must have on 8 layers.

Townes sporting the PE outfit.  Naomi looking impressed in the more formal uniform.  Eli having pajama day.

Summer formal uniform

Official school policy is for boys to have short hair (no longer than collar length).  Matthew wrote a letter to the head of the international program explaining that Townes was growing out his hair to donate it to Locks of Love.  Well, initially he started growing it out so that he could make huge blue spikes in his hair :).  Then he decided he wanted to donate it.  It's not quite long enough to donate, and we would have all been very bummed that a silly school uniform code was going to ruin it.  Luckily the response was just what we hoped for.  They said that was just the type of student they wanted in their school and that he can keep his hair.  Phew.  In exchange, he would have to wear it pulled back neatly and also give a presentation to his class on Locks of Love.