First Week of School: COMPLETE!

It's Sunday afternoon and we've had a restful weekend. Tomorrow was declared a public holiday, so we have an unexpected day off from school! We have an especially short week coming up as we have next Friday off as well. I have mixed emotions about a 3 day week this week. This first week was spent trying to engrain procedures, schedule and routine in the Pre-K, so having a long weekend, a 3 day week and then another long weekend isn't helping the momentum and continuity much. On the other hand, this week has been BUSY! In fact, the last 5 months for us have been busy, so having an extra day tomorrow is welcome!

So how was our first week at KICS? Let me tell you!

Monday was a half day and went pretty well for our family. Isaac had a few rough patches as he's adjusting and entering into an American curriculum after being in a British curriculum school. He and Hope had to do some entrance testing, and a few of the questions threw him off - asking things about inches and feet when he's used to centimeters and meters - things like that. He did get a locker and figured out how to use the lock, which he was really excited about. Hope had a great first day - she's excited about everything school right now - especially that she doesn't have a uniform. I do NOT love that like she does. We try and remember to set out clothes the night before, but we are so used to uniforms now that it's an adjustment for all of us. Geneva was our only student in Pre-K who cried on the first day! She was with me the whole day, but of course, had to share me with 18 other children. She was not impressed. Marc is teaching two AP classes, which is going to be a lot of work- for his students, but for him too. It's been really beneficial that he taught the same Bible curriculum at HOPAC as what is being taught here. He's sat down with the new Bible teacher here at KICS to help navigate the curriculum, which can be a bit overwhelming.

First day of School!

KICS has incredible leadership between our principals and director. We've been impressed and inspired by each of them, and feel like we are being professionally equipped and challenged but also nurtured and cared for. We are thankful to be working under their strong leadership.

Our Pre-K class has 21 students on the roster, though one has been traveling and will join us this week sometime and another has yet to come. Our teaching team is made up of Carrie, the full time core teacher and myself (part-time), as well as two full time para's, Patience and Sumayiah. Our team is incredible. I'm learning so much from each one of them and we seem to really balance each other well. We all bring different gifts and strengths to the table. We are working at identifying what those are and how we can best utilize them to enrich our Pre-K program. Carrie and I have sorted out that she will be teaching Math & Science and I will be teaching Bible and Language Arts. We have had to make some alterations to our schedule this past week and are still working on ironing out all the kinks. Even though Monday is a holiday, we're planning a full day of work to get ourselves set up for the week.

My co-teacher, Carrie during story time 

Our students are bright, fun, beautiful, full of life and energy and just overall fantastic. At KICS we have 25 different countries represented. Our Pre-K students come from Rwanda, USA, Kenya, Ethiopia, UK, Ghana, Uganda, Korea and perhaps I can say Tanzania as well for Geneva. We have 2 little ones who do not speak English, and one who has very limited English. During story time, I'll be pulling the two with no English aside and working with them on GPA, which is the language learning method I used to learn KiSwahili. It's very active and engaging and so far the girls have really had fun with it!

Leading worship during Bible time

Our Pre-K is located in a house about a two minute walk from the main KICS campus. The school has been growing tremendously, and therefore had to find a difference space for us! The last few weeks have been filled with trying to turn a home into a Pre-K. It's been a lot of work, and truly Carrie did so much of it before we got here, so I can't complain, but we still have a lot more to do.  I'm very thankful for the resources we have here though. 

Thanks for reading about our first week. Feel free to post questions!