Kalee loves her school here and I'm glad about that, but I'm getting a little anxious about her reading. Her school here is all about play, not learning. Finnish elementary school does not start until kids are 7 years old and there is no expectation that they should be able to read when they start. I don't criticize this at all. Finnish kids spend the fewest number of hours a year in school and have the best test outcomes. Whatever they are doing works. But ... Kalee will be in first grade next year in Kalamazoo and needs to be further along in the reading department than she is. She was making such good progress before we left. After her day or half-day at the Finnish school she is all tuckered out (they play outside alot, even when it is pretty darn cold) and in no mood to concentrate on reading. Last weekend I decided to see if we could teach her stuffed animals to read. She was totally into that and was a very good assistant teacher. She also "talked" all her animals and they gave very good answers. I think we'll be having a lot more school for her animals on the weekends.
Charles has started baking bread, again, which makes all of us very happy. He didn't bring his sourdough starter so he is experimenting with yeast. He is also navigating the world of Finnish flour which is more confusing that you would think. He promises a post about this sometime but don't hold your breath. Kalee declares the results of Charles' experiments "the best bread ever" and demands to eat "daddy bread" with everything.
After the bread was baked we went out for a little excursion on the lake. I've been wanting to investigate this thing that I can see from our window that hangs down below the bridge. From our apartment it sort of looks like someone is swinging underneath the bridge. Turns out that is exactly what it is.
"Why is that hanging up there, mommy?""Because someone thought it would be neat."
"But why is it there?"
"It's art."
"But why???"
"I don't know, Kalee. I just don't know."
(But really, it's pretty cool, don't you think?)
Not many people walk over to see this swinging doll so we were tromping through deep, deep snow, nearly up to my knees and over Kalee's. Under all the snow the ice is mushy - too much insulation. We headed back to the regular paths.
Something I have noticed while walking around town is that all the bridge underpasses and poured concrete structures were poured in wood molds (either the real or fake variety). The effect is that all this concrete has a wood grain to it with all of woods irregularity and line. It is amazingly effective in making the concrete seems more natural, a part of the natural environment. It must trigger something deep in my brain that says "this is natural, not synthetic." It is especially nice on curves. These three pictures are from the bridge over our lake.
Concrete, Jill, you are really writing about concrete? Well, at least my mom and my sister will get it.
Don't worry too hard about Kalee being ready for 1st grade. Remember that there are still lots of kids in the U.S. who start 1st grade having not done kindergarten. My kindergartener is not focusing nearly as much on reading in her class as I would like--she was reading when she got there, and they're still really doing letters in class. What they're focusing on in kindergarten is not so much reading as learning the basics of phonics, so they focus for a week on a letter and talk about what sound it makes and what words start with it. She's gotten much better in the last few months at being able to answer questions like, "What letter does polymorphous start with?" (I like to ask words she doesn't know, so I know it's not just that she remembers seeing the word.) And rhyming is getting stronger. And in math-related skills, she's now counting by fives and tens, something she seemed to learn in kindergarten. But in kindergarten in the U.S., it seems like the main focus in her class is really about learning the system of school--lining up for things, asking permission, sitting quietly. And there's large portions of the day devoted to lunch, recess, gym/art/other specials, so the amount of time they focus on reading? Well, if you're putting in a half a day focusing with just your child and not a whole classfull, she's probably getting as much or more than she would in school. It's more those socialization skills than anything that they get in the actual school. And Kalee is getting those kinds of things in Finnish kindergarten, I'm sure.
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