Artistic tendances, and studious Fridays.

At Adrien's house

"It's Friday! Papa's coming today!" Sacha is still very concerned about his goûter : should he take it to eat at school with the other children at 4 o'clock, or should he have it at home- time with Louis and Papa? I suggested that he take it in his satchel, and decide at 4 o'clock whether or not he could wait another hour.

Sacha's teacher said that he is now happy in class, and talks to the others, "but he is a rascal, as he talks to them in English." He also repeats very nicely when he is given model words and sentences. 

Remembering that Sacha was a late talker, and that he is a perfectionist who will only perform if he is sure that he can do it well, I am not at all worried that Sacha isn't speaking in French yet.  Sooner or later, it will come.

 When I take him up to his class, he goes first into the cloak-room,  puts his satchel into a big basket, and hangs up his jacket on a  peg with his name on . The children made their name labels themselves, with finger printing : for some reason he has a spare one, and so has brought it home. I like his colour choices very much.

Sacha still insists on choosing his own clothes the night before the next school day. At the moment, he is enjoying wearing jeans with a short-sleeved tee-shirt under a long-sleeved tee-shirt, and colour-co-ordinated socks and pants. As his long-sleeved tee-shirts are shorter than most of his short-sleeved ones, this gives  an interesting fashion feature around the hips, but apparently this is OK.

Here is Louis' timetable : 

Louis today will start off with English conversation rituals (Hello! How are you? My name's Louis!) Shouldn't be too hard. Next, mental arithmetic, or every other week in this slot, vocabulary and use of the dictionary. After the break, it's Maths problems, and then spelling. After lunch, it will be writing, and "literature." Then, off to the swimming pool for the class swimming lesson, the last lesson of the week. Then, it's over to you, Nick!

Satchels and shining morning faces

 

No longer unwillingly

Yet another beautiful sunny day.  The boys are getting the hang of this mornng business. Papy drops us off in good time of course.  Parking is tricky so near to the town centre, so the boys and I get quickly out of the car in front of the school and then he roars off and leaves the place for someone else.  I enjoy walking home, and usually pick up some shopping on the way. Louis' satchel is sometimes quite heavy, so I am glad that he only has to carry it down the passage and into his classroom.

This afternoon, Louis' class were taken around old Angers in the little street-train. The tourist season is slackening off, and I expect that it is not so crowded now. He said that there were some grown-ups not connected with his school in one of the carriages.

After Selma's homework visit, we played a nice new game that I have bought, where pictures have to be jigsaw-ed in with  initial  letters.( X for xylophone etc.) For this, they first had to learn the words , (all 26 of them,) so François was roped in as a model. They both repeated the words beautifully, which gave Sacha a tremendous boost, as he is very aware that he "is STILL not talking Fench." He doesn't realise that he is understanding more and more.

Parents' meeting, and Nutella

Louis’class meeting for parents on Tuesday night was well attended. I took a lot of notes, which I will pass on to Caroline and Nick, but the gist was that it was a class of well-behaved children, motivated and easy to teach, and the school motto was Respect, Politeness, and Tolerance. Mme Bonnot believes in mastering the essentials, but knows that each child has his or her own abilities, and so she bends over backwards to be sure that no-one feels excluded. Her English is excellent, and she uses time that the others are doing exercises to spend time with Louis and Andrew, who use different French books from the others. However, in Maths, she quickly translates the instructions and they do the same work as the others.

This teacher is very proud of her " International " class :  there are maps everywhere. There is an exchange of documents with Wood Fold school in Wigan, (twin town to Angers,) and she showed us the class folder which they had sent of the Royal Wedding. She was very touched that when Andrew and Louis were stammering their version of " Pomme de Reinette, " the other children didn’t snigger, but spontaneously joined in with them

I arrived at Gaëlle's house at 5p.m. yesterday afternoon to find a highly excited Louis - "Guess what we're having for goûter - crêpes again, but these are wonderful!" They certainly were : small ones made on a "Party Pancake" griddle, with a choice of sugar,various home-made jams, or Nutella, (you used to ask me why I was so cruel, and never ever bought it, my own precious children, remember? Well, now you understand,) or all three in more than one case. They had been to the park, which is only a step away, and then had a good play in Hugo and Adrien's bedrooms, where they were very pleased to discover some new toys. A marble run was a great success , as was the knight's dressing-up kit.Hugo and Adrien were quite unfazed by having 2 English boys in their house : Hugo practised his English on Louis, and Louis had a good stab at French. Sacha and Adrien played side by side, I think, but happily.

A small drama in the evening :" where is your lovely jumper, Louis?" "OH NO! It must have been left at the swimming pool, and I LOVE THAT JUMPER!" I couldn't understand this, as I was pretty sure that I had whisked away everything.. But it was not to be found, in the car or in the house. We comforted, we promised to phone the swimming pool the very next day, but he was still red-eyed when he went to bed. Then I heard a happy cry : "Mamie! I've found my jumper! It was in my duvet!" Very satisfactory : a lesson learned (or at least given,)  with no unhappy consequences.

Swimming and Goûters

Of course, as it is Wednesday and there is no school, the children were up with the lark and playing with their Pokemon cards when I looked into their room at 8h15. Normally, we have to cuddle them awake, one grandparent for one grandson. But Wednesdays are another matter.


As there is swimming at 9h40, after much discussion, they finally agreed to put on their swimming trunks under their trousers to save time once we arrived. They had a French swimmer's breakfast of crêpes and drinking chocolate, and we arrived just in time for our lesson.

I am very pleased after all that we went to the less classy swimming pool in town, as the pool is just right for children, and the parents can observe the class from above. There are 20 children in the class, for 2 instructors. Both Sacha and Louis were more confident today, and both were able to do everything that they were asked.. I looked at the other half of the group: they are not going much faster than Louis and Sacha, but they are a little older and much more disciplined - keep away from your brother next time, boys, and I mean that, definitely.

Pain au chocolat : the best French goûter.

On our return, we went to buy "goûters", as Sacha's class are allowed to have a little snack when they arrive in the story room at 16h. He knew exactly what he wanted : "you have to buy little compôtes that you suck, and thin biscuits." So that is exactly what we bought.

Louis continued with the homework that we had started last night.: today it was learning to write the words for the numbers 1-6. On my left, Sacha placed the plastic numbers in the correct order. Then I wrote the numbers 1-12  in  words on Louis' slate, in scrambled order, and the numbers on Sacha's slate.  When I said the number, (in French of course, ) they had to hunt for it . Very successful. Finally we made number patterns with the conkers we had found with Maman on Sunday, and then I had to shoo them out for "free time" while I got lunch ready.

Now they are at their " play date" with Hugo and Adrien, the two little class mates. More on that tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'll also write about last night's meeting at the school for Louis' class, where Mme Bonnot told us what she is going to teach this year. It was very interesting, but rather tiring as we were each sitting in the child's seat for nearly 2 hours, with our knees around our ears.

Refreshed

They were all smiles this morning, and Louis’ teacher said that he looked a lot better than he had last Friday.
When I collected them, Sacha came out saying that he hadn’t cried at school. I showed the teacher yesterday’s photographs,which I had printed out,  and she is going to use them on Thursday to make him talk. Meanwhile we are going to learn some simple sentences that he can say about each photo. (« I helped Papy in the garden » « We went shopping » etc.)

After school, I went through what Louis had seen with Selma, and he had evidently worked very well with her. Then they went and tested their new skipping ropes on the patio
.

While they were in the garden, Nick phoned : he will be coming for the weekend. I caught the words "swimming pool." Great stuff, Dad! 

A Day off School

(Yesterday, Monday.) We didn’t take the children to school today. They clearly needed some time just to take it easy, so I told them that it would be Mamie’s school today. The French school was perfectly sympathetic.                     

I went through Louis’ reading and comprehension book with him, and was  pleased with his very creditable attempts at joined-up handwriting. In his English school he was still printing. Sacha meanwhile went into the garden to help Papy sweep up the leaves.  Afterwards it was his turn : of course he is too little for homework, but he mustn’t stop reading in English, especially as he still hasn’t  really got the hang of it. No worries about Louis’ forgetting : he has discovered the store of children’s books that I have been jealously hoarding for all these years, and he has his nose in a book at every spare moment .

Then they lay on the carpet and we practiced the instructions that they need for swimming : " on your backs  /fronts, face under water, kick your feet," etc.

After lunch, I sloped off to Aquagym, and the children went to their bedroom for a rest while Papy had his siesta.

They had plenty of time to mess around, tease each other, and generally wind down. I played them a " Story Teller " tape  and we read another chapter of  The Magic Wishing Chair Again. What joy : the copy of  My Naughty Little Sister  stories I had ordered  from Amazon  has already arrived. We left that until the evening.  Sacha feels that he has found a kindred soul in this terrible child, and beams knowingly as the adventures unfold.  

Papy  accompanied us to Géant in the afternoon, to buy some magnetic letters and a magnetic board to help Sacha with his reading. We had to dash back, as at 17h45 Selma (aged 15 ) from next door was coming to do some work with Louis, while Sacha and I discovered the various magnetic letters.  Selma will be coming for half an hour every Monday and Thursday. She is delighted as it is pocket money for her ,and I can cast an eye on her English homework before she leaves. Louis works to impress her, and I have some time alone with Sacha.

French Without Tears

It was a lovely weekend, but busy. Caroline arrived on Friday afternoon, and came to school to collect the boys. Then we had to dash home, as  I had some serious work to do in the kitchen. Our neighbour Sophie, her daughter Selma, and son Luc came round for apéritif in the evening,  to be joined later by Matthew and Lolita, and then in the final wave, our nephew Yves accompanied by his new bride Sophie, arrived from Paris to see his cousin and the children, and to stay with us for the weekend. The children were thrilled to play with 9-year-old Luc, (who came bearing presents of Lego,) and I had the joy of hearing some brave attempts at communication in pidgin French from Louis.

 Sacha's favourite bedtime story at the moment is My Naughty Little Sister at a Party. As I can always get their attention with tales of Matthew's escapades as a child ("Tell us! tell us, Mamie, of more naughty things that Matthew did when he was little!") they were very pleased to hear of how he overdid his sampling of fruit mousse when he was learning to cook, and like the heroine of the story, can no longer face sickly puddings. (We didn't mention that at the time of the mousse incident, Matthew was already at least 17.)  It was a very pleasant evening, and we were able to have our drinks in the garden. Caroline took over and put the boys to bed before (our) dinner, so she was the one who had to cope with the noisy results of this terrible injustice.

It was a special weekend where many museums and monuments are open free to the public, so Yves and Sophie took off for the day to discover Angers. Caroline took the boys to Durtal to play with Virginie's children, and François and I drove to St Giles Croix de Vie in the Vendée to catch a quick look at the last day of my sister Ann Marie's exhibition of paintings. Here is her website:    http://www.am-valencia.fr

Not culture vultures.

On Sunday, we took the boys to meet up with the grown-ups in the Jean Lurçat museum. A gorgeous day,  wonderful museum, but we didn't stay long. They clearly intimated that a little culture goes a long way. After lunch, we had a quick trip to a park with Maman before she had to go and catch her train back to London.