First month of school---Isaac

Guest post by Isaac

1. How is you Chilean school different than your school in the US?

in spanish,  subjects are much different levels

2. How is it similar?

school

3. What have you been surprised by in school?

lots

4. What has been challenging in school for you?

spanish, easy math,  language


5. Are the other kids accepting of you even though you don't speak much Spanish?

yes


6. What things do you like about school?

climbing after school on Tuesday and more that I can't think of right now

7. What things don't you like about school?

being bored

8. How are you learning Spanish while at school? What do others do to help you learn? What do you do to help yourself learn?

listening to other kids

9. Would you recommend this experience for other students in the US?

if they like chile and hardly understanding anything everybody says

Hiking conversations

One might be asking what we talk about while hiking. The boys have gotten to be pretty good hikers, and have tolerated 3-4 hour hikes. It's not always easy to get them going, as they'd rather sit and read books most of the time, but usually once we get on the trail they are pretty good. Max, being the youngest, sometimes is harder to get going or needs more distractions to keep him going. Sometimes he'll just SIT DOWN mid trail if he's done or tired. We've worked out that he can sit anytime he needs to and count to 10, then get back up and keep going. On some hikes now, he is often at the head of the line for a good period of time! We encourage him to use walking sticks, too, and that helps.

The boys often get into familiar conversations that we hear on many of our hikes. The main topics revolve around 1) food/food memories 2) animals/pets 3) video games. 4) Sometimes they talk about books they've read, too. This trip they can get into hour + conversations about the video games they are playing (I never know what they are talking about) and they go off on their own in deep conversation. Yesterday they talked about Harry Potter and Max gave us all the review of the newest book. Sometimes they review the stories we hear on audio book Wayside School. 5)TV shows/movies. Usually this involves singing songs from Phineas and Ferb or reviewing favorite movie titles. There is ALWAYS talk about food. This week they talked longingly about a visit to the Cheesecake factory with Gigi and what kinds of cheesecake they got. I often get reminded that my attempt to make baked Alaska didn't turn out! We always hear about various pets, our cat Charlie and our neighbor dog Addie as well as Emma, Hamilton, Ranger, etc. etc.