I walked Mark and Walter to school on their first day, and as we headed up the wooded path to the building we saw children playing soccer and balancing themselves on ropes suspended between trees. Hiking, biking, skiing and swimming outside appear to be integral parts of the curriculum (the boys enjoy three recesses in their five and half-hour school day), and I was asked to sign a permission slip so that they could participate in all of these activities.
Given that Lutheranism is the state religion in Norway, the public school does include some religious instruction and parents have the option of having their children participate in Christmas walk to the Kristiansand Cathedral.
The day went quite well given that they couldn't understand what their teachers were saying. Walter (pronounced Valter in Norwegian) came home with two new friends, boys whose names he couldn't pronounce, and went to the apartment of one of them where he watched the Simpsons and ate waffles. His class is doing a unit on comic books, so we'll have to buy one tomorrow.
Mark enjoyed his class as well, got a chance to introduce himself to his classmates, and had fun with the other kids playing soccer. On Thursday, his class will have a blueberry picking contest.
I've emailed the soccer center to see if I can enroll Walter in a soccer club. Mark wants to play handball.
This evening we tried to decipher Walter's reading for the day. I typed the Norwegian into Google translator and then together we tried to make sense of the words. It's slow going, but we're making some progress.
Cheers,
Martha
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