First Day of School!

The first Monday following Australia Day is the first week of school. In Australia the school year goes like so:

Term 1: Jan--March (then two weeks off for Easter Break)

Term 2:April--June (then two weeks off early July--winter holiday)

Term 3: July-Sept (again two weeks off (sadly, always during Olivia's b-day)

Term 4 Oct-Dec (then the last two weeks off for Christmas break)

This year both Olivia & Mary are attending Russell Lea Infants School. This school is for children from kindy to year 2; which is why I like it! Although a public school, I find it gives a lot of attention to the little kids as it is a very small school. I drive through two other towns to get to it every day. There are no school buses in Sydney (everyone takes public transport or their parents drive them; with the exception of the private schools). So I drop them off and pick them up each day.

Olivia (year 2) was very excited for her first day of school as she was put in the class with all her friends and her classroom is a place called "The Cottage". The school is set up like any school in a tropical climate with classrooms as separate buildings, with a court yard in the middle and awnings to cover you from the sun when you switch classes. Basically, The Cottage is away from the rest of the school buildings and they have their own little garden in the back of their classroom.

Olivia on her first day of year 2

As an older kid, Olivia now gets to do special school assignments like getting to lock the school gate each day, or putting away recess equipment or being a trash monitor! She told me she needed to have a meeting with her friends so they could think of ways they could be leaders at school and help everyone. She said they would need to use the Wii for the meeting! :-)

A big win on her first day of school was that Olivia was the only kid in her class to have learned some of her multiplication tables over the summer. She was buzzing to tell us how math time was spent with the teacher asking a question as she was giving every answer.

Mary (kindy) is the tallest girl in her class! She also got Mrs. Stephenson this year who was Olivia's kindy teacher. We liked her very much so we were very happy to get her again. Mary was very brave the first day but was tired at the end of the day (106 F) as the power kept going out and the schools could not run their air conditioning. The second day she cried because she said "school is long and we don't get to play that much!" I later learned that recess/ lunch play time were cancelled as it was too hot to play outside and the children had to stay inside to watch a movie. In addition, due to the heat I was also able to pick Mary up early from school. Either way she is right...nothing like preschool!

Mary's first day of Kindergarten!

At Russell Lea, each year two child picks a kindy child to be their buddy. They walk the kindy kids up to their class, carry their bags for them, teach them how to jump rope and help them at recess time. This year Olivia is Mary's buddy; and for the first time in about a year (or longer) the girls (1) did not fight in the car when I picked them up from school and (2) played together without fighting until bed time--crazy hu! It could be a good year!

Olivia being Mary's buddy and walking her into class!

First day of school! New backpacks....imported from America!

ps. I am so excited for this next year as I am no longer running the uniform shop for the school and I will have some serious free time! I guess I should think about potty training Thomas!