First Day of Kindergarten

New friends Taylor, Sophie, and Isabella

Greeting her teacher and classmates

All the Kids!

Celebrating Day 1 with Friends Isabella & Esme!

Tay and Daddy

August 12, 2009 Today was Taylor's first day of Kindergarten! She chose her color of uniform to wear and how she wanted her hair. Surprisingly, I did not get weepy, but rather excited for her...she was excited so I didn't want to cause her any alarm. She is attending a charter school called Global Village Academy, GVA (see links). It is an international bilingual public charter school grades K-8. They offer Mandarin, Spanish and French. We chose Chinese. The Kindergarten program is 100% Chinese immersion. First grade is 80/20% and eventually it will be 60/40% in about 4th grade. Studies report that it takes 6 years to really become fluent in a language. We are hoping Taylor will continue at this school. GVA is part of the Aurora public schools and is about a 15 minute drive north of our home. We were able to take Chinese lessons this summer with one of the K teachers. That really helped since she explained the program and talked about the school to the girls. There were 5 friends in her summer class and four of them are attending GVA. Sydney, one of the girls, lives around the corner and will be coming home with us after school. Her little sister was adopted from China a year ago and is 2.5. Tay's first and very good friend Michelle is going to first grade at her neighborhood school. The after school programs are all brought in by local businesses: Taekwondo, Ballet, violin, math & science, Chinese dance, piano, etc. It is hard to choose, but Tay wants to continue with Taekwondo and dance. We are trying to go Tue/Thur after school one day for each. When you come for a visit you will have to stop in the school to see how it is set up. GVA is only three years old and so has a lot of growing pains to work out, but we love the concept and her teacher seems nice enough. She is also very traditional and speaks very little English. She has 15 years experience teaching at the International School of Language here in Colorado. She will say hello and then follow it with Ni Hao repeatedly. Very cool. Taylor and Isabella are the only Chinese kids in their class. There is a mix of Hispanic, Caucasian, girls and boys. Taylor and I had fun preparing for school this year. We went shopping for a new backpack, shoes, hair pretties, earrings, and the rest of her school uniform. Much cheaper buying uniforms! We met two other moms and their girls for ice cream after school! Kip was there for pick-up and Tay was surprised to see daddy and very happy too. Today is Friday and she wanted to curl her hair! So cute.