the school

We just came back from an open house at JIS Pattimura campus, which is literally steps away from our house. PTA volunteers gave us a tour to the campus and we met with Elizabeth's teacher, Mr. Kerr. He is a really fun and energetic teacher, and he assured Elizabeth that she'll have the best year ever in his class. Eddy will be in Mrs. Sunny's kindergartener class.

Both kids loved the campus, and were very excited to visit all the special classrooms, and the facilities. There's a theater, an large indoor gym, an outdoor 6-lane swimming pool, a bright cafeteria, a huge grassy playground, a music room for grades 1-5, an art room (G1-5), a library with good selection of books, and a computer lab. The school also offers language/speech therapy, psychological assistance and ESL services to students whose first language is not English. Eddy will have his art and music classes in his classroom. Kindergarteners also have their OWN playground at the back of their classrooms. As part of the PE curriculum, all students are required to take swimming class unless they're sick. This is the best news for our kids! As they can already swim, there're extra-curriculum swimming classes for them to take.

I should especially mention how well the kids behaved during the open house. They have been so bored at home this summer. This morning was such an eye-opening and exciting 'field trip' for them. Elizabeth kept saying, "I'm so excited. This is really awesome." Eddy just wanted to jump in the pool right away. Tomorrow is the first day of school. We'll see how the kids will do in their new school.