a week of school

sabin's weekly schedule at school looks like this:

monday starts off with two back-to-back periods of P.E. they do anything from tumbling and climbing on gymnastics equipment to playing a baseball-like game called "round ball" to the old stand-by, the dreaded dodgeball. round ball has four bases like baseball and a pitcher, but the bat looks different (we'll have to photograph one and show you), but you can have as many men on a particular base as you want at any given moment during the game.  runs and outs are scored the same as normal baseball. it's played with a tennis ball, not a regular baseball, so no one wears a glove.

after P.E., there's recess and then the rest of the day is spent on math.

recess happens every day between 2nd & 3rd period and lunch happens between 4th and 5th. school starts at 8:10 a.m. and gets out at 12:50.  this yard is where recess takes place. that's sabin's school building on the left. i took these pictures at the friday celebration of middle ages week a couple of weeks ago, so that's why there's way more people there than there normally would be.

tuesdays mean two periods of danish, then two periods of art and then the last hour is "class time," which can be used to sum up/reinforce things like social relations and treating one another with respect.

wednesday first period is science, followed by one period of math and then two period of music after recess. last period on wednesdays is christianity. denmark has a state church, rather than separation of church and state, so kids learn about christianity. actually, the class would be more accurately titled "religion," as they talk about religions of all kinds. sabin has two classmates that are muslim, so that's of course a topic as well.

thursdays are all danish all the time. we'll share a bit more in-depth another day what sabin does for danish--but it's all about reading and writing and on tuesdays actually includes dictation and a spelling test. sabin's class is working with a list of 120 common words this year--drilling them over and over and using them in sentences and composing stories.

fridays bring more danish and 4th period is a mystery to us. on her schedule it says "IFT," and none of us can remember for the life of us what that might mean. sabin's going to ask and we'll report on that another day this week. last period on fridays is math again, but her math teacher, frank, often regales the class with stories during that hour (or so i heard at the parents' meeting). he's been a teacher for twenty years and has lots of stories to tell.

and that, in short, is a typical week at sabin's school.  every day she goes next door to the after school program, which is in a house right next to sabin's school building:

one of her favorite places at the SFO (this stands for skoleogfritidsordning) is the pillow room. you have to sign up for it and i think only 4 kids can be in there at a time, because it gets pretty wild. here's sabin with her friend M, they had mostly cleaned it up because i was there to pick sabin up:

most days after school, sabin has play dates arranged with someone from her class. often they walk home together to the friend's house or to our house. if she's not playing with someone, i generally go down and get her around 3 p.m. (when i'm working from home) and we bike/scooter or walk home together (it's about 5-6 blocks). sometimes i give her a note or call her on her mobile and she comes home on her own. but, she generally likes me to pick her up, so i do. it's especially nice with the beautiful weather we've been having. tho' this week has turned a bit blustery and rainy. we're trying not to mind because the garden needs the rain.

and that's our weekly school routine. more later this week about a normal daily lunchbox and hopefully some other pictures of school and maybe our town.