Trey and Olivia

As you have read from other excerpts in this blog, the kids are doing well, but certainly miss California. Everything is pretty status quo with them regarding friends and sports (Livy is still in swimming and Trey in both swimming and tennis). Trey and I have been spending a bit more time of late playing baseball at the castle now that we have warmer and longer days.

School is still the highlight for them. They both will tell you that there is no question that there school here is their favorite that they have ever attended. Both of them received excellent report cards last month and Trey really improved in math and Italian.

In early April, we had “Portfolio Day” at the school which is a day where the kids attend with the parents for 45 minutes at a pre-arranged time. Anna and I have never taken part in something like this before and thought that it was not only unique but yet another example of the difference between previous schools and ISF.

Each child prepares a detailed portfolio of work that they have done throughout the year (Book reports, power point presentations, art and science projects, etc…) When you arrive at the school the teacher has a table reserved in the classroom and an agenda for the child to follow where they take you through presentations of the various projects that they have worked on for the past seven months. Included in the presentation of these projects are numerous question and answer sheets that the child has completed in advance. These sheets include questions like: What did you like about working on this project and why? When you completed this project, what did you feel that you did well and why? What area would you like to focus on improving in this area of learning and why?

I must tell you, it was a fascinating day for the four of us. The kids were so proud and excited to present their learning to us and the level of confidence that they showed was extraordinary. One of the things that this school seems to do a great job with us getting the kids to open up and express their feelings in a very comfortable way. The energy level at the school is something that I have never seen in the past. Everyone is friendly and the kids are always in a good mood (Well almost always). In fact at the beginning, Mark and Tracy Tyron were suspicious that the school was too easy because the kids liked it too much! I think that its as simple as getting more out of happy kids rather than through the drill sergeant mentality.

We were also able to tour the various classes that the kids learn in. They have a library, where they spend time reading each week, a computer lab, an art room and an Italian classroom.

The next several weeks will be quite fun for the kids as we will have numerous visitors, including Anna’s parents, her best friend Diane and her kids and my mom. As mentioned in the section on Hanni, the kids really loved having their cousin here with them. Following is their interview…