Profi (Professora - Teacher)Adri and Emma
Emma finished school on December 17th. The last week was full of programs and festivities and we had so much fun! I am so thankful for Emma's teacher, Adrianne. She is just an incredible woman - so very patient and kind and caring and loving to all the children. I felt like she took extra time to help Emma assimilate into the classroom and she was attentive to her needs as a non-Brazilian student. What a blessing she has been!! It's been very difficult for me to leave Emma at preschool here. I remember leaving her for the first time and wondering if she'd be OK. I'd probably feel similar in the U.S.; I think most moms do when their kids first go to school. But here, I wondered if she'd be able to communicate. Would she know enough of the language to get by? Would the teachers be able to understand her? What if??? I'm absolutely shocked at how well she has adjusted to interacting with the Brazilians, both the teachers and the kids! Her little mind has picked up so many words and she just seems so comfortable when she walks into her classroom. She kind of walks into the school like she owns it, so that's fun. I love hearing about her time with the other kids and she loves telling me stories about what she does at school.
This is Fredi, the school mascot. A few days before school was out, the kids had a program. Emma's class just sat in front and didn't really perform, but the older kids sang songs and wore costumes and told a story about the star that announced the birth of Baby Jesus. After the program, all the families stayed for a party with lots of snacks and desserts and soda. Oh, a definite cultural difference was the fact that the start time for the program was 8:30p.m.!! And of course, because it's Brazil, it didn't actually start until closer to 9p.m.! Kids were starting their sugar-highs around 10:00p.m.!! We chose sanity and told Emma she didn't need any sugar-coated goodies. She was so tired, though, that she didn't want anything to eat! It was a fun night overall and we were exhausted when the evening was over. Emma loved seeing her coleginhas (little classmates), Fredi, and of course, Santa.
Pedro and Emma
On a normal day, there are usually 10-14 students in Emma's class. There were 18 enrolled, but rarely were all the kids there on the same day. For instance, if it happened to be raining, less than ten kids would be in her classroom. Profi Adri always had two other younger teachers in the classroom with her. I loved that there were three adults. Three-year olds can be crazy, so the more help, the better!!
The last day of school, I decided to hang out in Emma's classroom. Before moving to Brazil, I thought most Brazilians were dark-skinned. Definitely in northern Brazil, that's true, but here, in the southernmost state, it's quite the opposite! Because our region was settled by Germans and Italians, the people are fair-skinned with beautiful blue eyes. I'm amazed by how many blond-haired, blue-eyed people live here. The children are just beautiful to me! One of the advantages to us is that we don't really call attention to ourselves unless we speak. We don't look all that different than the Brazilians, so people don't know we're Americans right away. Emma, with her red hair, is definitely noticed, but people don't always know that she's not Brazilian, especially since she's speaking Portuguese now.
Artur, ornery, but very sweet
Daniel, incredibly sweet and one of the few calm boys in Emma's class!! Daniel's dad is the music teacher at the school and Emma loves the days when he comes to her classroom with his guitar. I've seen Daniel's mom several times when I drop Emma off at school, but we didn't really talk until the last day of school. She happens to be one of the biggest answers to prayer for me!!! She's a stay-at-home mom!!!!! Can I repeat that?? SHE'S A STAY-AT-HOME M-O-M!!! I hope I didn't scare her away with the psychotic excitement/surprise on my face, but she's the first mom I've met who doesn't work during the day! Her son started school about a month before Emma. We had a great time chatting while the kids ran around the classroom. Before she left, we exchanged phone numbers and I'm hoping we can get together sometime in January! We're officially on summer break until the end of February, so I think Emma would love to play with a classmate before then! And me, well, I'm just excited to connect with another mom!
Giovanna, curly blond hair, blue eyes - sweetheart
The kids sat patiently waiting for Santa Claus to come visit. I'm impressed that such a large group of three-year olds can sit for so long!
"Santa" tried really hard to sound like a man, but she didn't succeed. The kids didn't care, though. "Santa" had presents!!
I think Emma was more excited about hugging Santa than she was about getting her gift. I got an email from a friend regarding Santa. She asked, "Why do we encourage our kids to sit on strange men's laps and let that man come into our houses while we are sleeping?" Good point!! In addition, why do kids just love him? There are Santas everywhere. We probably won't escape that, and I'm not sure that's what we're going for. We'd just like Emma to know that Christmas is about the birth of God's Son, the arrival of our Saviour, Jesus and that He was the best gift ever. Santa's fine. He's a jolly part of Christmas. But he's not what Christmas is about. We spent a lot of time in December giving gifts to other people to remind Emma about the Gift that was given to us and I felt like she had fun with it. I loved watching her eyes light up as she gave people gifts. We feel like, unless we teach her to give, she'll only be excited to receive. How can it be more blessed to give if you never really do it?
The school, through Santa, gave the kids each a puzzle - a picture of their class!! Emma has put the puzzle together a few million times already! She loves pointing to each classmate and she has a story about each kid, as well as the three teachers! I love it!
The week after school was out, I met with Profi Adri for a short parent/teacher conference. Oh my goodness, how intimidating! Well, not really, but it's the first time I've ever met with anyone to discuss the behavior of my child. As we headed to the school for the meeting, I thought, "Here goes! Have I trained my child to be respectful and loving and caring and has she retained it? How does she act when I'm not around to discipline or encourage?" I left that meeting the proudest parent in all of South America!! Well, I'm proud of her regardless of what anyone says, but it was so fun to hear what her teacher had to say about her. She had typed up a whole page of characteristics that she had noticed in Emma and her perception of Emma! One of the funnier sentences was, "Emma likes to play in the sand, (near the entrance, separating the tiny rocks from the sand)." Yep, that's Emma Jae. She loves to play with rocks and she doesn't really like to get totally dirty with sand, so she sits near the entrance of the sand pit where she can stay clean, but still play with her beloved little pedrinhas (little rocks)!! I was very happy to hear that she's speaking quite a bit of Portuguese and seems to be very comfortable talking to the other kids as well as all the teachers in the school. I'm so happy that she can communicate. Life here is so much easier when we can actually communicate with people! I love that school has helped her learn the language and learn to interact more with the people here. I'm so grateful for the experience she's had with them over the past three months! I'm also very, very, very happy school is over and that it's summer break!!
