Anders og Nora går på skolen!
We brought the kids to school for the first day this morning, in the dark, of course. Anders was excited and Nora was anxious. Their faces in the picture say it all. Everyone was so sweet and the school is beautiful.
Nora was a little weepy and very nervous. Her teacher focused on her and they sat down together on a bench in the hall to have a little talk. She said, “I understand that this is difficult for you, but everyone is happy that you are here” and walked her to the coat room to show her how to put her things away. They will call their teachers by their first names, this is Vilde. They had 
everything ready for her. She took her into the classroom and sat her with another girl who is good in English who was ready to be her helper Anders’ teacher did the same, I’m sure, but he was ready to go off without his parents in tow, so we didn’t follow him.
In the classroom, ALL of the girls had their eyes on Nora. The boys didn’t seem to care much, 
although we will learn later that they are just as curious as the girls. All of the 4th graders are in one big room here, half of them (22) in this part of the room with Vilde and the other half on the other side of the cubbies. They will alternate going to other parts of the school for different classes (gym, etc.) so all 44 aren’t in the open space together all day.
T
he 7th graders are in this big open space. Anders is in the bright blue sweatshirt in the center of the picture. They are divided into 3 groups (looks like about 15 in their group). They will move between different parts of the space and the school as well.
The kids take off their boots when they come into the building and most just spend the day in socks! Even for gym! In Anders’ class, many of the kids have slides, so we will pick some up for him to wear around school. Nora is thrilled about the socks-only policy. Everyone brings their own “matpakke” (packed lunch) and they eat at their desks. In Anders class, the big excitement is that they can bring a cup of noodles on day per week to have a warm lunch at school, or they can toast some bread with their lunch.
Utetid (outside time, aka recess) is the best part of the day, and it seems like the kids are always outside! In the room for outdoor clothes (which is almost as big as a classroom), each child has a space for everything.
Then there is this extra space just for 
hanging boots that are wet. If you look at the detail in that picture, there is a pretty cute pictogram of a “potty dance” on that bathroom door 🙂 And get this–a drying room! If the kids come back in with wet stuff, they have a special room accessed from this area that has warm air blowing to dry things off. There are hooks for coats and snowpants, racks for gloves…they’ve got it all. This room is only for the 4th and 5th graders, I think. They seem to have a room with all of these features for 2 grades each, 
serving approximately 80 kids (my best guess).
The school playground has equipment up around the top ridge and sledding down into the bowl, with an ice rink down at the bottom to the left. The kids do a lot of sledding, even if they don’t have sleds. They have worn down icy paths in the hill so that they can slide right down. There are ice skates available to go on the ice. Anders was invited to play hockey at recess one day. On most days they get 1 hour for outside time and lunch, plus a little more outside time in the afternoon. It only takes a few minutes to get from our apartment to the playground.
After bringing the kids to school for the first day, I went downtown for some errands, and when I came back the kids were out on the playground. As I went by, my eye caught the familiar colors of Nora, right in the center of the pack of kids (pink hat with the puff). At first I thought they were just in line for the slide, but they were clearly interacting with each other. It must be going ok!
After school, Anders came in the door and I greeted him, but Nora wasn’t there! He went back out to look for her and I followed. He didn’t realize that they were walking home together (even though he had the key). AND he was walking home with his FRIENDS! Nora also came home smiling and talking.
They both had good reports after school. Kids are friendly. Anders says he impressed everyone with his throwing arm. They have a piece of equipment on the playground that is a board with holes through it, for throwing snowballs through (OMG, allowing snowballs on a playground, but redirected! Genius!) He said that no one was throwing snowballs at him on the way home from school, but they were throwing at each other. He has done the math work already, so that was easy. He also has homework: reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid in norsk and writing a summary in norsk.
Nora likes her table-mate and even got her phone number. Math was easy because she had done it before (which is a nice boost for Nora who normally is not up to speed in math. She rocked English class too 
) She knows another girl wants to make friends because the girl kept smiling at her, and she smiled back.
[click on pictures for a bigger view]
