Happy School Days!

Antonia finally returned to school with a smile on her face and a spring in her step! From the tears and hysteria of last year this was such a relief! She has had one cold already, but when she realised it would mean staying in bed and no school or ballet, she soon decided she was well enough to go!

This year she is being taught by one of the nuns at the convent where the school is based. Sister Virginia. She is new to the school, but not to teaching. I think she lives at the convent, but I may be wrong. Antonia likes her and that is what matters.

The most interesting thing that happened in the first few days was that she made friends with the boy she hated last year! Luckily this has petered out by the second week, as she was still complaining about him even though she was playing with him. One of her little friends goes to the same ballet class, so they have now become firm friends! I was hoping to fit in a few other activities this year, but with ballet and the fact I want to start teaching her to read English a bit more formally this year, I'm not sure I will fit it in!

One thing I am letting her do is pick her home time. She can come out after lunch or at 4.00 p.m. Most of the time she picks 4.00 p.m. but I've noticed that mid-week she picks after lunch. All that learning, walking and ballet taking its toll!

One thing she did at home this week was copy her name when I wrote it down for her! I was thrilled. They don't start this until next year I think here, but in the UK she would be starting to practice, so I was relieved when she did it. Plus she wants to write and read and pretends to when she can. She is also counting and grouping things really well in English and seems to enjoy it. I'm hopeful for the reading!!

Intervallo

Hope that's spelt correctly! See you all again in September!

The Summer Play!!

Well, we made this one! No sickness or other obstacles to stop us getting there.

The theme was the 4 seasons. Antonia was in the summer part. She wore a pretty summer frock and danced to limbo music and other latin-american tunes and pretended she was at the beach! Very cute! The older children in her season were girls dressed in swimwear who danced the macarena with boys dressed as Mexicans!! I just can't imagine it being allowed, never mind thought of, in the UK!

Other memorable moments were children dancing to Singin' in the Rain, complete with brollies, swifts and butterflies, mushrooms and snow queens!

It was all really well done but tooo long, 2 hours in all! It didn't start until 6.00 p.m. so everyone was hungry and tired by the finish. There was no interval or refreshments which would have made a difference and not enough seats for everyone. Plus the Nonna's who were seated kept standing up anyway, so we couldn't see all the time! Just for once I know it would have been better organised in the UK or more to the point the parents would have been better organised by the teachers and there would have been drinks and biscuits at least!

Birthday Girl!

Antonia finally turned 4 on the 29th of March. We had a few friends over for the afternoon. As the weather was good we were all able to stay out in the garden and let the kids run riot!

I had her cake made at a local Patisserie - I only ordered it the night before! It was really good. Sometimes cakes here look great and don't taste it. This one was as good as it looked!