The crayons are different in Spain like many things in the school.“Dictado” is one of the things Mozart enjoys in school and she likes these crayons that come without paper around them. She is always making presents for her teacher and friends and has endless invitations for play dates, so seems happy there. She teases me about my horrible Spanish pronunciation and has perfected her British accent from her UK friends. Yet she is also ready to get on the road and back to home schooling full time.
She loves little notebooks and bought one recently at her favorite store in the village. She was babbling away in Spanish as she filled it in quickly next to me, while I worked on the computer. She was making up her own “dictado” like they do at school every day, just writing out things as she thought them up. I find her writing more in Spanish as her first instinct when she is writing on her own. Conversely her speaking is still mostly in English at home, altho she switches to Spanish if that is what is being spoken. She sings a ton in both languages.
Since I do not even know what most of the words said, I found it interesting. I find her drawings fascinating too sometimes like the Picassoesque one or how she does so many symbol-like things. She gave me a long and detailed description of what it was (some kind of threading machine) and how it worked. She always has very elaborate explanations for her drawings.
I have never had a child before, so do not know how others do this kind of thing, but I enjoy observing it and wondering what makes her tick. (One of the pictures above some writing is an hour glass with sand coming out and who knows what made her think of that). I will post a few for posterity. Note she automatically puts dates in a European way and her “student” made mistakes on purpose.
Her Spanish is so rich now and its intriguing to watch how the immersion seeps into her consciousness in so many ways. The writing and reading in Spanish has really added a lot to her fluency and it is perfect timing as it is better to do this after a bilingual child is fluent in reading and writing in their first language. Coming in at this grade gives her a very good Spanish literacy training that we could not have given as well on our own. Not to mention all the wonderful cultural benefits !
She also got into a big project of making pictures of all the kids and people she knows and labeling them. She has her little vest over her PJ’s as it was a little cold that night even for her as she is rarely cold here. We had about a week or two of colder winter weather, especially at night and I am glad it is gone.