L'ecole - school

Annie and Jesse in front of the Mairie. These are the city offices and also the office for the school. This is where you pay for school lunch and where we registered the children for school. The back of the building is part of the square that makes up the school playground. I thought this was the school when we moved here, but we know now that it is not. This is the gate where the kids enter school. Parents are not really allowed in. There is generally a teacher there to greet the children at the beginning of the day and once they return from lunch.
Jesse, Dallas and Logan all attend the same school

Ecole elementaire Julis Renard

These are the gates from inside the playground. It seems a little strange for this to be the entrance of a school. Because the school is made up of small buildings that form a square there is not an official entrance to walk into the school. When you enter through the gates you are in the playground area and you walk from there to your classroom. It is not a typical American school with halls and a lunchroom.

The "playground" yes, this is it! They don't have any playground equipment, bells or drinking fountains. They do at least have restrooms. The school is small and very old. The children are let loose during recess and I am telling you it is anything goes. The children are expected to sit perfectly still for hours at a time in the classroom, but on the playground there is no discipline whatsoever! In the top photo you can see the wall that separates the two playgrounds. One side is for the smaller kids and the other side for the bigger kids. They are not allowed to cross over into the other section.

When it is time to collect the children and head back into class, one of the teachers starts clapping her hands and keeps clapping until the children are all lined up.

Sophie in front of her new school. We have not had the best school experience with Sophie. The Maitresse at the 1st school was pas gentil. (not nice, I even told her so, in French) We are trying the Petit Ecole Bilingue in Fontainebleau. She still has a lot of anxiety when I drop her off but the teachers here could not be more gentil or kind. We hope this will soon be a fun place for Sophie to be.

Sophie standing just outside the gates to her school.

The courtyard and entrance to the school.

This is Pistache, the class pet. Sophie thinks it really great to go to school with a bunny.