Little achievers

It's me again, the proud mumsie :)

Milja just got her grades for the courses she took in the past months. She got 9s for Finnish, philosophy and music, and an 8 for math (the grading is from 4 to 10, with 10 being the highest grade). Well done!

Matias got his 3rd quarter results today. Firstly, a couple of words and explanations. Matias's teacher is lovely but strict. If the kids get a 100% on their report/paper etc. but forget to sign their name, they get a 20% drop in the points. This is the same as B-. This same rule applies for 1 letter misspelling in a 4 page spelling homework. It's tough getting full marks, but not impossible.

Matias was ill once or twice in the past 5 weeks. Because he was ill, his math homework was late twice. The teacher's comment on Matias's report was, that even though Matias is ill he is responsible for handing in his homework promptly. And with these words she gave him C+ in math. I don't know what he would have had for math with all the homework handed in on time, but he's done well and has understood everything - and he enjoys it. For the other subjects: Science, Social studies (geography and history), Writing & Grammar and Reading he got As. Well done :)

I'm also very proud of our little friend from the squatter camp. He's been coming to swim with us every week now. He was determined to get into the pool from the start, but at first it took him some time to get in. He started out with walking in the shallow end, holding on to the side. He then advanced to walking across the pool, and then he started running in the water with Matias. You could see his confidence growing. Today we asked him if he would like to learn to swim, and he said he would like that very much. We showed him how much having air in your lungs makes a difference to your buoyancy and he tried that out. He then put on India's armbands and got used to wearing them. And then he swam! We were all absolutely thrilled - what a wonderful achievement.