Life as a preschool student

Here are a few more shots of Catie in school. Overall, she seems to like going to school here, although she does tell us that Trueblood is more fun. She still refuses to eat school lunches (W-Th-F mandatory school lunch, M & T bento lunch from home) and does not appear to enjoy group activities, as evidenced by her utter refusal to participate in the group performance at Grandparents Day. 

Catie needing a little extra help from a teacher during the group performance

I think the reality is that she is a little young to be at FIK. Although they accept students starting at age 3, most of the kids are 4 or 5. There is no government-run kindergarten in Japan- school starts with First grade at age 6. FIK is considered one of the more academic kindergartens in Morioka. The students get homework every night. Catie’s homework is all about learning to read and write, but the older kids are doing fairly complicated addition problems! She seems to be making friends and really enjoys time on the playground, so hopefully her experience will be more positive than negative. If only I could get her to try more of the “yucky” lunches!

Getting pushed around the play area by her buddy Aizen  (He actually pulled the car out and held the door open for her before pushing her around!)