David's Diary: Monday, August 28, 2001

School Starts in Oisterwijk

One of our biggest challenges during our year away is teaching the children. But we also expect it to be one of our biggest joys giving us the opportunity to interact with our children while integrating our travel experience into their learning environment.

The school year in Canada will not start for more than a week, but we know that next week we will be traveling and unable to work on school. So the 2001/2002 school year started today in a bungalow park in Oisterwijk, The Netherlands (Oisterwijk is located in province of Noord Brabant in the South of The Netherlands).

It took some time for Karalee and I to review the school year and plan out each day. Jocelyn and Kevin have a diary, which maps out what work is to be done each day. Since Allen is in Grade One, his material is organized around each school day and after our first day of school we realize that it will take one of us each day to devote full-time attention to Allen in order for him to complete Grade One. Our first day of school goes well and we all have time in the afternoon to play in the park and have a break from the school day.