Note from Gretta's Teacher

Gretta has been struggling in school a bit. She was so excited to come to Brazil and go to school and Eliza was dead set on not going to school down here. Well they have changed their tunes. Eliza's school is all in English because they are trying to teach the children English and at her age school isn't mandatory. Gretta is in 2nd grade where by law they have to teach all of the required subjects and what is mandated by the Brazil in Portuguese and then she has two classes a day in English. However she complains they speak Portuguese then too. I would think it would be like us using English to teach Portuguese. We have been trouble shooting options for her and this week asked if she could try 1st grade because there are 2 other Americans in 1st grade, and then on Friday she is going to go to Eliza's school. There is one class older than Eliza's she is going to try.
Today they switched here around to different classes so most of her day was in English and she reported it was much better.
Plus their last day of school for the school year is Dec 6th, so it's late in the school year here.
Her other complaint is that they don't have any playground equipment which is true! They just have a little soccer field. Space is at a premium. They would go crazy over Gretta's schools playground at home!
The good news is she seems to be making friends and likes the food they feed her for snack and lunch.
Hopefully by the end of the week we will have everything all worked out.


Dear parents,

Gretta had a wonderful morning at school today. she attended to my classes in the morning and in the afternoon she will attend to teacher Cristiane´s English classes.

She looks very happy, so do we!

Teacher Patrícia