If you have followed our family on Facebook and/or Instagram, you’re up to date. If you only follow our blog, I’m sorry—here’s the quick recap: we traveled to Ukraine and adopted our boys during a revolution (total stay was 8 weeks), we had a very busy and fun summer bonding as a family, and now our kiddos are about to start school!
Many of you have asked what we’re doing for school for our boys and how their English is coming along, so I thought I’d give you the low-down.
Here's the short version:
-English - our boys are rock stars and are doing amazingly well with their English after only 4 months in the U.S.!
-School - Slavik and Vlad are going to public school, Valik is being homeschooled, and Eden & Cal are going to a new church preschool program.
Here's the {much} more detailed version:
Learning English
Background: Our boys are
multi-lingual (Ukrainian, Russian, Spanish, Italian, and English are all spoken
in our home) and super smart! However,
when they came home on April 26th, they knew barely any
English. Praise God for His perfect
timing of giving us a full summer before we even needed to think about school
for them!
How they are learning: For the last 4
months, we have required our boys to do English lessons for a minimum of 30
minutes a day M-F (we took several breaks when we were on vacations). Our older two have been doing Rosetta Stone,
and our youngest has done a variety of lower-level programs (videos, games,
etc.). We encouraged more TV and movie
watching than most would seem normal so that they would hear English even
more. And we limited the amount of
Ukrainian videos that our youngest could watch since he struggled the most with
learning English. Now that they are
close to starting school and doing activities at church without us around, we
have required that they speak to each other in English when we are having
dinner together.
Progress: While we were in
Ukraine, we had to use Google Translate 99% of the time to communicate with
them. In the early days home, we had to
use it at least a few times a day. Now
we only have to use it for words that are used infrequently (recent example:
sauerkraut).
Verdict: Our boys are
amazing! They definitely had/have
moments of getting frustrated and overwhelmed with learning our language, but
they have amazed us with their progress!
I was honestly the most scared about the language barrier with our boys,
but God has shown me that it’s one of the easiest things in international
adoption!
Bottom Line: Because they are our sons, we just know them. The best analogy
I can give is how a mama knows what her newborn baby needs by his/her
cries. We can communicate easily with
them because they are part of Team Huss.
Starting School
Background: In Ukraine, our boys
attended a very small school (their orphanage was their school). They each had roughly 12-18 kids in their
grade level, and they stayed in the same classroom while the teachers rotated
in and out. Team Huss lives in the
Houston area where the public schools are huge!
Weighing the Options: From the
beginning, we wanted to ensure that we made our decisions based on the needs of
each child. In other words, all 3 boys
don’t have to have the same type of schooling.
We wanted to get to know them before we made any decisions (once again,
than you Lord for giving us 4 months with them before we had to make any
decisions!). We wanted to consider all
possibilities: public school, private school, and homeschool.
Ben and I both attended public schools and
loved them (he in the Houston area; me in a small town in Louisiana). We have tons of family members who are public
school teachers. We are fortunate to
live in a great area for public schools—they are top notch! They get ESL support in our public schools,
so that was definitely
a viable option—the only real downside being the size of the schools.
Then there is the private school option. The big pros for that would be the smaller
atmosphere and Christian influence. But
cost is obviously a downside there, as well as little ESL support.
Then
there is homeschooling. For the last
year or so (once we started pursuing our boys’ adoption), I started learning
more about homeschooling by reading other people’s stories and talking to
homeschooling mamas. There are so many
things about it that fit my personality, but we just weren’t sure if it would
work with our weird schedules or if our boys would want/need it. Right before the boys came home, I attended a
parent meeting at an amazing private school that combines homeschooling with
traditional classroom schooling. I
thought this would be our answer for sure!!
Then I realized that they don’t cater to any “special needs” (ESL
included) and that the final testing date for placement was in early July (when
the boys would only have 2 ½ months of English under their belts). I knew that they couldn’t possibly take an
all-English placement test that early, so we had to throw that option out (for
now).
Making a Decision: For our
little guy, it became clear very early on that he would do better in a learning
environment outside of the home, and he definitely would need ESL support. We also knew that the elementary school we
are zoned for is brand new and within walking/bike riding distance from our
house. Plus, elementary school classes
can only have 22 or less kiddos in them, and we knew he would only have 1-2
teachers and wouldn’t have to learn the ropes of moving classes or having a
locker, etc. So that decision was easy. Slavik will be a 4th grader at
Adolphus Elementary!
When “back to school” time started getting closer, it was all our
middle son could talk about! He wanted
to drive by and see what school he would attend, he was pumped to get some new
clothes for school, and wanted to know all about using a locker and moving from
class to class. His personality is much
more extroverted and he just couldn’t wait to meet some new friends! When he went with me to registration, he was
all smiles and decided he wanted to play American football!! So that decision was easy. Vlad will be a 7th grader at
Bricsoe Jr. High!
Over the summer, we learned that our big boy HATES crowds. There were several times we changed plans
mid-stream because he saw all the cars parked somewhere or all of the people
inside a building (think about every Chick-fil-A in the summer around lunch
time!). We also learned how
self-motivated he is with his English lesson.
And we learned that his #1 passion in life is soccer, so he is playing
with a club that practices 3 nights a week from 8:00pm-9:30pm. Even with all of these factors, it still
seemed like he wanted to go to his public high school (he initially laughed at
the idea of homeschool!). We tried to register him and kept running into issues and delays. I went ahead and took him
to new student orientation (even though we hadn't completed registration), and that’s
when his attitude suddenly changed. When we left
I could tell from his body language and look in his eyes that it freaked him
out and that he was super uncomfortable.
That night he spoke up and asked me if he could homeschool. It took me off-guard because he had laughed
at the idea only 2 months ago...but then I
realized he was serious, so Ben and I discussed it. There were so many reasons for us to say
“yes” to homeschooling him, and the thing that sealed the deal was realizing
that we’d get a lot more time with our big boy who could likely be “leaving the
nest” in 3 short years. We prayed about
it, talked to him about it, and had the most peace about the decision! (the same kind of peace we had with our
adoptions—even though we know it’s gonna be crazy and new for us, we just know
it’s what we’re meant to do right now)
So that decision was easy. Valik
will be a 10th grader at Team Huss school!
Our girls will also be starting something new this year. I’ll continue to work part-time, but now I’ll
spread it over the week rather than work full days 3 days a week. So, unfortunately, our girls can’t attend the
awesome MDO program at our church anymore since it’s only 2 days a week. However, we’re excited that we found a great
church preschool program that is in between Slavik’s and Vlad’s schools! So that decision was easy. Eden and Cal will be in preschool at Faith
School for Young Children!
Bottom Line: We will take it step by
step and child by child. We’ll
reevaluate each semester to see if we need to make any adjustments and go from
there. We are incredibly thankful to
live in a country (and state) that allows us so many education options and the
freedom to choose what is right for our kiddos!
Please continue to pray with us for our kiddos (and us) as we enter
this very new territory. Thanks for
loving us!
