Maya is doing very well. Her teachers claim to be (and it appears to be true) amazed at her progress in Italian. (Though a lot of the credit goes to her amazing teacher, seriously.) She can now easily read Italian books, perhaps not "at grade level" but definitely at an elementary school level. She can do all of her assigned Italian homework (the same assignments now as everyone else in the class) with little help. In fact, she can do the reading comprehension and grammar pieces well; when she needs help, it's usually simply vocabulary--coming across words she just hasn't seen before. Here's an example of one kind of homework she does for Italian (this looks like pretty standard reading comprehension exercises to me); Maya does these independently (and then I check them; hence the correction in the True/False exercise):
She's also doing well in history; though it's probably her weakest subject (it's in Italian). However, I am personally AMAZED at the history lessons they have. They are like nothing I've seen before. To date, they have studied ancient Sumeria, ancient Egypt, Phoenicia, and a group that includes Maya is starting on China (they apparently got to choose). They study how these civilizations have related to their geography and to other civilizations around them. They have learned about discoveries and inventions from the civilizations, including why the Sumerians created arithmetic (to keep track of the taxes collected) and how writing came about (and why scribes were such important members of society). This week, one evening, I witnessed Maya open a book about ancient China (in Italian), find the information about the society structure, and start to draw on her own sheet of paper what the social pyramid was like. Here's an example of a homework assignment they had in history. They were given five pictures of maps (Sumeria, Egypt, Phoenicia, and Greece) and asked to describe, in their own words, what they saw in the pictures and what they deduce about the society (as implied by the geography and topography). Two of these societies they'd already studied (the top two: Sumeria and Egypt), while the bottom two were new:
Art in her class is also very neat. The teacher creates art assignments, for instance to learn about perspective, but then sometimes relates them to their other work in other subjects. For instance, here's a shadow box they made about Trento, related to what they're learning about in geography:
Here's another project that relates to what they've been learning in science (food chains):
Math (which is in English) seems good, too. I don't really know whether they're learning the same things that the third graders in Austin are learning, but I do know that Maya is learning (mostly) new math topics. So it's worthwhile. Here's an example of her math homework for this week:
The one place in which Maya's teachers were a bit surprised at Maya's performance is in English spelling (not English grammar/reading/writing, just spelling). I commented that her spelling is in fact much improved... :)
Socially, Maya is doing well and making friends. Her teachers report that she is a bit sensitive (e.g., if she thinks people are making fun of her), which is definitely the Maya we know. She's working on it.
In sum, Maya says she likes school and her favorite subject is reading (in English). She is devouring novels these days, both in the Kindle on her tablet and in real books that she carries with her to school. She has reached a reading level where the books are actually interesting to us adults, too, which is nice. On a related note, read "Journey to the River Sea" by Eva Ibbotson; she and I both very much enjoyed it. She says she'll bring it to Texas if you want to borrow it when we return. She also really liked "Out of My Mind" by Sharon Draper, "even though its a very long book." I haven't read it yet, but I've queued it.
Cora is also doing really well. She had a longer adjustment period initially, and was very clingy to the English-speaking teacher at her school. She wasn't excited about us leaving her there, etc. She has never learned to nap at school, so her typical school week is the following: Monday-Tuesday from 8-3pm, Wednesday-Friday from 8-1pm, when she comes home with Tim to take a nap.
For the past couple of months, the teachers have been telling us in passing when we pick her up or drop her off that her Italian is getting much better. At the conference with her teachers last week, they reported that she has completely ceased to speak English at school. Even when the English teacher speaks to her, she refuses to respond in English. She will only speak Italian. (In fact, this is maybe a bit frustrating to the teacher, who actually wants Cora to answer in English so the other kids can hear.) I asked Cora why she didn't speak Italian with me at home and she said, "But you don't speak Italian."
She's learned most of her letters, actually by sound (that appears to be the standard mechanism here, which is nice).
Socially, the school reports that she is a bit willful, messy, and wiggly, which was nothing we didn't already know.
Here are some examples of her school work:
This one's signed:
This one is from her "dark" period:
