The First Day of School

Victoria, Anna and Nadia began school, back at Ecole Alliance this year. I thought I'd let each one of them tell you about their teacher, their class and their first day back at school:

VICTORIA:

My teacher is M. Mounkaila, and everyone says he is one of the nicest teachers in the whole school. My sisters say he is patient and nice to little kids. I'm not a little kid, but he's nice to me, too. First of all, we introduced ourselves, telling our names and what we did. We had two recesses; I ate the cookies Daddy bought me during my recess time and saw my sisters. We sat under the shade over by the gate to eat our cookies because it is quieter over there. I saw the bathrooms. My teacher showed us which one was the boys and which one was the girls. I also saw the English room. Our teacher gave us a chalkboard and a sponge to erase it. Then he handed out our "cahier de liason." That is how my teacher will talk to Mama and Daddy, and they can send notes back to him. My favorite thing about school was the little bit of homework we did: counting to "dix," and the alphabet. I had a big smile on my face when Daddy came to pick me up.

ANNA:

My teacher is M. Omar. He's a nice teacher. He is Italian and Algerian and he can speak several languages. He's not too strict. He likes kids and I think I'll like being in his class. When the bell rings, we have to stand behind our chairs until M. Omar tells we have permission to sit down. We started working on all of our different cahiers (notebooks). When we got our "cahier de liason" M. Omar glued two papers inside. The bell rang and I was the first one out of my class. I went to Victoria's class to wait for her. After recess, we got our "cahier de texte" and we wrote a note in there. We put all the extra stuff away in the teacher's shelf for storing things. He handed out all of our school supplies: pens, pencils, a compass, a ruler, our own "gomme" (that's an eraser) and we put them all into our trousse, and then put the trousse right inside your desk. I followed the directions just right, so I got a "Bravo!" from M. Omar. We got our own chalkboards and sponges. When it was time to leave, M. Omar said, "Tu peux sortir. Au revoir." Then I went down the stairs and Daddy was waiting for me. It was a nice first day of school!

NADIA:

I am in the class of CM1. My teacher is M. Urbain Gbeha. I think he is from Niger. There are 25 kids in my class, but my best friend from all my other years at Ecole Alliance, Zeina, doesn't go to school there any more. There's a new girl this year - I want to try and be her friend. We sit in 5 rows down and 5 rows across. I'm in the middle line down and the 2nd line across. I'm the only girl in my row across, but there is another girl in the row down. I'm one of the oldest kids in my class. We got all of our cahiers (notebooks) except for Music and English, which we will get with the teachers of those classes. We got our "etiquettes" for all of our cahiers - that's how we keep track of our individual notebooks. We didn't do any school work. We just got materials and prepared our notebooks to start working. I think we'll start school work tomorrow, and our class schedule, too. Then I'll know when I have to wear tennis shoes because we have sports class. Daddy needs to take me to the market to buy new tennis shoes. The best part of my day was at the end when we were all cleaning up, organizing the class and seeing all of my friends - we were allowed to visit in whispers with each other as long we kept busy. It was a good day and I'm glad to be back at school.