Today was the first normal “workday” of the Breadbasket family: kids had to go to school and parents had to go skiing. Tough life for some. Little Molly was full of eager anticipation, Max summed his feelings up as “I’m looking forward to school, just not the lessons.”

First School Day in Canada
Excited kids before their first day of school in Revelstoke.

So, our little ones met a lot of other kids returning from the Xmas break at Columbia Park Elementary – the school they have been assigned to by the school board in British Columbia. Molly was particularly lucky: two kids from the ski club are in her class, which is grade 1/2 (both years are in one class). When she returned in the afternoon she was excited about having received her first invitation to a birthday party – well done, Molly! Max is in grade 5 and started working on the integer factorisation, which surprised at least me a little bit. Ain’t holidays for everyone, it seems.

Worthwhile mentioning is the school’s principal, Ms. Ariel McDowell: she took the time on New Year’s Eve afternoon to introduce Max and Molly to the school and meet us. I somehow don’t see that happening at a German public school (British chums: that’s the opposite of a British public school). Ariel gave us a tour of the school with classrooms, gym, library and computer room – I have to say that the brand new iMacs connected to ceiling mounted projectors via Apple TV were quite a change compared to the PC’s at Munich’s Gertrud Bäumer elementary school with Windows 2000. And, folks, just compare the pictures on the two home pages: Mount Begbie of Revelstoke vs. Gertrud Bäumer architecture? Tough choice.

Visit in School
Exploring the gym hall in Colombia Park Elementary on New Years Eve.