Hello! I'm mostly new to the boards, although I posted several times last year asking about bilingual ed because we were planning a move to Warsaw, Poland. Well, we've been living here for 6 months, and I'd love to connect with others on the Continent. Educationally, things are going much better than I anticipated. The option that caused me *literally* to lock myself in the bathroom to cry for half an hour last year is the one we picked -- our two oldest kids (almost 6 and almost 4) attend a small, Christian Polish kindergarten (separate classes, but they interact a lot) and we afterschool in English, heavily focusing on reading skills. Our only reason for dropping full-time homeschooling is that bilingualism/biliteracy is very important to us. My husband is Polish. I'd originally intended their preschool attendance to be half-day but they loved it so much that they're attending more often. It's helpful because I also have an infant (8 mos.) and I'm studying Polish four times per week with a private tutor at home, so jumpstarting their Polish this way also gives me the time I need to work on my own. Need to run, but hope to connect with some of you soon!

Thanks for elaborating. I'm really sorry about your family's negative experiences. :(

Just curious, if you're willing to share -- What were the warning signs/red flags you noticed? At what point did you become nervous that your child wasn't flourishing?

Thanks, yinayinu, so much for the encouragement! Yes, I think age 5.5 will correspond to the grade that teaches beginning reading, since Poland's compulsory age is now 5. Should be perfect for our situation. Today my husband had lunch with a board member of the private school we're considering (a good friend of ours), and right now it SEEMS like the school will: (a) offer me a part-time position teaching English in some capacity -- hopefully that will cut down our home-study hours, and boost my language learning/social opportunities at the same ( b ) allow us to build the program we want -- DS can take only Polish language classes and extra currics if we want, or enroll as a full-time student, for any number of hours per day/week we choose I'm trying not to get too excited, but so far this is shaping up really well!

That's really helpful/encouraging -- thanks. I've thought about the issue of putting my DS one grade level below his American grade from a few different angles. You had great thoughts about that. Honestly, I still don't understand the Polish grade system (grade 0? what is that?!) and my main idea is that our DS will enter whichever class is beginning phonics. Not baby phonics, but phonics done with the goal of beginning reading that year. I agree with you about immersion being easier at the earlier ages. My main concern is that he learns to read in Polish from the ground up without added frustration of feeling behind his peers who are already reading Polish. Do you think there would be advantages to putting him in a higher grade? By JK, do you mean junior kindergarten? I'll have a 3-year-old at the time of our move, too, and she is very different from DS (who has been hiding from me whenever I come to pick him up from social/classroom situations since age 1). With her temperament I can't imagine putting her in any kind of formal class where I wasn't nearby. She could do maybe an hour a day. I'm thinking a small dose of immersion every day would be better than two big doses a week?

Thanks for the encouragement about learning to read in both languages simultaneously. Do you have any thoughts about grade level? My instinct is to place him in one grade level lower than his American grade. (This year we're doing K, so next year would be 1st.) I imagine putting him in whichever Polish class is beginning phonics. Does that make sense? DH thinks the school day will end around lunchtime but we'll have to ask to be sure. Vacation should be pretty liberal but I don't have details yet. I think some of my worries are coming from a lack of details. DH will visit next week, and if he's impressed at that point I'll probably get in touch with them myself. Oooor we start looking for another school. You're not clear on whether it's a permanent move because we're not either. :) We're definitely open to a permanent move -- planning to give ourselves a 3-year trial period, then reevaluate based on DH's job and other factors. We'd prefer to raise our children in Poland and spend 1-2 months out of the year in the US. Yep, we'll be in DH's hometown. Lots of family and friends around, many of whom DS has spent extended time with and knows very well. It's a perfect setup for becoming bilingual.

....Just following up to say that I ordered the bilingualism books from the library to read through all those suggestions again. Thank you so much for reminding me of them. :) Sigh. I am fairly happy with what we're doing to prep for a Polish environment, but I'm concerned about the transition to a traditional-school lifestyle. By that I mean sibling separation, loss of flexibility (esp. for travel, which we'd hoped to do tons of), the danger of overwhelming DS with too much schoolwork in either language, etc. I was homeschooled and loved it, so all of this is unappealing to me. Not to mention the sense of loss I'll feel about not being his full-time teacher. :( Any suggestions for dealing with these things?

Thanks for this, SarahW! I'm doing all of those things right now and have been for years, so it's good to have it confirmed by your suggestions. Yep, those are great books -- I read them both while pregnant and for the first year of our son's life I insisted on OPOL. But my husband always felt it was artificial for him to speak Polish to our son since he's lived in the US longer than in Poland. His emotional language is English and he felt seriously detached from our son in Polish. So we decided to stop OPOL. (At that time we were living in Lithuania and had Ukranian-speaking babysitters, close proximity to Polish grandparents, etc., so our baby still had a lot of Polish interaction.) BUT, we made that decision knowing that we would move to Poland before too long and that we would immerse when we did so. That's always been our goal. I want to be fluent, too, and worked with a private tutor for awhile, so my pronunciation and reading skills are good. I can teach the basics well. Between ages 1.5 and 4.5 (i.e., right now) we've studied Polish together as a formal "subject" and spend min. an hour a day on it, between my Rosetta Stone (which my son can often participate in), Polish stories and songs, flaschards, games, and catechism (we have the children's version of Westminster Catechism translated to Polish and catechize in both languages). Polish culture is a big part of our life (food, music, traditions) and I teach my son EXCLUSIVELY Polish handwriting. So we're on our way. Immersion will be most effective but I'm doing serious prep work.

Yep -- I'm a La Leche League leader, actually, so nurturing philosophy will be a huge factor for me. We'll definitely spend some time talking with teachers and observing classrooms before we decide. If it makes you feel better, Polish children love to throw food and nobody really cares. ;)

These are helpful responses. Thanks. Amira - My DH is going to check out the school on his next trip to Warsaw and ask those very questions. I'm hopeful he'll have a positive experience since a friend there recommended this school specifically for our family, and it's a private school with small class sizes. It's in the capital city, is homeschooling-friendly (offers a partnership/umbrella program for Polish HSers,) and it's somewhat religiously diverse (unusal for Poland). So I'm guessing there's some flexibility and user-friendliness there that will benefit our unorthodox situation. We've previously lived in eastern Europe (Lithuania -- still not as far east as Kyrgyzstan!) and I had a friend who sent her children to the local public school after a year of failed homeschooling. Lithuania is quite a bit less "user-friendly" and diverse in general, yet the school made room for her children and even gave her a job teaching English part-time so she could still be on the premises and tutor them in English skills during their normal school hours. That would be my dream, I think, but we're taking it slowly. I agree that socialization is a huge factor, for our whole family, and I also expect DS to learn more Polish from his interaction with friends than he does in class. :)

(Disclaimer: this is a modified double post from the bilingual board.) I would love to know -- Has anyone enrolled their children in a foreign-language/immersion school and homeschooled in English, simultaneously? How did it go? How old were your children? How did it affect them emotionally and academically? Would you recommend it, and if so, with what caveats? I ask because are planning a move to Poland in spring 2015, when our oldest will be five and a half. I think he'll be reading English at a decent beginner's level by then (we're working through Ordinary Parents' Guide now with fast progress). My husband is Polish but we speak English at home, since I can only hobble along in Polish. My instincts are competing! Here's what my rational instincts say: our goal is for the whole family to become bilingual after a few years in Poland. The best way to accomplish this seems to be enrolling our oldest in a Polish private kindergarten (or the equivalent of one grade behind his US grade) with the expectation that he will undergo Polish standardized testing each year. Homeschooling is legal in Poland and I certainly could homeschool full time in English, but we don't want to create a Little America in our home and rob our kids of the immersion process that would make them bilingual for life. The school day in Poland only goes until about lunchtime anyway, so we'll still have long afternoons together and can study English reading/lit, writing, and American history/geography at home. He's extremely happy in classroom settings with "real" teachers (homeschool co-op, Sunday school, choir), academically gifted, and socially mature. He'll be fine. ....Aaaand, here's what my emotional instincts say: I love having my child at home. Love, love, love it. I want to teach him every subject until my own expertise runs dry, and I want control over his environment. I'll miss him when he leaves even though his 3-year-old sister will be at home. What if he gets too overwhelmed or embarassed to function well, or we're expecting so much of him that we'll defeat our goals and wish we'd just homeschooled in English? How will I know if he's flourishing? If you've been there and can offer any comments, I'd be interested to hear them! Thanks!

I would love to know -- Has anyone living abroad enrolled their children in a foreign-language school and homeschooled in English, simultaneously? How did it go? How old were your children? How did it affect them emotionally and academically? Would you recommend it, and if so, with what caveats? I ask because are planning a move to Poland in spring 2015, when our oldest will be five and a half. I think he'll be reading English at a decent beginner's level by then (we're working through Ordinary Parents' Guide now with fast progress). My husband is Polish but we speak English at home, since I can only hobble along in Polish. My instincts are competing! Here's what my rational instincts say: our goal is for the whole family to become bilingual after a few years in Poland. The best way to accomplish this seems to be enrolling our oldest in a Polish private kindergarten (or the equivalent of one grade behind his US grade) with the expectation that he will undergo Polish standardized testing each year. Homeschooling is legal in Poland and I certainly could homeschool full time in English, but we don't want to create a Little America in our home and rob our kids of the immersion process that would make them bilingual for life. The school day in Poland only goes until about lunchtime anyway, so we'll still have long afternoons together and can study English reading/lit, writing, and American history/geography at home. He's extremely happy in classroom settings with "real" teachers (homeschool co-op, Sunday school, choir), academically gifted, and socially mature. He'll be fine. ....Aaaand, here's what my emotional instincts say: I love having my child at home. Love, love, love it. I want to teach him every subject until my own expertise runs dry, and I want control over his environment. I'll miss him when he leaves even though his 3-year-old sister will be at home. What if he gets too overwhelmed or embarassed to function well, or we're expecting so much of him that we'll defeat our goals and wish we'd just homeschooled in English? How will I know if he's flourishing? If you've been there and can offer any comments, I'd be interested to hear them! Thanks!

Hi wrzos1 -- My DH is also Polish, and we are planning a move to Warsaw next year. We have a 4 year old and a 2 year old, so at that point my oldest will be 5. We hope to send him to Polish school in the mornings and keep an (abbreviated) English-based homeschool schedule in the afternoons. The Polish language activities we do now are really rudimentary -- songs, sticking the Usborne Polish flashcards to various objects throughout the house, reading books, Skyping with Babcia, etc. Thanks for the links to the books you posted above. I'll definitely check into those! I am studying Polish via Rosetta Stone any my 4-year-old enjoys doing that with me (some sections he can even do on his own). I would be really interested to keep in touch and hear about resources/strategies you try! For Christian families studying Polish at home, I can recommend this Songs for Saplings CD that teaches basic doctrine and Scripture memory (available for free immediate download here: http://store.songsforsaplings.com/collections/digital-downloads/products/polish-odpowiedzi-na-pytania-vol-1-bo-g-i-stworzenie). Songs for Saplings is a US ministry, but they connected with some friends of ours and did a translation of their first album and recording session in Warsaw just last year. This album (the only one available in Polish) focuses on God and Creation and contains lots of Scripture. We are confessional Presbyterians and the songs are drawn from the Westminster children's catechism, but this would be suitable for anyone coming from a Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox position. Rita, the link you shared is wonderful too -- thanks!