The Preschool Bus

Today we went to Jällagymnasiet and the Preschool bus.   At Jällagymnasiet, we visited a special education classroom and received a tour of the “school” by a teacher and student (in his last year).  The student kept correcting his teacher’s English—he’s graduating this year.  The school is a running farm, complete with horses and cows.  They also have dogs, snakes, lizards, fish, hamsters, and lab mice as well as growing hay and grains.  They learn to care for animals, ride and care for horses, drive tractors, farm, and work in a laboratory.  The school has about 300 students, about 30 of them having special needs—again fairly high-functioning.  It is a high school with the same setup as I mentioned in a previous post.

In the afternoon we saw the Preschool bus.  They were running out of preschool space because the population is growing quickly and it was less expensive to rent and retrofit a few city buses each year than to build a new building.  The children get on the bus—it is fitted with car seats.  Then they drive less than 30 minutes to a “nature” area—lake, forest, etc.--and play outdoors.  They learn by playing in nature.  Many of them live in apartments (most people here live in apartments) and aren’t able to play outside often.  In the past, I’ve read many studies about the developmental benefits of children playing outside, so it is backed with research.  They also have some organized activities also outside.  They are outside come rain, shine, or snow.  Their warm lunch is packed on the bus before they go.  They have a kitchenette on the bus to prepare snack and lunch.  The bus has tables as well for students to eat at as well as color or do other activites on the way there.  The parents didn’t like it at first and didn’t want their children to go, but after they started, they loved it!  The children ate better, slept better and were happy. 

I am staying with a Swedish couple, Margareta and Gunnar and their dog, Trixie, and cat, Einar.  A few days ago, Gunnar took me to a well-known historical coffee shop and we had Semla.  It is a pastry with whipped cream and almond paste in the middle.  They are a traditional Swedish pastry made only before Easter.  One most often has one on Fat Tuesday (the day before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday). Very yummy, but very filling!  Thank goodness I had the small one:

It rained most of today and we didn’t bring our umbrellas with, so we were wet.  The school we visited this morning gave us a winter cap with the name of their school on it and a camping cup (a rubber cup that folds in half that is very popular here in Sweden) with their school name on it.

After dinner, we went to the city train station and Gunnar bought my train ticket to Stockholm for tomorrow, then we met some of the other people in our program at a local pub near the train station.   It was nice to just sit and talk about things other than education.  The crazy one in the photo is Alissa.  Tomorrow we take the train to Stockholm for a tour of the city.