Chinese immersion, here we come!

As you can see I don't have any good recent photos of Henry!

 I just entered Henry's name into the Chinese immersion school lottery in our school district and he got picked! I couldn't believe it.  At first I was totally torn because I've heard amazing things about this program but I was totally planning on home schooling next year.  It's only in it's third year here, but other places like CA have been doing it for a while now and say the kids are fluent by 6th grade and can test out of University level classes by the time they hit Jr. High.  Some of them get a minor in their language before they get to college.  You can only start in 1st grade and since this program is only in it's third year, the fourth graders will be the most senior group when Henry starts. There are two teachers at Henry's school and as far as I know, one of them is native Chinese.  Not sure about the other one. Every school around here has something special going on in it.  The school Henry is in right now has a special needs program, but the school that just so happens to be just about equidistant from the house we're hopefully going to buy here in Sandy, has this Chinese program that he got into.  The new house is still in our current school district, but we're only three streets away from the other district, so hopefully I'll be able to work something out to get him there on the bus. If I had to drive him there, it would be a 6 minute drive, so not bad at all.  The other really amazing thing about Utah schools is that you can put your kid in school half day if you want and then home school them for the other half of the day, which means I can just send him for Chinese school every day for either morning or afternoon (whatever time they decide to do the Chinese portion) and then I can teach him at home(or go skiing! haha).  I can decide to home school him one year or put him in another year full day whenever I feel like it, but he will have to go to Chinese school every day for the three hours until sixth grade.  During that time, they learn math, science and social studies as well as obvious language learning stuff.  There are a bunch of videos on You Tube that highlight these programs.  The best one I found is a school in California, but there are some specific ones about our school district right here in Sandy.

Utah    http://youtu.be/hTG0YFU8vWA
California  http://youtu.be/3zsOLNHwcso

There aren't any programs past elementary school as of now, but I bet they'll have something in place for the students as they progress in the program.  I have a bunch of friends who have friends who have put their kids in the program and they LOVE it.  Most of my friends wish our school had something like that or that they had put their kids in the lottery.  Since Henry got in to the program, all my kids have priority to be in it as well, so they'll all be taking Chinese together.  The fun thing is that they're all so close in age that they'll be able to talk to each other at home if they want to.  There are also classes for the parents of the children who are in the immersion programs so they can learn as well.  I fully intend to do whatever I can to learn as much as I can, even if I end up just being semi-conversational, but can't read much or write. I'm really excited for him to start! I wouldn't have believed it, but dreams do come true in Utah:)