Today was the performance of the 2
nd grade-girls’
play about good eating habits; Julia was cast as one of the two Food
Fairies. Lovely green
costumes! She did a good job
memorizing the lines; I was pleased to see that skill developing. And she performed without any angst or
fussiness. They did a nice job; it
was a girl event; the boys, each of the 4, made a power point on one aspect of
the good eating topic. Ms. Alice
helped them all to give a coherent and engaging presentation for parents; a
strong final coda to the year.
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| The Food Fairy prepares for her performance |
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| The performers - all the attendees at Julia's birthday party |
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| A health food intervention by the two food fairies |
We persuaded the kids to stand for a class photo—I wanted it
for posterity. Ms. Alice and I had
a chat about Julia’s time in this class:
Ms. Alice would describe her as having fit in smoothly and quickly. Right from the beginning she has taken
a voluntarily active role in the activities. I think back to the slow, slow pace at which she adapted to
Mr. Church’s classroom, at age 4 and 5, and marvel at her development. Ms. Alice would
not describe her as hanging back, observing, and reluctant to
engage, which was her mode for so long.
I give her a lot of credit, since she had to adapt to the classroom
experience on her on, with no mother near by. That was a lot to ask of a little girl 10,000 miles away
from home.
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| Julia's class! |
Tomorrow is rehearsal day, for the series of performances
which will be given through the morning on Wednesday, prior to the graduation
ceremonies. There is no longer any
pretense at schooling; the Montessori classroom is going to find this week a
bit challenging, as everyone else revs up to celebration mode, and we continue
on the same path.
I am going to make an attempt at BINGO this week, as a way
to engage the children and yet still reinforce some concepts. We had 9 kids today, 4 returnees from
the fever ward. They were
surprisingly focused and calm—I really had thought they’d be wild, chatty,
restless, and distracted. It was
quite a nice morning. The idea to
trace their bodies, have them decorate them, and then ask them to glue body
part labels on the pictures has been successful. It made me think, today, that I could present large pictures
of any number of objects which they could color and then label. One little girl spent easily 3 minutes
applying glue for each label!
...and then tried the Turkish restaurant next door which has been well recommended by Ms. Alice. It turns out to be part of a food court, an idea made somewhat novel in China. The customer pays a given amount of money onto a food court card—I did 100 yuan—and then has the full run of the whole set of restaurants from which to choose food and drinks. After one selects food, the clerk at the given stand deducts it from the card. If there is any money left at the end, the customer can take the card back to the sales counter for a refund. There were easily 20 stands from which to choose, far more than I had realized when we first got there. We had our attention set on Istanbul, however, where the chicken sandwich and chocolate pudding came with starred reviews. The sandwich was juicy and tasty; the pudding didn’t move us much, not anywhere near as much as the Sprite and beer! We ordered hummus as well, with some Turkish bread--a hit with us.
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| Our dinner destination |
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| Julia ready for her sprite - with curly straw! |
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