We run our own school!

After the official school year ended in June 3, Ming Ming has started her first summer camp at the same school. But Akiba summer camp is only for the morning (MM's teachers kindly kept her for nap time, so I pick her up at 1pm instead), and so last week we started our own greenwood summer camp for the afternoon.

Students included: Nourit and Avi, Oscar, Lucas, Ming Ming and Anissa.

Monday afternoon is music class with Liz. Tuesday is with Laura, and then it is Helen, me, and Anna for the rest of the week. The initial idea was to introduce different national cultures as we have Korean, Chinese, German natives among the teachers. But as things evolved we improvised and it ended up more about the different themes.

The theme for the first week is Heroes. The kids were introduced to a kid who did a heroic act (kids can be heroes too), a Korean emperor who invented the Korean writing system and a brave and strategic general, a chinese female warrior Fa Mulan, and a East German kid who saved a Russian pilot during the war.

The theme for the second week is food. The children baked banana bread with Laura and talked about food groups and healthy eating habits. They learnt about typical Korean food and table manners with Helen. I did an economics class with them, giving them each two dollars and taking them to the produce market two blocks away. Each kid had to choose a fruit to buy but couldn't spend more than two dollars unless someone else was willing to lend some money. We looked at different fruits, tried to find their name and price, weight them, and at the end each kid paid for their own purchase. The kids were super excited about having money and paying on their own. But it was quite a scene shopping with such a big group of kids and having them line up with two dollars each. Luckily Hyde Park produce is a local store and we shop there all the time, the cashier was very nice with all the kids.

MM with the korean meal that they had made. 

my turn as a teacher. I gave them popsicles before heading to the store. It was an extremely hot day, more than 100F. 

Lucas picked a coconut from the store. the kids could not wait to try but none, except Anissa, liked it.

sharing the fruits they bought for snack. 

making popsicles with carrots and raspberries.

the afternoon ended with sprinkler and water slide.

On friday, under Anna's guidance, they drew birthday cards for Max and started putting together a dinner party for the parents.

and we celebrated Max's b-day in the evening.

funny faces while Max giving a birthday speech..

Mike was responsible for the beautiful cake! pancake cake (crepes)

but the kids made the bees in this one!

Saturday morning, as a special event, we headed for the farmer's market to taste some fresh fruits  from the farm. the peaches were divine. 

soldiers march from the nutcrackers.

stopped at Liz and Mike's garden

a sprinkler in the park, of course the kids could not miss the fun.

we had Mihna over for dinner.