daily things

science experiment with Daddy

 

 

MM made a laptop computer, with arrows controlling direction for bees

recent drawing

focused on an abacus 

pancake dinner with Avi and Nourit

I got last minutes tickets to one more concert at the Symphony Orchestra - Abiyoyo. An African folktale performed by Pete Seeger. his original performance is so good that Ming Ming, after viewing it on youtube, got really excited about the concert. The CSO version is quite different (replacing Ukulele with drum) but still enjoyable. a bit too short though.
Pete Seeger's video is here, enjoy! 

drawing and learning Chinese

 

 

MM's drawings

a drawing she made in school

also from school, her first trial writing her own name

drew this at home, another attempt at writing her own name

drew this tonight before bedtime, and wrote her own name!
two families of mice/monsters (with princess names) playing in a field (inside the circle) and two huge monsters living right next door to them (one upside down with three golden teeth).

Ming Ming's self-portrait

I asked her to look at the dry flower and draw it on her buttlerfly wings, and that was what she did.
on the other butterfly she colored it with all the rainbow colors.

looking at the mirror and doing a self-portrait. 
the result: a Ming Ming with brown skin, black hair, white hands covered with pink nail polish (because nail polish is forbidden), black eyebrows, white and green and black eyes, doing a ballerina posture, with a pink ballerina dress. and she signed MM three times.

Ming Ming recounting the Exodus story

Ming Ming singing and telling story of Moses and the Jewish people's exodus from Egypt.

belated video update

from our last ice skating session back in Feb this year.


Also a video taken in February, Ming Ming chanting songs taught by Popo, and then reading from her chinese class textbook.

ice skating update

Chinese class with Helen Laoshi

With some other Chinese parents, we organized a Sunday Chinese class for kids from 3 to 6 year old. 

Ming Ming's first homework. I did it with her. she can recognize all the characters in green now.

ice skating update

MM in her ice skating class, Feb 3

Feb 4, we went skating with Lucas and Lily. Keven and Lily skating

Ming Ming, Anna, and Lucas

Feb 12, skating with many neighbors: Nourit, Avi, Oscar (his first time on ice), Lucas, and Anissa.

Oscar is a natural; he ran around like he already knew how to do it.

Antoine challenging Avi for a race... this was his second time skating (he stayed on his skating shoes for two minutes the last time we came here).

Antoine leading, not that it was anything glorious to beat a four year old.

Ming Ming had a very good start with ice skating at her first class. We had the luck to see Liz and the girls there, she got really excited and got on the ice with them, and then she joined her class and was very active and happy participating. I was pleasantly surprised by her enthusiasm.
On retrospective, this first experience is probably an exception rather than MM's usual way of approaching a new sport. She got more and more reluctant going on the ice since then. I really want her to learn ice skating (I would really like to do it myself but don't think that it would ever be possible). As she does not want to participate in her class, I arrange for her to go with our neighbors. Anna kept telling me that MM has a very good sense of balance but did not have the confidence to move around on her own. I feel a little bit bad. If she has inherited Antoine's skills (I hope so), she must have inherited my lack of courage. I was like this with every sport when I was growing up, and still, it has been three years since I got my driver's licence, and I still dare not get on the highway in Chicago. how pathetic!
At the end of this section, I got on the ice (no skating shoes), and rewarded MM for every meter she walked on her own with a M&M chocolate. She walked around the rink on her own and finished up a tiny bag of M&Ms.

guitar and theatre

thank you Popo for the photos!

after 4 days of fever, ballet class at FRC

Ming Ming had high fever during four days. When we finally took her to the doctors on Tuesday (Monday was public holiday), the doctor announced another case of ear infection. She was miserable for four full days, and on Wednesday, finally we took her out a bit to the ballet class. She was so happy to be around kids again.

trying new classes, exploring fun things to do

Ming Ming had her first ice skating class last Friday. She loves it and is quite at ease in the skating rink. Trying on the second-hand ice skating shoes that I got her.

She just had her first guitar class today. All these courses are offered by the family resource center at the University and they are pretty cheap. The guitar is rented too. We will see if she likes it and if she learns something.

The new schedule for winter 2012: Tuesday - guitar class and "drama queens and kings" (theater), Wednesday - ballet at Family resource center, Friday - ice skating. Saturday - Ballet at Hyde Park school of dance, Music Together.  All these afternoon activities won't be possible if popo is not here. Big Thanks to Popo!

Popo in America

Popo with her morning exercise/dancing group in the park... 媽媽現在越來越積極, 每天一早就出門去公園跳舞. 這群爷爷奶奶很有組織, 這天有個奶奶要回國了, 大家來個大合照 (照片居然曉得寄到我的郵箱), 而且他們連冬天下雪時跳舞的地方也找到了.

婆婆在教明明寫字..teaching Ming Ming to write

MM wrote all these on her own... 很有成績, 明明終於會寫0-3了.

MM is very quick in learning to sing a song, and she can memorize a rather long story very easily. Sometimes at bedtime, I was a bit dozed off and read her stories wrong, like said "cake" instead of "cat" (it was a birthday story), she would correct me right away, even that she could not read herself. But, it takes her a long time to learn to recognize numbers. Antoine tried very hard with her (for like a week back in July), and I am sure they learn a bit in school. now she can only recognize 0-3, and still does not recognize her alphabets.

Ming Ming tells a story

Once upon a time, there is a little girl name Snow White and she has a big king and she thought(?) she can have another one but her king said “you should never live in a forest, there might be dangerous animals.” So she did not live in a forest, never never, and she came back in a house and it is all dark. Maybe I can look outside and … but actually there is a fox. And she .. “this is my house, my king.. and I thought the loup (wolf in french) was coming to eat me so I came with you fox.” “That is not real(?),” said the fox. So he ran away to see his king. The end.

This was at bedtime. Ming Ming put her baby to bed and told him or her a story from a piece of paper. It is some sort of combination of Snow White and Goldilocks (never go to the forest) and Three Little Pigs (the wolf). I don't know the source of the fox. There are all stock characters in her stories lately.

"因為我們是南方人"

給明明買了好多中文故事書. 其中一本叫 "跟著姥姥去溜弯", 講北京胡同生活和特色小吃. 明明很喜歡故事中的叫胖妞的小女孩, 老跟我說胖妞愛吃蔥 (因為她自己不吃), 而且叫她外婆姥姥 (她也想叫婆婆姥姥). 晚飯時她又在挑碗裏的蔥, 我跟她說如果她吃蔥的話也可以叫婆婆姥姥. 她居然跟我話: "不可以, 因為我們是南方人."

講得那麼理直氣壯, 明明這半個中國人當得挺地道的.

某個週末下午, 我問她想吃甚麼當點心. 她居然跟我說: "驢打滾兒" (也是這個書裏來的). 我這當媽的連驢打滾兒長甚麼樣子都沒見過, 哪兒給她弄這東西啊.

soccer under a rainbow

horrible weather for the whole week, rainy and cold... the only good thing is that we have heat now.. thursday late afternoon the little ones braved the weather during soccer practice...

rainbow on the midway

thursday and friday are both school holiday, MM spent the morning at Family resource center with popo.

Soccer at the midway

meeting their head coach for the first time (you see the university buildings at the background)

the new ones are put in a separate group today... Ming Ming is a lot happier with this arrangement. She was very intimidated the last time, and did not felt like playing as she was not as good as the others. Today she kept telling me that she did not want to go, but I think that we should have a second try. And indeed, she likes it a lot better. As we are leaving, she keeps telling me that we should do our homework (drawing something about soccer) before we come back so that she could get a prize like the others.

She looks anxious here because the two coaches are pretending to be giants.. some games with the kids..

gathering to give out prizes..

running back for water break