Mr Fox Mr Fox What Time is it?

after receiving some complaints about the kids' noise level in the courtyard, we decide to turn the volume up a notch.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a perfect game for group portraits. but there was not enough light and my flash did not work. 

communal life

Contrary to the very grim prediction that this would be an extremely cold winter, we had one of the mildest winter season and spring arrived this year in March in Chicago! It was just early march and we were having summer temperatures for 10 consecutive days. We had communal dinner everyday outside. While I was away for AAS conference in Toronto for four days, Antoine and Ming Ming ate every meal with our neighbors during the whole time (lunch and dinner). I came back to find an used kitchen!  

our romantics: the girls were lying on the grass so that they could look at the moon

Anna brought down popsicles and made the kids super happy! 

 

school update - Passover story

 - from Hannah and Emily
This week we began learning about the Passover story.  We began by setting the stage.  We are slowly turning one wall of the classroom into an Egyptian scene, complete with reeds, pyramids, and a very hot sun.  Keep your eye on it; as we learn more of the story we'll be adding to the scenery.  We also talked about the fact that Egypt is still a real place and Marya even helped us learn how to count in Arabic.  We also realized that one of our favorite Shabbat songs has Arabic and Hebrew in it and enjoyed singing that this week.  Next week we'll be talking about those ucky, yucky plagues and are hoping to make our big escape from Egypt on Thursday.
This week we also began doing our classroom jobs.  The kids have been very diligent about performing their jobs and helpful to others as we learn what each job entails.  These jobs give the children an extra sense of responsibility for our classroom community.  They also help the children learn to work with new friends as many of the jobs require two people and a child may not be partnered with someone they usually play with.
On Thursday we had a semi-impromptu Talent Show.  At lunch on Wednesday we were talking about what songs we like to sing and then decided to perform them for each other.  The Peach Room came to be our audience on Thursday for our show.  Some of the kids performed individually, others performed duets or in groups; all were FANTASTIC!  Words really could never describe how great each performance was as we saw kids who are sometimes quiet in front of a group sing their hearts out and other kids who clearly were a bit nervous at first become more confident as they sang.  We were equally proud of what good audience members the kids were; they cheered on the nervous folks and applauded with great enthusiasm for everyone.  It was such a heartwarming morning.

 

picnic outside

 

 

doing their classroom job

Happy Birthday to Helen!

We did a community dinner to celebrate Helen's birthday. But then, since we eat together so often (this past week we had four dinners together!!! We will soon abolish individual kitchens, vive people's commune!). Anyway, to mark the occasion, we decided to do a theme cuisine - Thai this time - and had each family contributing one or two dishes of home made Thai food. Et Voila, ended up with a feast of coconut milk, Thai chili, lime, cilantro, etc. It was so delicious!!

 

the parents around the table, the kids, after playing a whole day outside (it was 18C) and a delicious meal, was watching a video in the living room.
 

I made tempura and beef shiitake mushroom salade, not bad at all!
 

Max cooked a chicken curry and cucumber salad, Anne made coconut chicken soup, all are so yummy!
 

and Chef Mike, because he had to work today and thus had no time to cook, decided to crave a swan out of watermelon (!!!). The citrus fruit salad was so good! And the watermelon juice with mint, lime, and sugar are definitely something I would try to make. (that is why I am noting down the ingredient here.) =)
 

here comes the cake!
 

 

happy birthday Helen!

School upate: Purim

-- Emily and Hannah
Purim was an absolute ball!!
The children have beenlearning the story of Purim for the past few weeks and they know it by heart!Chef Sheila came in to bake Hamantashen with us and they were delicious! Of course the most exciting part of celebrating Purim waswearing our costumes on Thursday for the carnival! From Tigger to Princesses,the costumes were adorable! Make sure to check out the website for pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday to Papou!

Happy Birthday Papou!
Thank you Mamie for sending these pics!
Reminds us of this birthday you spent with us back in 2009, Papou was 71, Ming Ming was 9 months old.

 

 

婆婆要回香港了!

Popo left the Chicago on the 3rd March for Hong Kong! Having been away for six months, I know that- although she did not say- she was quite eager to go back. Ming Ming has started staying in school for the full day. She seems to have adopted to the new situation quite easily. She does not sleep during nap time, but has so far been agreeable and willing to lie down and stay quiet for the entire hour. She seems to enjoy the group of children and the projects they do during the afternoon section.
She was not always nice to popo when she was here. But since popo left, Ming Ming was very nice at the phone with popo and told her a lot of things. This morning she told me: it is really much better when popo is here. papa does not like playing play dough with me, and he can't make me elephants and kitties out of play dough. 明明: 婆婆不在這里很不好, 爸爸不和我玩彩泥, 也不會給我做小狗和小猫.

Ming Ming dancing with the Chinese grandparents.

 

Popo's last time going dancing, just the date before her departure.

Teacher parent conference

comments from Hannah and Emily: Ming Ming has matured a lot in the past few months. In the fall she was very concentrated at developing her friendship with Anya. But in the past two months, she was playing with everybody in the class, even with the boys. She has also become more confident in her play, in voicing her opinion about how the game should go on. She knows very well what she wants to play and if the other kids do not want to go alone, she would go find other people to play with. So the next challenge for her is  to learn how to expand the play/ bend the game in order to include other kids.

crazy weekend

Ming Ming has been very busy during the weekends. This past Saturday, She had ballet and music together back to back in the morning, headed back home and had lunch with all the kids in Anne and Keven's place, then went to see a women's basketball match at the university with Nourit and Avi, Antoine and Mike as well. We had an early dinner with Myra, the daughter of my former adviser from Hong Kong who is now doing her undergrad at UChicago. And in the evening, we headed out again to the SHOP, where Popo danced every morning, to a fundraising concert. As we left with Popo, Antoine commented that next week we could take Popo to a disco!

Popo at the concert

The band was pretty good, but Ming Ming prefered to go upstairs to a soft room where they played kid's music.

On Sunday, Ming Ming had her Chinese class in the morning. In the afternoon she went to see a ballet performance at the university (La Bayadere) with Antoine. And in the evening,  the neighbors gathered at our place for a collective dinner and to watch the Oscar ceremony together.
All these packed activities, and WITHOUT me! I was working during the weekend, then spent Sunday evening watching a very long Chinese documentary at Doc Film. It was thanks to Antoine that Ming Ming had such a fun weekend!

School update: Joseph

Joseph!

-- Hannah and Emily
02/24/20120

The excitement has been building ... For the past 2 weeks we've been learning all about the story of Joseph and his many colored coat to prepare for going to see the grade school perform the show "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." We've been retelling the story in class together and making some of the characters from the story. We really enjoyed describing our own dreams and imagining how Joseph would interpret them. On Wednesday, Rabbi Holman came to our class and gave us a dramatic retelling of the story, which had us giggling and jumping in to help tell the story. He was very impressed with how much of the story we already knew. Today we went to see the show and were totally awed. The kids sat for the whole show enthralled which is the highest praise these critics can offer :)

This week was also exciting because when we got to school on Tuesday morning our amaryllis bulb had bloomed! As we compared the blossom to our prediction drawings it became clear that this flower was very different from what we were expecting.

On Friday we wrote stories using "Rory's Story Cubes". These dice have simple pictures on each side which, as the children roll them, inspire new directions for our story writing. For example here is Bella's story; the dice she rolled showed an arrow and an alien: The arrow said "turn your hand the other way. No, turn your elbow the other way." Then a giant came. And then there was an alien who lived in space and he jumped on the giant. The giant ate him because he was very mean. The End. We look forward to continuing to explore using the dice to spark our imaginations.

Next week we'll begin learning the story of the holiday of Purim and, most importantly to our class, learning new songs!

Our Kindergarten will be celebrating the 100th Day of Kindergarten on Monday, February 27th. Stop by the Kindergarten while dropping off your child this Monday and discover how the children have been preparing for this special day, and focusing on the number 100 in so many different ways!

Here's a link to an article the staff found very interesting. It explains why play-based preschool experiences foster later success: click here

Popo's party

The Chinese grandparents organized a party. It was a get-together to have fun, and to thank Laura - the manager of the center - for so generously lending out the center's yoga room to house the dancers during the harsh winter days.

they started with a dance routine for the center photographer to capture some movements

Taichi

the party performance started: the first program featured popo and two friends dancing. Ming Ming was the third performer, she sang two songs.


Ming Ming singing

group photo

let the feast start!

The party was also some sort of farewell for Popo; she would be leaving Chicago in less than two weeks. 

ice skating update