pour papa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Giselle by Paris Opera Ballet

I took Ming Ming to the Millennium park to watch the projection of Giselle by Pairs Opera Ballet; the actual show took place in Harris theater next to the park but was simultaneously boardcasted through a huge screen at the Pavillion. The screen was actually not very big from where we were. But Ming Ming was thrilled, partly/mostly by the crowd I guess.
We arrived the loop early in order to have some sushi first. 

got to the park just in time for the show.

a lot of people, and most of them came with elaborate picnics.

I proposed to leave at intermission, around 8pm. Ming Ming surprisingly wanted to stay for the second half. we left eventually and got home a little bit after bedtime. the evening turned out much better than expected. I was worried that MM would be too tired: school field trip in the morning, summer camp with Helen in the afternoon, ballet class at 4pm. But she was totally pleasant and easy-going. I should take MM out more. 

Akiba Schechter summer camp news

Big Guys on the Go: Summer News! 

Our first full week at camp was very busy and full of quite a variety of activities.  We spent some time this week making projects for our dads.  Hopefully you all received the delicious chocolate chip cookies that the kids made and have had time to admire their portraits of you on the front of their cards.  The kids had lots to say about how to best portray your individual traits in their art.

We also have been busy making the classroom better reflect our group's personality and have been working on decorations to bring a summery feel to the room, including life size drawings of our classmates and beautiful fish and stars which sparkle in the sun.

Wednesday was a very busy and exciting day.  Ming Ming's mom, Isha, came to cook owl cupcakes with us and the traveling zoo came to school.  The traveling zoo included animals as varied as chinchillas, baby chicks, a sloth, a pig, an anteater, frogs, and a parrot.  We got to feed some of the animals and pet or hold almost all of them and even saw the owl fly all the way across the big room!  Friday ended with a special Big Guys on the Go trip to the park for Shabbat.

 

Big Guys on the Go: Peach Room 

 Summer News!

This past week the Big Guys on the Go enjoyed talking about animals that live on a farm. On Monday we created "muddy" paintings of farm animals and predicated what animals we would see on the farm. On Tuesday and Thursday we went swimming at Regents Park. It is amazing to see how comfortable the campers are becoming in the water. Many kids are now brave enough to swim on their own with floaties and jump into the pool! We continue to work on having fun in the water and going under, along with front floats, back floats, flutter kicking, and the front crawl. On Wednesday we visited the Children's Farm. We were given a tour of the farm by farmer, Mary, who told us all about how a farm works. We got to pet, hold, and learn about many different farm animals, here are some: chicks, bunnies, ducks, horses, roosters, pigs, goats, cows, donkeys, and bees. After our tour, we went on a hayride around the farm. Please look for pictures of our farm experience in the upcoming week! The farm was so much fun and we look forward to our trip this week to the Apollo Theater!

 

 

 

 

music festival at the university

By Robert D. Singleton  "The Ants Go Marching" is a children's song that first appeared in Barney's Campfire Sing Along (1990).
The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching one by one,
The little one stops to suck his thumb
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching two by two,
The little one stops to tie his shoe
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching three by three, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching three by three, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching three by three,
The little one stops to climb a tree
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching four by four, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching four by four, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching four by four,
The little one stops to shut the door
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching five by five, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching five by five, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching five by five,
The little one stops to take a dive
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching six by six, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching six by six, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching six by six,
The little one stops to pick up sticks
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching seven by seven, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching seven by seven, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching seven by seven,
The little one stops to pray to heaven
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching eight by eight, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching eight by eight, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching eight by eight,
The little one stops to shut the gate
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching nine by nine, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching nine by nine, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching nine by nine,
The little one stops to check the time
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ants go marching ten by ten, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching ten by ten, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching ten by ten,
The little one stops to say "THE END"
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

on the way to the free concert

 

taking a break from concert

we listened to three bands: Tigist Bekele (Ethiopian pop), Haifa Ensemble (middle Eastern classical) and Chicken Fat Klezmer band (Jewish music)

the kids had a lot of free food. 

trespassing into the lab school playground on the way home.

Happy father's day! / it is almost like christmas!

Ming Ming made a card for papa Antoine: this is her way of writing Happy Father's Day, and she drew Antoine as an alien with antennas! But it is cute and the cookies she made in school was yummy!

 

more dresses for her birthday! sent from HK by Popo and Selina Yiyi.
I just released the ban on princess dress. I told Selina that she can buy MM princess stuff but Antoine and I would not, and boom, she sent three all at once!
Helen and Bella's mom have also given MM princess dresses, so now she has five new ones.
Okay, the ban is back on!

 

 

 
Mamiecath sent the most amusing packages and the most detailed instructions. The four packages were marked with numbers, and MM need to answer a guessing game before she could proceed to open the next one. had a lot of fun with papa!

and, a nice change from princess dresses, Mamiecath sent sports outfit! MM is ready to play tennis!