Last Day of School: 6/10/10

6/10 was the last day for Ha's 2nd grade class and Hee's kindergarten. This year, Ha made good progress in terms of finishing his homework without my 三催四請五拖六拉，and his math was usually in the challenge group in class. However, he still needs some improvement on writing because he's not good at finding the sentences to write. When I was at his age, writing was one of my strong subjects, I had good imagination, so I could make up my stories easily.Ha didn't know how to make up the stories, so writing was hard for him.

Hee was doing well in class, and he enjoyed his kindergarten life; however, he still had seperation anxiety even in the last month of the school year. He cried few time a week when I was leaving, but he would stop crying as soon as he couldn't see me. It happened not only at school, but at Sunday School, AWANA, too. It worried me because VBS was coming, and I couldn't concentrate on my work if he's not coorperative. 

I signed up for VBS fasting prayer every Tuesday, and on 6/1 (Tuesday), he still cried in the morning at school. During my fasting prayer time, I asked God to help him to be strong, and God answered my prayer. From that day on, he never cried at school, at Sunday School, at living water summer kids program. and he never cried at VBS. It's a miracle, and I thank God for that. When we did the work for God, He also took care of what we concerned.

In August, my kids will be on the first and 3rd grade, Wow, sounds "big"!

Hee's fieldtrip to Happy Hollow Park and Zoo

Today was Hee's fieldtrip to Happy Hollow Park and Zoo. I wasn't plan on going, but yesterday, when I picked up Hee, his teacher said that she still needed chaperon, so I went. I went there once when Ha was in kindergarten. At that time, Hee was too young to ride on the school bus, so I needed to drive. This time, I was able to ride on the bus. Each chaperon took care of 4 to 5 kids, and my group had 5 kids. It's a big challenge to be in the open space with 5 kindergarten kids.

We went to the zoo first because animals were more active and alert in the early morning. In Happy Hollow Zoo, we didn't see those "regular animals" that we will see in the bigger zoo; instead, we saw more farm or small sized animals. The only words that kids used to describe the animals was "so cute". They just repeatedly said "so cute, so cute". Another word that they often said was "hungry". As soon as they got off the bus, they started saying hungry and kept asking me when would be the time for lunch. Hee had his breakfast, so he didn't say hungry.

The playground is so big and looked so fun. If I didn't need to take care of the bunch of kids, I might go and play myself.

We took some rides, and Hee and his friend said that they wanted to take the Frog Hopping. Hee still remembered that he took the similar ride when he was in Taiwan 2 years ago with a 女大人（懿真）, so he said that he's not afraid of this ride. (video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6PZ_vykLpk )They asked me to play, too, but I told them that I'm scared of it. Also, the other 2 kids in my group went for a roller coaster ride, and another kid went to playground, so I needed to run between these 3 places. I'm capable of having 5 kids! ( but I don't want to have 5 kids.)

Finally, it's 1pm, and I was so happy to be on the bus. Their summer vacation is going to begin, and I don't need to be on the fieldtrip for at least 2 months. Hooray!

2nd Grade Insect Fair Fieldtrip

I went with Hee's class on the fieldtrips twice, but I haven't got the opportunity to go with Ha's class this year because of the time conflict. This time, their fieldtrip will come back to school around 12pm before Hee's class is over at 12:25pm, so Ha asked me to sign up.

Personally, I am really not very interested in going on the fieldtrip with kids (but I liked to go when I was a kid) because it's a big respobsibilty. In Hee's class, a parent needs to be in charge of 4 to 5 kids, and in Ha's class, a parent needs to be in charge of 6.

Usually, teachers will divide kids into groups based on their friendship; that is, kids will usually be in the group with their good friends. Thank God that Ha and Hee are not wild kids, so their friends are more on the quiet side which is better for me to handle.

Yesterday, Ha's class went to an insect fair in Sanborn State Park. A girl S was in our group and sitting next to me on the bus. As we went uphill, she looked nervous and sounded nervous, and she told me that she has "motion sickness", which is, when she was in the car on the winding roads, she will feel sick. Gosh, another one! I was worrying about Ha, too, but he seemed to be fine. As I tried to comfort her, I started thinking what I should do if she really vomits, and I remembered that I have 2 small plastic bags in my purse, so I was getting ready to take the bags out whenever she needs it. Thank God that Sanborn Park was not too far, and we got there before she needed the bags.

Kids were having fun on this educational fair. Then, we had a short hike which meant that kids could run all over the place more freely to observe the nature, plants and insects and meant that I needed to keep my eyes on 6 kids. I repeated counting 1,2,3,4,5,6 every few minutes to ensure that all of my kids were still there. At the meantime, I also needed to give them some guidance about the nature observation.

I was so happy to see the school bus again because it meant that we were going back to school. On the way back, it's downhill, so kids pretended that they were riding a roller coaster. Every one was so happy, and that "motion sickness" lady was too happy to remember her sickness. When we were back in town, that lady called me again: "The bus is speeding up. It's speeding up, it's speeding up, I can feel it!!!!!" This time, I didn't know what to say because we were on the regular street, and the bus was not very fast at all. I told her that even her daddy or mommy drives faster than this, and I surely drive faster than this most of the time. Finally, she was convinced that the bus was on the normal and rather slow speed, so she was fine again.

Today, I just found out that Hee will have 2 other fieldtrips in June, one to the park, and the other one to the zoo. ( I went with Ha to the zoo when he's in kindergarten.) I don't want to, but I'm pretty sure that I will go anyways.

Community Day -5/4/10

Our state government cut a big chunk of education expenses; therefore, many of our school district's teachers received pink slips, and the class size will be increased for the next school year.

"Their Future is Now(TFIN)" is a partnership between the community, the Cupertino Educational Endowment Foundation, and the Cupertino Union School District to raise $3 million by 5/15 to keep all the teachers and keep the same class sizes.

Yesterday (5/4) was community day, and many restaurants, retail or service would donate 5 to 50% of the daily sales to the TFIN, so the school encouraged us to shop and to dine in the participating restaurants yesterday. Stephen got his haircut in one of the particpating store after work, and we went out for dinner. We tried TGI Friday first because many Ha and Hee's classmates would be there. The wait was too long. We saw Hee's teacher there, but according to Stephen, “人實在太多，空氣比高山上還稀薄”， and he started coughing hard when he entered the room, so we tried "Elephant Bar" which would also donate 20% of the sales to TFIN. On the street, we saw many people outside on the lawn waiting for the seats, and we knew that it would be a long wait, too. Then, we tried Fresh Choice, which is also nearby. On the parking lot,when we looked through the restaurant window, we saw a long waiting line as well, but at least, the line was inside the restaurant, so we decided to settle down because we believed that the rest of 30+ participating restaurants would be the same thing, and we were too hungry to go to another restaurant.

By the time we got the table, it's 8pm, and the long line was still forming until about 8:40pm. We left the restaurant at 9pm. On our way home, we drove through few other participating restaurants, and they were all still packed, and some of them still had waiting line. It's really the power of the community!

Walkathon

4/23/10, Ha and Hee's school had their annual walkathon to raise money for the school.

Hee's class started walking and running at 9:30am, and after we helped the kids change the walkathon T-shirt, they got ready on the track. Hee and his good friend Jeffrey were partners, and they held hands from the start to the end. These two were relaxing kids, and most of the time, they were taking slow walks around the track ，感覺很像在逛夜市。Their class walked for an hour, and Hee only walked 8 laps. Each kindergartener got a otterpop and 2 raffle tickets.

Ha's class started walking at 10:30am. Ha was determined to run well in order to  raise more money for the school. My job assignment was to punch the holds on kids' ticket when they finished one lap. I had an opportunity to remind Ha to drink more water and get otterpops and raffle tickets. For 2nd graders, they could get a raffle ticket or an otterpop every five laps. Ha wasn't very interested in getting these, but he drank a lot of water.

At the end, Ha walked/ran 39 laps. He ran faster and faster every year. In Kindergarten, he ran 11 laps; in 1st grade, he ran 25 (20+, I couldn't remember)laps, and this year, 39! Not bad at all. When Ha determined to do something, he would try hard to do it well.

However, the next day (Saturday), Ha's legs were very sore. He could only walk slowly, but he kept comfort himself by saying: "my muscle is getting stronger now, so it sores" (That's what I told him, but I wasn't sure if it's true though.)

Hee's class: Thanksgiving Music Program-11/24/09

11/24 是穿睡衣上學日，也是Hee 班的音樂表演日。

Usually, they don't wear pajamas at home, and after shower, they just wear whatever they are going to wear for the next day, so they don't have to change the clothes again in the cold morning. I helped them to pick the clothes which "look like" pajamas for this special day.

Kindergarten classes prepared a 30-min music program with about 6 or 7 songs, and kids wore different kinds of hats: turkey, indians and pilgrims. Hee was a little Indian.

Here is the video clip for one of the songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAOXE8lhMWc

Chicken Dance

Every year, Cueprtino has a fall festival, and all the kindergarteners took turns to perform chicken dances. Ha was there 2 years ago, and this year, Hee got his turn to join it. Their school got the spot from 11:40am to 11:55am, and we went there early in order to check out other booths.

Here are some video clips of chicken dance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiZ8Kp3EdR4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MVLJrL1xlA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GST0xQxp8Ig

It was on 9/20, and it was hot, so the chicken kids became roasted chicken. We went to few different booths, and Ha and Hee got some different prizes, see, these were what they got:

Here are some video clips of the chicken dance:

Fire Drill

This morning, I helped in Hee's classroom. They have about 26 kids in a class; 16 kids go to school from 9am to 12:25pm; 10 kids are from 10:55am to 3:05pm, so they are overlapped from 10:55am to 12:25pm, and the teacher welcomes parents volunteers to help out in the classroom.

Today, there's a fire drill, and it's my first time to join the fire drill at school in the US. The teacher explained very clearly before the drill, so the kids fully understood what they were supposed to do. When the bell rang, the teacher asked kids to cover their ears because the bell was very loud. By doing that, kids didn't talk, either because everyone covered their ears, and nobody could hear others anyways. Within few minutes, all the kids gathered in the field quietly. It amazed me that all 600+ kids could be there in good order and without making any noises. I believed that they will be doing fine when the real thing happens.

開學第一天

It's the first day of Ha's 2nd grade and Hee's kindergarten year. In the morning, Hee told me that he didn't want to go to school, but later, he acted better than I thought. Neither Stephen nor I wanted to miss their first day of school, so we drove 2 cars to school (so Stephen could go to work directly). The parking was so hard! I guessed that every parent didn't want to miss their children's first day of school. I imagined that it would be bad if we needed to say good-bye at the doorway to Hee, and he would definitely cry. Fortunately, Hee's teacher (who's also Ha's kindergarten teacher) was experienced, and she asked parents to go into the classroom with the kids. After all the kids were settled in their spots, she asked kids to say good bye to parents together. Hee was ok with that. He has a preschool classmate in his class ( Hee said that he did say hi to her today), and I knew a girl from our church's VBS.

At noon, I went to pick up Hee. Ha's lunch area was just in front of Hee's classroom, so I was able to see him as well. Both told me that they were doing good on the first day of school, and they seemed happy.

Ha knew his teacher when he was in kindergarten, and he had 2 people who was in the same kindergarten class with him; however, none of his first grade classmates is in his 2nd grade class. He can only see them during recess and lunch time. Hopefully, he can make friends soon.