Luke's Birthday Party

Luke's birthday is the 26th, which fell on Good Friday this year, and was also the day before our school's spring break. So a "big" party was really not in the works this year. Instead, we invited Fisher and Malin, Sabina, and Kian over to play at our apartment's playground. We brought down Luke's dress-up clothes for the boys and told Sabina to come in her princess costume (assuming she didn't want to play pirates). The kids dressed up, ran around, and had a great time. I brought down cupcakes and juice for the kids and drinks for the adults. We put a sheet out on the ground for Malin to play on, and just let the kids play for an hour or so. It was simple, sweet, and Luke was happy. :)

All dressed up and off to play

Kelly, Malin (LOVE THAT FACE!), Laura (Sabina's mommy) and Kerri (Kian's mama)

Sabi (Mom, see her crown? It's the one you made Luke!), Luke, and Fisher

Rob, Mark, and Jason

Kian borrowed Sabina's princess shoes, much to his Daddy's dismay! (However, his Daddy is the one sporting the lion ears and tail in the background, so he really couldn't say much!)

Sweet Malin loved the cupcakes so much, she picked up every little crumb she could find!

Luke's Birthday

Luke was excited to take cupcakes to school for his 5th birthday. I was able to go to his classroom to help pass out cupcakes and juice. Luke's wonderful teacher provided candles and matches so he actually had some candles to blow out. Here are some pictures of him with his classmates. (This little picnic table area is just outside his classroom, and it's where the kids have their lunch and snack.)

Student-Led Conferences

The last week of March was student-led conference week. We got to visit Luke's kindergarten classroom to see him in action. He read a book, wrote some sentences about it, played a math game, and showed us around his classroom. We were happy to hear that he's doing well academically in kindergarten. His teacher says he would still rather play than work... but so would I! Here's a shot of Luke in playing his math Easter Egg hunt game. We are so proud of our Kindergarten boy!

Jai HO!

For the last several months, we've been learning a dance with other ECA teachers to perform in the school's annual AIDS Benefit. Pauline, one of our PE teachers, choreographed and taught it to all of us. She was wonderfully patient with us as we learned, practiced, and messed up over and over again! We have had so much fun learning the dance with everyone. Last night was the performance. We were the last act in the show.

After the show, we all gathered at our friends' house to celebrate, hang out, and watch the video OVER AND OVER AGAIN! I can't think of very many times in my life I've had that much fun. I think 2009-2010 in Venezuela will be remembered as The Year of Jai Ho!

Enjoy the video. I'm in the bright pink scarf, front row on the right side. Jason's in the lime green t-shirt. And, by the way, Luke knows all the choreography and could've filled in if necessary! :)

Up to the Minute!

Luke had a project assignment to report to his class on a rainforest animal. He chose the sloth. (What, no jaguar?) I asked him how he would like to present his animal to the class, suggesting several choices (mobile, poster, video, puppet, etc.). He chose to make a puppet and interview it in front of the class.

We read books, watched videos online, and learned all we wanted to know and more about sloths. Did you know there was once even a giant ground sloth, which is now extinct? I didn't, but I do now!

Luke and I made a sock puppet sloth, complete with algae-covered fur and button eyes. We wrote down six questions Luke (the interviewer) could ask Slowpoke the Sloth. He came up with a cute little voice for Slowpoke and everything.

His presentation was about 20 minutes ago. He ditched the voice and was pretty shy about asking Slowpoke the questions and making him talk to the class, but he got all the information across. I'm not sure if his presentation was anything like what the teachers were hoping for, but it's done!

Here is Luke setting out his notecards so he would remember which questions to ask:

And Luke giving the presentation. No video this time. :(

And... in other news... Jason and I are both participating in the AIDS Benefit Gala tomorrow night at our school. I am singing as part of two different groups - one song called Nozanina, which is in an indigenous South American language, and another called O Sifuni Mungu, in Swahili. Then Jason and I are dancing with a bunch of other teachers to Jai Ho. It's going to be lots of fun! We've been practicing like crazy, and we'll all be glad when we're through after tomorrow night. Jai Ho has definitely been one of the highlights of our first year here, though! I hope to post pictures this weekend.

Disney Trip Part 1

For October break, we traveled to Florida. We booked our timeshare at a great resort - the Wyndham Bonnet Creek, bought our Disney tickets, and met Mom and Dad there for a great time!

Our first night in Orlando, we stayed in a little Comfort Inn and rented a car so we could get all our stateside shopping done, and our grocery shopping, too. It was a FULL day of running around. Once we arrived at our timeshare, Jason dropped me off at the door with all the week's groceries and luggage and left to return the rental car. We were pushing it as far as getting the car back in time - so Luke and I had to load it all up on the cart and get it to our room by ourselves. It was quite a challenge, but we made it!


The resort had a resident balloon guy, who instantly made Luke a pirate hat (complete with parrot perched on top) and a belt for his sword. (He'd gotten the balloon sword at Chili's earlier the same day.)

Here's Luke swashbuckling on the balcony of our room.


Our break was the week before Halloween, so we bought 3 pumpkins and carved them.



This was Luke's first pumpkin-carving experience. He was a little grossed out by the guts (me too) but loved the finished product.

Happy Birthday, Bill Darnell!

Dear Bill,

I know this is not much of a birthday present, but in honor of YOUR DAY, I've decided to comply with your requests for MORE pictures, MORE video, and MORE blogs. (Also honoring your request for LESS WORDS!)

So, for you, here are some pictures of our daily life. I will take some more today and add them later. Hopefully before your next birthday.

Love,
Katherine


You walk in the entryway of our apartment, and to the right is our dining room. This is it. There's a desk in there, too, and those built-in cabinets hold all my scrapbook stuff. We haven't done much decorating in our apartment yet, so even though I took this picture a long time ago, it still looks a lot like this.


There's a partial wall separating the dining area from the living area, but it's basically all one room. Here's the living room.


(We will probably buy paint and ask the school to paint our apartment over the summer. The green was here when we got here.)

Here's our kitchen.



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It's to your left as you enter the apartment, through a sliding wood panel which can be closed off if necessary, but we usually leave it open.

Through the living room there's a little hallway that leads to our bedrooms and bathrooms. Here is the bathroom, or router room. You can see the router wire coming from the vent.



This is Luke's room, which is now decorated a little bit with his pirate toys. There's still lots to do.


Here's our bedroom, which is plain, plain, plain, and will probably be the last room I do anything with.




When we leave our apartment, we use the elevator. Here is Luke outside and inside the elevator. You asked for details.





More to come! :)

Show & Tell

Luke's kindergarten class does one day of show and tell per child. The kids are asked to speak about something for 10 minutes! Luke brought his pirate gear and told the class all about it. He was a bit shy (maybe because I was there), and it took him a while to get started. but he did great. Here's some video. Unfortunately, it's mostly of him NOT talking! You can see all his little pirate treasures lined up there on the floor, though. He told them about his swords, his trip to Disney where he got dressed up like a pirate, and his favorite pirate, Captain Hook.

Sabi's Birthday

Sabina turned 4 in September, and we were invited to her party, which was held downstairs in our building. Sabina's parents rented all sorts of play toys for the kids to play on. The party started at 3 or 4 in the afternoon. We were the first to arrive, so Luke and Sabi had the toys to themselves for a long time.

This adorable little girl is Carmen, and she loves playing swords with "Dee-yuke" (Luke).

Fisher and his family arrived soon after we did, so Luke and fisher quickly got crazy playing together. Carmen joined right in!
(They bumped their police cars together for about 30 minutes before they decided to do something different.)

Sabina and her mommy.


This clown lady painted the kids' faces, made balloon animals, and helped with the pinata at the end of the party.


Luke and Fish both got their faces painted with balloons.




Laura had so much food prepared for the party. In Venezuela, all the kids' brothers and sisters and parents come to the parties, so there were quite a few people there, and Laura informed me that this was a "small" Venezuelan party! Wow!

We finally got to the pinata around 7 PM.




There's a chant that the kids say while they hit the pinata that basically means: hit it, hit it, knock it to the ground, we want candy!

It was a fun party, and it was great to see Luke interacting with all the other kids, even the ones who spoke only Spanish.

Meet Luke, Kindergartener

Luke began the school year in pre-kindergarten. Though he seemed contented enough, he never came home excited about anything except the park. He made some friends in his class, though, and we were very glad to hear about them. All parents in his class were asked to schedule a time to come observe the class. Jason and I went to observe in early October. Within five minutes of being in the classroom, it was clear that Luke was in the wrong class.

First of all, he is four, and he'll turn five in March. There are a few children in his pre-K class who were three at the beginning of the year and turned four in September. There is quite a gap between almost five and barely four, and that gap gapes when Luke is the four-and-a-half-year-old in question. In addition to the maturity difference, the language fluency difference made it difficult for the teacher to differentiate for Luke. Kids in our school's early childhood program don't come with much English, so the teacher has to translate a lot during the day. It meant that Luke was getting a decent amount of Spanish, but having to wait a lot for the teachers to instruct the kids in two languages. Ever patient, Luke never complained or said a word. Watching him with the kids, bored, broke our hearts. We met with the school counselor and his teachers that week.

The counselor did a pre-K/Kinder screening on Luke. There was a set of questions she asked him, and based on his responses he either fell into the pre-K or Kinder category. On every question he answered the Kinder way. Everyone agreed he was ready to move up.

His crash-course in Pre-K ended at the end of October. We had planned for his last day with his class to be on the 30th, so that he could be at the Halloween party with his pre-K friends. He got sick, however, and missed school that day and the following Monday! Very bad timing! So he began kindergarten the following Tuesday.

The first week he was hesitant, but excited. On Wednesday he came home excited about the science class he'd been to. On Friday he came home with pirate books from the library and told us all about his trip to the computer lab. When I asked him that first week if he'd made any friends, he said, "Hmm...not yet, I am still working on that."

Within another week or two he'd made a few little friends and seemed to fit in a bit better with his new class. His teachers compliment his good behavior and manners, and the kids seem to enjoy being around him. He is still shy with them, I think, because I think they speak a lot of Spanish on the playground and that intimidates him. He's learning, though, and his Spanish accent is native Venezuelan!

He has homework every night. Most nights it's a guided reading book, which he reads to me with a little help. He's a reading machine! His teachers have also made up these neat little homework cases that have different activities in them. We've had a few with math activities and one with fine motor practice.

Luke's class performed at the Red Shirt Assembly last week. They sang a song in Spanish and a Hanukkah song (in English).

Today was Luke's Show and Tell day. He was asked to speak for TEN MINUTES!! We brought a whole shipload of pirate gear for him to talk about. He rehearsed his presentation several times and even practiced with Fisher and his mama for an audience. He was still pretty shy when the moment came, though. I have some video I'll upload and post later.

One month into kindergarten, I am glad we made the move. I have had some reservations about it, mostly about the long-term impact of him being a year younger than his peers, but I think he will be just fine. He loves to learn, and now he loves school. That's the biggest difference I see. He gets what he needs academically and comes home wiped out at the end of the day!