Here’s a bit of randomness that Nyan got up to in June 2021.
Yes, a fair number of pictures of Nyan sleeping. It’s summer!
Cheating a lil with this video: This wasn’t really summer break; it was an online math exercise he did in the waning days of online learning before school let out for the summer in mid-June. But check that concentration.
And finally, some more photos.
We signed Nyan up for a series of day camps throughout the summer, and the first one kicked off in late June: five full days of cooking!
There was lots of stirring and squeezing:
Each day they chose two separate regional cuisines to focus on. Japanese; Thai; American; SIngaporean; French; the list went on.
As for specific foods, that list was long too. Tacos. Churros. Butter chicken. Eclairs. Sushi. Burgers. Satay. Spaghetti. And a lot more.
He’d been looking forward to this camp since the day we signed him up for it back in the spring, and it did not disappoint.
Each day, he brought home that day’s creations to share with Mommy and Daddy. Yep, he was proud of himself, and rightly so.
A great week of learning and fun!
One steamy Sunday morning, Nyan and Daddy set off on a jungle hike to a place called the MacRitchie Reservoir. It’s a series of trails along the shores of a man-made lake. It was hardly roughing it: the place is a 20-minute taxi ride away, all the trails are wide, well-maintained boardwalks, and the place was mostly heaving with other people having the same idea. Still, it was a nice escape.
This being the Singapore jungle, yes there were monkeys.
And plenty of turtles in the near-shore areas.
Pretty great scenery and a good little break, complete with fresh air and (modest) exercise.
Some of the random bits of fun Nyan got up to in the early weeks of Summer Vacation 2021, before his various camps kicked in.
We did a puzzle! Grandma and Granpa had sent Nyan a 500-piece sloth puzzle for Christmas, and we finally found the time to do it. We don’t have a great space to do it, unfortunately, but we made do,
Truth be told, Daddy did a fair amount of the work on this one. But Nyan helped out, and got better over time. And he wanted to be sure to put in the final piece himself
We learned another new skill: full flips into the pool!
He also did a lot of drawing
Check out some of the results. This boy continues to amaze his parents with this artistic skills!
Not a bad start to the summer!
School ended in mid-June, and we celebrated with a two-night stay at the iconic Raffles Hotel, which has stood in the heart of Singapore for about 150 years and which recently underwent a thorough renovation. They were running special deals that made it far more affordable, and we figured it was something that we had to do at least once in our lives. Really glad we did – the place was luxurious, the staffers were amazing, and we had a great time overall. No complaints at all.
Some interiors of the lobby and our room:
And random photos from outside — the views, the facades, the courtyards.
As usual for our ‘staycations,’ we didn’t actually do all that much. It was about relaxing, spending time together as a family, taking our feet off the proverbial gas pedal. So what all did we get up to?
We posted for pictures:
We swam:
We checked out artifacts like the famous grandfather clock in the hotel lobby:
And we ate. In-room breakfast:
In-room afternoon tea:
In-room evening meal:
That was about it! Can’t recommend the Raffles Hotel highly enough. We had a great time, and it was a great start to the summer.
Nyan finished his Year 5 of primary/elementary school in mid-June, with two months of fun to follow! We’ll talk a lot more about that in upcoming posts. But first, we thought we’d look back at the year that was.
It was an up and down year, with lots of Covid restrictions and, to cap off the year, several weeks of home-based learning. But Nyan managed to learn a lot, and have a good bit of fun in the process.
At the end of the year he brought home a big stack of papers and journals and whatnot. We went through them, took photos of a lot of the best writings and drawings, and share them with you here! We don’t have a lot of context for them but you can figure them out. Click on the photos to enlarge to better read what they say – or perhaps just enlarge your browser…
Here’s a fun assignment he did fairly early in the year (November 2020). We’ll include close-ups of the writing for easier reading.
Not sure what this is about but it’s something about how a refrigerator works. Love the imagination, love the drawings, love the descriptions!
More creativity: some sort of invention.
Some random work:
He wrote, and illustrated, a short story about a Viking adventure:
Nyan’s class did a lot of work learning about the various forms of government. He wrote quite a bit about it:
Some sort of poetry assignment, it seems; he chose to write, and draw, about his good friend Arav.
Nyan wrote and illustrated a faux diary entry about a surprise party his parents threw him. (No, this did not really happen!)
Some work he did about some ancient art:
Here’s another hodge podge collection of writing and assignments Nyan did:
And finally, just a few random drawings. Not sure what these are about, but they’re pretty good!
Pretty good school year, we’d say!
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