Tag Archives: school

We had a couple of special events at school in October. That included Halloween, when the kids were encouraged to dress in costume. Nyan decided he wanted to be a robot, so Mommy sprung into action and whipped up another home-made costume. Looks good!

Also in October, the school celebrated UN Day. It’s a pretty big deal at an international school in Singapore, where kids come from literally all over the world. Nyan has schoolmates from China, Norway, India, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, Uganda, Argentina, the UK, the USA, and many more.

On UN Day, kids were asked to dress up in clothes that represent their country of origin. For Nyan, that could mean England, America, or even Myanmar. He opted for …. Iowa.

There was an all-school assembly, with parents invited. No decent video from the assembly itself, but here’s our goofy boy on his way in:

And afterwards, on his way to a group shot of all his classmates:

And the group shot itself, complete with a photo of parents taking photos.

Finally, a few random photos of our boy at school or waiting for the school bus in the morning, in regular school uniform.

As we’ve said before, Nyan has settled in quite well to his new school, Eton House Broadrick. Never ever a word of complaint about going to school; we think he’d probably stay there til bedtime if he could!

We got to see some of his class in action in September when his teacher, Ms Rashmi, hosted an “open lesson” where parents could come in and stand quietly at the back of the class, watching. To set the scene, here’s the lovely and tropical view out his classroom window:

We got to see him take part in some group work:

He was very good at listening, and at raising his hand when he knew the answer.

Here are a couple examples of his writing from the start of the year. One is the start of a short story, featuring two characters named Jayden and Jonnie…the other is a bit about our boy.

We also got to attend a school assembly in September. A couple of big things happened. First off, Nyan’s class put on a skit about nouns and verbs etc. Check out this (unfortunately rather shaky) video; jump to about 1:25 if you just want to see our boy talk about the difference between common nouns and proper nouns,.

They also sang a song about it being a beautiful day.

The real treat, though, for us at least, was when they started handing out Certificates of Achievement for students who had been doing an outstanding job in school recently. And, yep, our boy got one – for being an “active and enthusiastic participant in class and making valuable contributions.”

Yeah, another shaky video. Sorry about that. But you can see him looking straight at the camera, meaning he sees Mommy and Daddy in the crowd, and he shows an almost-imperceptible flash of a proud smile. Yeah. That’s our boy!

You’ll recall that Nyan spent a fair bit of time in June attending various day-camps. That continued in the month of July, with the lad attending several week-long day camps covering a range of topics. There was computer coding, there was math, there was “multi-activity” which ranged from swimming and basketball to drama and arts & crafts.

We don’t have any pictures or video from the camp itself, but we took many shots from the bus pick-up each morning and drop-off each afternoon. Here’s some:

Here’s the boy walking to our apartment through the parking garage after a fun-filled day. Also eating a cupcake that he made at camp.

His computer programming week focused on the programming language called Scratch, which uses simple text phrases and loops to teach basic computer concepts and skills. He liked to show off his new knowledge at home on Daddy’s computer:

Okay, maybe not the most exciting video ever. But he’s learning about computers! Pretty cool.

Toward the end of the school year in June, Mommy and Daddy attended numerous events at Nyan’s school, and got to see many examples of his drawings and writings pinned to various walls. Let’s take a quick look.

First up: all the kids did a drawing/painting of their most favorite moment of the school year. Here’s Nyan’s – and yes, of course it involves Jayden. (We especially love the detail of the clouds in the sky!)

The kids learned about measurements, and Nyan did a very detailed piece illustrating all the different things that can be measured. (Such as the temperature, which can tell you if it’s going to snow tomorrow in Iowa!)

Here’s a zoomed-in look at both parts of that paper. Click to enlarge and read:

And there was a unit on reduce/reuse/recycle — very ably illustrated here by Nyan. (Click to enlarge.)

Almost last but not least, here’s a nice mellow painting of some flowers, we think:

And last but not least, a goofy boy at the end of the school day, making himself dizzy.

All school year long, Nyan and his classmates have been building “gratitude journals.” It’s simply where the kids write down things they are grateful for. It’s a fantastic exercise, a good and creative way for these kids to remember how lucky they are. It’s also a nice way to get some insight into what’s going on in their heads.

In the case of Nyan’s gratitude journal, there aren’t too many surprises, but it’s still lovely to see. Let’s take a look at what he’s been grateful for since August. Some of the spelling is rather, uh, challenging, so we’ll provide translations — plus any necessary context — as needed.

(Be sure to admire his drawings!)

Self explanatory. Remember Monster Jam? Nyan does.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

“I am grateful because I am going to see a visitor and she is an animal scientist.” Written just before an old college friend of Mommy, Jules, came to stay with us for a few days. She’s a biologist who does a lot of work with tigers and other big cats down in the Indonesian rain forest. Nyan was very excited that she was coming.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

“I am grateful for going to abacus grade because I [something] one paper.” Not sure what this means, and Nyan can’t remember. But it’s a reference to his abacus grading last August.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

“I am grateful for house challenge day because I got to play.”  At his school, students are divided into one of three “houses” — sort of like homerooms. Nyan is in Sentosa. Every so often, they have a day of House Challenges where the houses compete against each other. Apparently Nyan likes it.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

“I am grateful for my daddy because he brought me to Telunas.” A reference to the family vacation to Telenus Beach Resort last August (here). Daddy organized it, yes, but Mommy “brought” Nyan there just as much, if not more, as did Daddy.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

“I am grateful for my holidays because I get to see my Grandma and my Grandpa.”  Also pretty self explanatory. (Fantastic drawing of Singapore’s Changi Airport!)

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

Also self explanatory 🙂

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

“I am grateful for a type of old military plane. Because I got to take a tour inside the plane.”  This, Nyan tells us, refers to a tour he took of a B-29 bomber at the Cedar Rapids airport, in Iowa. The thing is, that was in summer 2015. Somehow he remembered it two and a half years later?? Gotta be; he says the plane was in Chicago, but we haven’t toured any airplanes in Chicago. So yeah. Guess he really enjoyed that tour!

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

“I am grateful for my school holidays because I get to go to my old school.” During school breaks in his first half-year at Chatsworth, we would sometimes take him back to his old school, MMI, for the day. He loved it, because he got to see his old pals – and come in as a returning hero. We don’t do that any more, sadly, since all his friends have moved on to other schools.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

This was from UN Day at school (see here). We’re not sure what the sticks in a jar was all about, to be honest.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

“I am grateful for the mid-term break because I got to watch videos.” We do try to limit his screen time, and he’s okay with that, most of the time, since he has books, toys, and a great imagination. But he does love to just veg out with a video from time to time.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

He loves Jayden, and he loves sleepovers with Jayden.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

He may complain about it sometimes, but he does like taekwondo. This just proves it.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

“I am grateful for my Daddy because he gave me a computer part.” We were taking an old laptop in for recycling recently. Daddy took out the old hard drive, for security purposes, and before he was able to physically destroy it, Nyan begged for it. So, he got it. It’s now a key part of his toy chest.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

“I am grateful for a Christmas present.” Self explanatory. The drawing is a little blue Lego robot that Santa brought him.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

Finally: he wrote this after our flight home from the US, where we got upgraded to business class. Nyan was obviously very happy about that.