Happy New Year 2016!!
I’m back! Guess what we did on New Year’s Day. Clean the house (we were away for a week, so the home’s a mess, plus there’re dead cockroaches all over the place, thanks to our homemade cockroach bait that we placed all over the house just before we flew off – it worked!!) Buy groceries (yeah, back to reality, have to stock up for our boring routine lives again). And sit with Justin to make sure he finishes his homework! The homework part took most of the day. Yeah, that’s life nowadays. Your kid’s homework, is also your work now. Don’t ever remember my parents grilling me on homework! So this is new age parenting huh? Being a parent, means responsibilities I guess, if only it could be more interesting…
Anyway, here’re some photos of homework and school. Yeah, I have a whole load of photos of Justin’s school-related stuff. That’s what our lives revolve around nowadays. Don’t even want to imagine the time when Jayden starts schooling!!!
Justin doing his online homework on my laptop. (He’s friggin Standard 1, and has computer homework!) He also has to bring an iPad to school, part of the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) Programme that’s being implemented in the international schools here! …Oh, that Malay costume? It’s something his grandparents sent from Malaysia. We let him try it out in preparation for International Day, where all the kids have to wear something to reflect their home country.
Justin at Foundation 2 (FS2) aka Kindergarten
With his FS2 Teacher’s Assistant, Ms Jocelyn. (His class teacher can be seen in this earlier post)
With his classmate Miriam at FS2 (Miriam’s father turned out to be the owner of the apartment we finally chose and bought – and I didn’t know until we were at the land office to sign the transfer papers despite meeting a couple of times. We started chatting while waiting for the land office to prepare the papers and then it dawned on me. We even went to Miriam’s 5th birthday party at Mirdif Park a few months back! Talk about being in a small world!)
An assignment on Italy in FS2. Each class picked a separate country to work on. We had to make something reflecting Italy. He loves Sports Cars, so we ended up making a Lamborghini out of a Nescafe box.
More Italy! At the end of the assignment he (and I) could sing an Italian children’s song!!! – Il Coccodrillo Come Fa. So, it does bring benefits after all.
That’s not all. I’ve had to relearn the Solar System. I know all the planets plus their special characteristics now. (And what the heck, Pluto is no longer a planet!!) I’ve relearnt dinosaurs (I can name most of the common dinosaurs again). I used to know them but it’s been more than 35 friggin years since I was last interested in them. (Do you know that Brontosaurus is no longer a proper dinosaur name now? They should rightly be called Apatosaurus! But personally I prefer Brontosaurus – what sort of name is Apatosaurus??). I’ve also relearnt fairy tales – oh yeah, I know my Cinderella, and Rapunzel, and Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel – you name them! And we’ve been catching up on old Disney cartoons!
Justin’s drawing of flags – this was during a school programme supporting some humanitarian effort in Ghana. The kids were told to wear Ghanaian colours or clothes in support of the school. How on earth in Dubai would you find some Ghanaian clothes??! We finally bought a yellow cap and drew a Ghana flag on it
Waking Justin up in the morning for school is sometimes a challenge
The start of his Year 1 (Standard 1) at Royal Dubai School. The names and nationalities of his classmates are stuck on the wall behind
Justin’s Year 1 classroom
Justin at an introduction to musical instruments, a school related event – no, please not the drums. Pick a piano, or violin or heck, even a trumpet, that’d be ok
We had a family outing to the Dubai Musuem to help him with his 'Dubai in the Past' topic at Year 1 (yeah, we have to have family outings for the kids now, part of parenthood I guess…)
Justin and his science project – testing whether plants grow better with water or soda. Never would’ve guessed it’d be soda!!! His mom had to remind him daily to water them and to write down the observations!
Here’s a link to Justin’s Year 1 Class blog for those who want to see more of what happens at the international schools here in Dubai.
Hope your New Year is as ‘interesting’ as ours…
I’m back! Guess what we did on New Year’s Day. Clean the house (we were away for a week, so the home’s a mess, plus there’re dead cockroaches all over the place, thanks to our homemade cockroach bait that we placed all over the house just before we flew off – it worked!!) Buy groceries (yeah, back to reality, have to stock up for our boring routine lives again). And sit with Justin to make sure he finishes his homework! The homework part took most of the day. Yeah, that’s life nowadays. Your kid’s homework, is also your work now. Don’t ever remember my parents grilling me on homework! So this is new age parenting huh? Being a parent, means responsibilities I guess, if only it could be more interesting…
Anyway, here’re some photos of homework and school. Yeah, I have a whole load of photos of Justin’s school-related stuff. That’s what our lives revolve around nowadays. Don’t even want to imagine the time when Jayden starts schooling!!!
Justin doing his online homework on my laptop. (He’s friggin Standard 1, and has computer homework!) He also has to bring an iPad to school, part of the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) Programme that’s being implemented in the international schools here! …Oh, that Malay costume? It’s something his grandparents sent from Malaysia. We let him try it out in preparation for International Day, where all the kids have to wear something to reflect their home country.
Justin at Foundation 2 (FS2) aka Kindergarten
With his FS2 Teacher’s Assistant, Ms Jocelyn. (His class teacher can be seen in this earlier post)
With his classmate Miriam at FS2 (Miriam’s father turned out to be the owner of the apartment we finally chose and bought – and I didn’t know until we were at the land office to sign the transfer papers despite meeting a couple of times. We started chatting while waiting for the land office to prepare the papers and then it dawned on me. We even went to Miriam’s 5th birthday party at Mirdif Park a few months back! Talk about being in a small world!)
An assignment on Italy in FS2. Each class picked a separate country to work on. We had to make something reflecting Italy. He loves Sports Cars, so we ended up making a Lamborghini out of a Nescafe box.
More Italy! At the end of the assignment he (and I) could sing an Italian children’s song!!! – Il Coccodrillo Come Fa. So, it does bring benefits after all.
That’s not all. I’ve had to relearn the Solar System. I know all the planets plus their special characteristics now. (And what the heck, Pluto is no longer a planet!!) I’ve relearnt dinosaurs (I can name most of the common dinosaurs again). I used to know them but it’s been more than 35 friggin years since I was last interested in them. (Do you know that Brontosaurus is no longer a proper dinosaur name now? They should rightly be called Apatosaurus! But personally I prefer Brontosaurus – what sort of name is Apatosaurus??). I’ve also relearnt fairy tales – oh yeah, I know my Cinderella, and Rapunzel, and Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel – you name them! And we’ve been catching up on old Disney cartoons!
Justin’s drawing of flags – this was during a school programme supporting some humanitarian effort in Ghana. The kids were told to wear Ghanaian colours or clothes in support of the school. How on earth in Dubai would you find some Ghanaian clothes??! We finally bought a yellow cap and drew a Ghana flag on it
Waking Justin up in the morning for school is sometimes a challenge
The start of his Year 1 (Standard 1) at Royal Dubai School. The names and nationalities of his classmates are stuck on the wall behind
Justin’s Year 1 classroom
Justin at an introduction to musical instruments, a school related event – no, please not the drums. Pick a piano, or violin or heck, even a trumpet, that’d be ok
We had a family outing to the Dubai Musuem to help him with his 'Dubai in the Past' topic at Year 1 (yeah, we have to have family outings for the kids now, part of parenthood I guess…)
Justin and his science project – testing whether plants grow better with water or soda. Never would’ve guessed it’d be soda!!! His mom had to remind him daily to water them and to write down the observations!
Here’s a link to Justin’s Year 1 Class blog for those who want to see more of what happens at the international schools here in Dubai.
Hope your New Year is as ‘interesting’ as ours…
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