Fall Activities
Our children all started school on September 1st! Below is a picture of the children lining up to walk to school. The older girls and boys walk about 7 minutes to the public primary school. The kindergarten boys also walk to school but it takes them about 15 minutes to get to school, its not the same school. Our housemothers drop the children off and pick them up from school.
(Left to right with what grade they are in) Hollie-3rd, Wendy-4th, Ellie-2nd, Debbie-4th, Sarah-3rd, Emma-3rd, Anna-1st, and Zoey-2nd.
(Left to right with what grade they are in)Philip-5th, Gabe-4th, Eddy-4th, Graham-3rd, Lester-1st, Gene-1st, Mark-3rd, Noah-1st.
(Left to right) Chris, Thomas and Danny are in the last year of kindergarten, and Joey and Jake are in the middle year of kindergarten.
October 1st is China’s national day and the children had a 10 day holiday. We were quite surprised that they had so many days off since they just had a 4 day holiday on September 11th for the Moon festival, but we enjoyed the time with the children. Usually when the children get an extended holiday, their teachers load them down with so much extra homework that they have to spend everyday doing homework; they give so much homework to keep the children’s mind active. We tell the children that when this happens, they have a couple of options. They can either work hard and get it done all at once, or do a little each day, but they must have it all completed by the end of the holiday.
With having such a long holiday we wanted to use the time wisely. We wanted to make sure to give a time to relax from the intense school pressure, so there was a lot of play time.
Jonathan (our new translator) and I (Ben) played basketball with some of the children. We were a little surprised that Zoey really took an interest in playing….and were very surprised that she could slam dunk a basketball;)
Some of the children played a Chinese version of hopscotch. Sarah is quite the jumper and won a lot of the games. She also loves jump roping; she can jump over 100 times without stopping.
We also brought the children to a nearby park.
Eli (our middle son) and Anna walk to the park together
Park entrance
Jake, Debbie and Eli hanging out.
Here Gene, Sarah and Hollie (left to right) enjoy some of the exercise equipment at the park.
Hollie walking on the balance beam.
Michelle and Wendy getting some bonding time.
Each week we give the children some allowance money to teach them how to be responsible with money. On the way home from the park we stopped at a small store and let them buy some snacks.
Wendy and Zoey are talking about what they are going to buy, while Tyler (our youngest son) thinks about what he wants to buy too.
One day while we were out buying food for the day, we saw a man with a cotton candy machine on his motorcycle. We asked him to come to our place to give our children a treat. The children were quite surprised:)
The man was very nice and gave us a great deal; half the cost of what he was charging.
Debbie and Jake with their cotton candy!
Lester and Wendy with their cotton candy!
Eli finishing his treat, while Gene (background) very excitingly received his!
Michelle was out one day and found a bakery that made delicious breads. She decided to buy some and make pizza. The pizza’s were a hit and gave Michelle and Kari (our visitor from Canada) some time to teach the girls how to cook.
Hollie (back left) and Sarah (upfront) cutting tomatoes.
Zoey (left) and Anna (right) washing some peppers.
The pizza’s were a huge hit and well enjoyed, as you can see Danny, Jake and Joey (left to right) doing.
We also had a few work projects planned to teach some of the children how to work with their hands. First thing we did was patch a bad spot in our driveway.
(left to right) Philip, Graham and our eldest son Jaxin smooth out the concrete.
The biggest project we did, and one that all the children were very excited about, was making our own garden to try and help with the inflation here in China and the American dollar loss of value. We started this project during the Moon festival. It also taught the children to be more grateful for the food we eat everyday because they now know how hard it was to get.
The first thing we did was find a place for the garden and start pulling weeds.
Then we broke up the ground using shovels, hoes and picks! (left to right)Jake, Jaxin, Gabe, Mark, Eddy, Eli and Philip.
Emma using a hoe to break the ground up
While some of the older children were digging up the ground, the younger boys picked up the rocks and other debris that was dug up.
Picture on the left is of Jake (left) throws in one more rock while Eddy (middle) and Graham (right) carry the heavy load away. Picture on right is Tyler and Eddy dumping the bucket of rocks….it looks like to us that Tyler was telling Eddy to dump the load right here:)
Everyone helped with the work, Joey our youngest child showing off his gloves.
After the work was over, everyone sat under the shade tree and enjoyed an ice cream:)
Thank you for taking the time in reading about our family. We hope you enjoyed this update and please check soon for more.
Blessings
Ben and Michelle Godard
Posted: October 11th, 2011 under Uncategorized.
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