Christmas letter/scrapbook

  Merry Christmas to all family and friends. Take the time to savor each moment with your family and friends. May 2016 bring you good health, happiness, many blessings and memorable adventures.

Copy and paste the link into the browser and you will be taken to my Christmas letter.

http://www.smilebox.com/playBlog/4e444d304e6a497a4d6a4d3d0d0a&blogview=true

December 11

Well, I’ve been spending most of my time teaching with reports and interviews now behind me. The learning curve has slowed down somewhat which for now is a relief.

 I went to Hong Kong two weekends ago and it was an experience. It has changed since I visited in the mid-90s and of course it is still very busy. We booked an Airbnb and it was conveniently located so that was awesome and it didn’t drain my pocketbook since I shared the cost! The shopping was not as I remember-with globalization everything seems to be so similar to everywhere else or uniqueness equals very expensive.

Once I partially figured out the train system there, I went to visit the big Buddha but after standing in a line in the heat for 30 minutes, reaching the entrance to the ticket line and being notified that it was another 90 minutes I decided to go back into the city and give it another shot the next time I visit Hong Kong. We visited the Ladies Market which was again stalls and stalls of all pretty much the same dollar store items.

Christmas: The kindergarten team is sponsoring family kinder activities for Christmas in lieu of a concert this Saturday, after the Christmas party Friday evening. The park that I have posted photos of before, is now prepping for Christmas. The process started two weeks ago and you will see photos below. Wow!! They sure do a lot of work for a really short season. It is just being completed this week. We are taking the kinder classes there for a picnic next week. Hopefully, the weather holds as the skies have been overcast a good part of this week.

Lastly, I fly into Edmonton, Dec. 19 late and hope to spend a couple days in Lloydminster on December 23 and 24^th and the 27^th to the 30^th.  Christmas is going to be celebrated in Edmonton so I'll be there the remainder of the time. Hope to see some of you then and if not take care of yourselves. Enjoy the Christmas season with family and friends. 

In Hong Kong the helpers gather in the streets
 and pathways on
 Sunday, their day off.
This is a time to socialize. 

The line up outside the Apple Store
 in Hong Kong.

Start of the Christmas display-Note
the cardboard boxes that hold all of the plants.

This is after the display is complete. The colors you see are all poinsettias and Asiatic lilies. It's truly a splendid display.

Prek engaged in Christmas table activities.

Children enjoying the cooler weather in the
outdoor classroom.

November 16, 2015

Report cards are complete, looking ahead to parent teacher conferences and then to a two and half day weekend. For that weekend I’m heading to Hong Kong for a break-yahoooo!

 Last weekend I had free tickets to enjoy the Macau Symphony and a tenor vocalist from France. I also visited another Macau site-Fisherman’s Wharf. I was surprised to find out that it is unlike any Fisherman’s Wharf that I’ve experienced before. There were a lot of shops and no seafood to be found except for what was served on your plate when you ordered dinner.

 It was, though, a real calming environment to walk around in. We had supper outdoors at a Thai restaurant which was fabulous. In fact the food was so tasty, we also took home take out to enjoy the next day.

You will also find photos posted of the end of our ‘Sense’ unit for prekindergarten. We focussed on the sense of sight this week as well as participating in some overall sense activities. 

November 1, 2015

It’s been a full two weeks, not with entertainment but with respect to work. We are heading into report period and so that is taking up a little bit of time as well as keeping up with planning. We are required to have peers review the reports, then to the coordinator before they go to the elementary principal so they need to be completed very early. They don’t actually get printed for three weeks yet. I learned something new ‘we don’t call our charges ‘students’, we call them ‘children’.  My learning bag is growing-that’s for sure!!

Friday we had a short Halloween celebration. All but one child had a parent present for our Halloween activity time so it was greatly supported. There were four activities set up at which parents chose to participate in with their child. I must say it turned out very well.

One of the stations was icing cookies. The children mixed up the batter on Wed., rolled, cut and baked them on Thurs. and iced them on Friday. It doesn’t sound like a huge job but I carried all of the ingredients to work in two trips and it took me three emails to locate and set up a portable oven which had to be plugged in on the next floor up. Will I attempt this again????

Crazy- look at all of the treats brought in. Although I will say that for most of the children this is the only Halloween that they'll celeb rate.

Last weekend I did take in a Portuguese festival close to where I live. Macau was originally a Portuguese colony although one doesn’t see too many people from that culture around but you can definitely see the influences all over Macau such as the street names. There was lots of great music and Portuguese people in attendance. There were a multitude of booths representing different Portuguese colonies from this part of the world such as Africa. It was a lot of fun.

October 19, 2015

My September break is long finished and soon it will be reporting time for me as well as for those of you in the classroom back home. I thought it was time to post something about my little tykes- pre-kindergarten 1.  Children around the world at this age are all the same in two ways-they have their own personality and are wonderful with mild variances of wonderful. I have a sweet looking group-just check out those faces below!! 

  They are starting to know the school routines and showing their different levels of capabilities. The puddle of tears produced by some of them in the morning has almost completely stopped.

I have a full-time teacher assistant ‘Miss Rebecca’ and fourteen students. The pre-kindergarten program leans towards the Reggio Emilia inspired philosophy (educational importance of community and inquiry) and the six team members plan collaboratively.  

Thanks to Stacey and Sarah from LRCSSD I had a bank of ideas to get started with. My sister, Helene has also been busy pinning ideas for me on Pinterest.  The emphasis in the classrooms is the play development area which includes reducing the adult footprint in the classroom. For example all of teacher desks were to be given up and replaced with a student desk or a pod.

Many of the students are dropped off by parents around 8:15 and we gather them from the outdoor classroom at 8:25. Some students come with a helper ‘care giver’ or by way of the school bus. We proceed in and basically the day is composed of circle time, center time, snacks, story time/music, lunch, rest time, two outdoor play times (recesses) , table activities with 3:05 as dismissal. Some of the days we have gym, budddy activities, Mandarin lessons, library, and special projects. It is a very busy day!!

September 29th

Hello to my people who are reading this.

It is “Mid-Autumn Festival” in Macau and I have a week off (the only break until Christmas-no long weekends either) so it is time to write a little about Macau- Macau is the state/province and is comprised of three subtropical islands-Macau/Coloane/Taipa.  I live and teach in Taipa which is one of the islands. This very small island is basically a large city of approximately 75000 who all live in high rises. I explored Taipa when I first arrived so this week it was time to explore the island of Coloane and Macau.  Following will be sights and sounds of the islands and of the festivities this week.  There are 35 sites that have been declared as heritage sites.

All students from PreK to Grade 6 made a lantern to hang in the MPR where our autumn festival was held last Thursday evening.

Every staff member was given a tin of mooncakes. As with every Chinese festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival has its own special food – moon cake. It is a kind of cookie with various fillings and different artistic patterns on the surface depicting the legends of the festival. Generally, it is round, as the Mid- Autumn Festival is a time for family reunion, and “round” has a similar pronunciation with “reunion” in Chinese. During the festival, people sacrifice these cookies to the moon as offerings, eat them for celebration and present them to relatives and friends for good wishes.

Chinese Bonsai and Autumn Flower Show in Taipa Museum Park

Hundreds of cardboard boxes of potted plants comes to the park and the plants are planted for an instantaneous show of blooms.  Even the sod (small 15 x 15 cm squares) is planted for this special week.

 I found myself a hunk of a hulk to take me to the movies at the Galaxy. The ticket was 240 MOP which is about 40 CAD which he did not pay for! You do get to choose your own seat.

When it was time for the movies I arrived back at the theatre and was led to a special room.  Mmmm- this is strange I thought to myself. There's like no people here. Look to the right- my almost private theatre. It was the Director's Club with 15 reclining chairs and popcorn and pop delivery. No wonder it was so expensive but worth the experience. An example of not knowing the language.  

I visited Coloane village on Coloane. This is the chapel of  St. Francis Xavier built in 1928. Interesting fact - for years a fragment of the saint's arm

bone was kept their for years. 

A sidestreet where I explored the very few shops. I bought an artwork here.

There are the two extremes in Macau- the richness of the casinos and the poverty at the other end of the spectrum.   This is very common and very similar to what I experienced in '96 when I was in China last.

a small budhist temple

Part of the rest of the week was spent exploring Macau. I haven't finished yet and will continue to explore this week as well as move residences. This is in Guia Fort- a unique sundial. You can tell what time I took the photo.

It is a long climb up to the top of the Flora Garden in the fort area but there you find the Guia Lighthouse and the chapel of Our Lady of Guia built in 1622.  It is the oldest lighthouse on the China coast and is still operational beginning May every year.  Inside are interesting frescoes just discovered.

Overlooking the city from the fort.

This dragon must be about 8 meters tall inside one of the hotels.

This is a lego representation of Star City just being built. This gives Lego a new meaning.

The Red Market-a place everyone needs to experience. Stalls of fruits and vegetables and a wet market.. Many smells and sights to behold.......  I had to experience it at least once. Not too different than what I had seen in Beijing and other parts of China I had visited.

Now here is a rabbit warren of shopping for clothes, shoes and handbags. 

This is a living wall on the outside the City of Dreams where I use the free shuttle services to different parts of  Macau. I hope you are all keeping well.