Homework in the cafeteria

This sometimes happens. After getting off the school bus, everyone gathers in the cafeteria and does some homework together. Older ones checking on the younger ones work. I just love it!

Hooray Homework!!

Luca has been waiting for this moment for the longest time - getting some homework from school.
He was very good and keen to do everything right. He had some Chinese writing, a book reading and an art exercise of drawing his favourite kind of birthday cake!

Art homework

Luca is itching to get some homework everyday like Oliver but it won't happen till next year when he moves to K1. But this week he had some art/craft homework: to design a fan.
I suggested we make a Japanese style fan as I didn't have any hard paper. He was very happy and knew exactly what the theme was for it - All Blacks.

His drawing is actually improving everyday. A kiwi and a silver fern!! 

Another weekend

Somehow Matthew is working most of the weekends at the moment. That means I need to make sure Oliver does all his homework on Saturday morning (it works better when he does all of it in one day and leaves Sunday completely free) and taking all the kids to rugby practice in the afternoon.

Oliver's attitude towards homework has improved so much so I don't mind doing it with him at all. He just sits down without complaining much when it's homework time and starts writing. The amount of time it is taking is almost half since he started at the start of the term.

His writing is getting much neater:

 He enjoys these crafty kind of exercises:

 I am just so impressed with his Chinese writing. Some of the characters he is learning is very advanced for his age if you compare that to Japanese primary school.

He still needs some encouragement when it comes to reading but he is definitely getting better. I have mixed opinions about homework at this age. But it is nice to see what your child is learning and being capable of doing.

In the afternoon someone was extra excited to go to rugby practice as he finally received his team socks (he is still waiting on the shorts) and we got him a pair of brand new Adidas boots. At the shop he was very concerned with getting a cool pair.

He was very cute when he said "look mummy my shoes are so cool and stylish" - yap that's my boy, style is very important!

When we got to the field we found only under 5 and 6 were practicing today. I think all the other ages were away playing games. So the little ones got to use the middle of the field.

 Until... the lightening warning came and we all had to stay by the stand.

This week there were only 6 kids in his team (last week there were 12 of them) which made the practice much smoother and practical.

Oliver just loooooves being a part of the team. We-are-Dragons!

Oliver's supporters enjoyed being outside in the fresh air too.

I really hope Matthew will get some weekends off soon. He is missing out on watching Oliver enjoy playing sports and smiling so much.

Homework

Oliver is now in K1 and this was his first week at kindy after the holidays. He came back happily with a bag full of homework. There was some for English, Science, Art and Chinese. He is only in kindy for 3 hours a day. So I am guessing they want him to work as much as possible on the weekend...

For English he had to practice writing his name:



The focus in science was distinguishing fruits and flowers this week:



Reading material - "Dad's present"



Art project was drawing a birthday cake he wishes to get - who could guess he wanted a LEGO one!?

 

Oliver's birthday cake - a square, chocolate cake with five candles (rainbow colour) with a Lego man on top.

We had some trouble doing the Chinese homework. Reading and writing was no problem. But reading the whole Chinese sentences and trying to guess what he was supposed to do on the worksheet was a mission! I can tell the meaning of most of the characters but I wasn't 100% sure of the whole instructions :(



I think next week I will ask his Chinese teacher what he is supposed to do before bringing it back.

Oliver did very well considering it took a long time to complete everything. It is good to know what he is learning at kindy but we still think it is quite a lot for a 4 year old...