Schooling in K seems better than P

This is what my son remarked today. Why he thinks it's better here?

1. There are more activities to do as a student, academics or after-school. This year, he got to do Taekwondo, chess, play violin in an orchestra, and join varied once a month activities relating to science and others. All of these he can do right at the school except for the orchestra which also provides a bus service for them.
2. School day starts later and ends earlier. They should be at school at 8:30 (for 4th graders, that is). 
3. He gets to visit his classmates/friends house more easily since everyone at school leaves just around the school area. He can simply walk home with them and play every now and then. 
4. Walking between home and school is pretty much the norm since it's pretty safe to do so with well-made sidewalks and pedestrians. 

On the other hand, here is how it was in his previous school back in my hometown.

1. There were also a lot activities but they have very limited time to do those. There is basically only one day allotted as club day, and the other groups hardly gets a chance to meet after school on non-club day mainly because they finish school pretty late at 4 in the afternoon. More often than not, they would start late or simply cancelled coz the teacher-in-charge is tied up somewhere else: a meeting, out for a school competition, and other whatnots. It's also hard to have a substitute.

Another problem would be finding an available space. Some schoolrooms are located on the main corridors so it's pretty noisy with everyone, and other pupils running around outside. They have pretty much limited play space for the students.

He managed to join scouting, school paper, and one or two other clubs.  He also joined the violin group since they do it at school but had to give up his private taekwondo lessons because the gym is located in a different part of the town.

I will try not go more on that line but the school is pretty competitive nonetheless in spite of its limited resources. There's not enough teachers, space, and other resources for the number students.

2. Students should be at school at 7:30 or 8 o'clock at the most. School hours usually finish at around 4 or 5 for older levels. Most subjects are the same everyday, with 60 minutes for each period for the older students. These includes Science, Math, English, Filipino, and Social Studies. Other subjects like Music, Arts, PE, Char Ed would have shorter period. There are also no official in-between periods break except for the 10-minutes break mid-morning and mid-afternoon. And the big slice of time is for the one and half hour lunch break.

3. Since parents can choose what school to send their kids to, students will be coming from all over the town. Older ones via public ride, while most gets to be picked up by their parents, nannies, or arranged rides. The school has just recently started a school bus that goes to the farther part of town. I can only imagine how hard taking that one everyday, early morning and in the afternoon.

4. In relation to the logistics in no. 3 above, walking can be an option for those who live nearby but with one drawback, the sidewalks are not everywhere. Mostly non-existent in the sub-roads, not to mention any pedestrian. It's not really a pedestrian friendly place.  

So that's about it for now as the year wraps up and the winter break is coming. That is another matter of difference for the next post.

Busy November 3

Here is an update on P's activities this month. This includes the school's talents day presentations and their orchestra performance at Gimpo Art Hall.

Talent's Day

Last Friday was set as the School's Talent's Day of sorts. Everyone was informed about it more than a month ago and given an enough time to prepare. Being our first time to attend such thing here, we were up for anything. P volunteered us to participate in the program. He wanted to play the violin with his Dad and I was going to do a storytelling. I had no problem with my task except that I needed to know how big the audience and location will be. It turned out to be only classroom level so preparation was quite easy. His father, on the other hand, first balked at the idea but had no choice when the teacher made a phone call to him a week before the D day.

When we got there, we noticed a few people selling mini-bouquets in front of the school. It seems that we were the only parents who will be participating in the program. Most parents were just simply there to watch their kids. Is that how it's supposed to be? I am not really very sure until now.

The first in the list was a duet of P and the MC singing the Do Re Mi song. We were pretty surprised to see that our son was brave enough to sing in front of his mates' parents. There were also some mini magic shows each from the boys and girls, a dance, playing a couple of musical instruments like ocarina, flute, recorder and hand bells, a couple of mini-gag show skits, taekwondo exhibition to the tune of Psy's "Gangnam Sytle" and a pantomime of Let It Go song. It was just hilarious to watch these kids presenting their show.

One thing that I noticed is there weren't a lot of singing and dancing. If it was in Ph, I'm sure we would have been bored with a lot of singing, and group dancing. It would be quite hard to have all the kids join in coz there were more students in each class than here, with 40 something versus 25-30 here at the most.

Another thing that I noticed was the use of technology during the presentation. Since each classroom has a big monitor connected to the teacher's desktop computer, all the teacher had to do is hold the remote control to change the slide, music and whatnots.

The rooms were pretty small just enough for the less-than 30 kids, so I was wondering how we will all fit. When we got there, we saw the desks piled up along the hallway and only the chairs were left at the back part of the room. The kids, themselves, had 3 mats to sit on in the middle. It was totally a different school culture for me.

I am just relieved that P is quite active and thriving at his Korean school now. We are not yet totally on board the academics part but I'm just glad that he doesn't hate schooling yet. I do hope that this enthusiasm will not wane on when he reaches higher level like middle or high school. It's where the tough student life here really begins, from what I've heard.

Note: I may have to write a short thank you letter to his homeroom teacher before the school year ends. He definitely played a great part on my son's easy adjustment to school life here. I'm sure he has cut a lot of slack on my son's behalf during this past year.

So that's it for now. Gimpo Stuff on the next post....

P's School this November 2014

We had another chance to drop by my son's school last week for the "Talent Show/Day" and these is what we saw on the exhibit area for fourth and fifth graders. It's where they put selected art works done usually during art period every week. I'm not sure though how often they change these but they are interesting outputs that the kids produce. It's like a year-long open house exhibit at the school.

posted from Bloggeroid

Homework: Preventing Smoking

A school homework about an essay in preventing smoking is keeping us busy this weekend. When asked about seeing people smoking, P replied that he has seen more people smoking in Ph than here. It still came as a surprise for me to hear this that he has noticed that.

This has led us to a little online research and here  are a few links that we found:

South Korea has one of world's highest smoking rates. (2014 July 20) http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/attractive-smoking-ads/1271548.html

South Korea's War on Tobacco (2014 Oct 8)
http://thediplomat.com/2014/10/south-koreas-war-on-tobacco/

South Korea No Longer a Smoker’s Haven 2014 Aug 7


http://thediplomat.com/2014/08/south-korea-no-longer-a-smokers-haven/

Almost all of the articles above puts Korea in a place where smoking is quite a problem. I guess they  haven't been to the Ph. Nonetheless, it is in comparison with other OECD countries. With the latest improvement in national laws, this can be remedied soon I hope.

Going back to the homework, I found out that my son's writing skills really need a lot of help. Book review has been covered but we seem to be in unchartered territory in terms of essay. I'm not sure if it was taught in school up to third grade that he stayed in Ph or during the first semester that he has attended here. If it's in English, I really don't think they have covered it here. As for the Ph setting, at least the basics of paragraphs like unity, coherence and the likes would have been covered at least a bit in the second or third grade.

Teacher Mom has to step in right now. I've already prepared for the book review part but I have yet to prepare the basics of writing. Basic writing would cover writing paragraphs, basic research skills needed for writing, and common writing task like essays, book reviews, book reports. Target date would be for the one month winter break.

More sources on preventing smoking:

Preventing the uptake of

smoking in young people

http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/EHC/ehc55.pdf

SMOKE-FREE LAWS ENCOURAGE SMOKERS TO QUIT

AND DISCOURAGE YOUTH FROM STARTING 

 

http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0198.pdf

 

New Zealand site

http://www.smokefreetoolkit.org.nz/getting-started/preventing-smoking

 

As for writing resources:

(essay)

 

1. http://www.schoolatoz.nsw.edu.au/homework-and-study/english/english-tips/writing-essays

 

It has a great video on essay writing. 

 

2. http://www.kidslearningpro.com/essays-for-kids/

 

 

 

August 2014 Summer Reading

This is how P spent most of his one month summer break. This book list includes some of the books that he has already read long time ago, like the Harry Potter series and Enid Bylton's books. He can reread books unlike me who seldom do.

posted from Bloggeroid

September School Menu

This is the September Menu that I will finally try to decipher a bit. I was so overwhelmed when I first saw this early this year. Their nutritionist sure knows his/her job. I, myself, can barely prepare a menu good for the week or two.

It will be too much for my Korean language powers to translate everything but let me try with the food today, Sept. 22.

1. bap - Mixed Rice (Rice is a staple but it can vary everyday with other grains that they mix it with. I doubt if I'll ever see a plain rice as it is.)
2. Joreng Dukguk - Stewed rice cake soup (rice always comes with a soup)
3. Banchans - Side dishes
a. miyuk julgi bokkeum - dried seaweed (bokkeum is usually with sesame oil, seeds, salt and garlic maybe)
b. modun (modern? not sure about this) tangsuyok- meat stir-fry something (I don't eat this so I have no idea exactly)
c. bechu kimchi - cabbage kimchi (omnipresent national Korean food, Kimchi)
4. jin hwa gyoeng pear

Basically, the meal will have rice, soup, 3 side dishes and a dessert (usually whatever fruit in season like strawberry early this year, watermelons in the summer and pear/apples/persimmon these days). They will probably have mandarin oranges come winter time.

Moving forward to Wednesday, which is going to be a rainy day from what I heard from the forecast, they will have chicken soup, korean rice cake gyeondan (yumm!), melon and kimchi. A little bit different fare from the usual I'd say.

I'm afraid I'll have to stop this now since I'm getting hungry with all these food. I must try to make my own menu now. :D This is a good inspiration for me to get to the kitchen and start dinner.

posted from Bloggeroid

Book Report No. 1

Title: Septimus Heap, Book 1: Magyk by Angie Sage

Genre: Fantasy

This is a book review about Septimus Heap, Book 1: Magyk by Angie Sage.

It all starts in the castle with Silas Heap in the year 11971.

Silas was hurring back home to see his newborn son, Septimus Heap, who is the seventh son of the seventh son when he finds a little baby girl in the bushes. When he gets back home, he arrived to hear disastrous news that his son was dead!

Septimus Heap (a.k.a. Boy 412), though he is the main character, almost never spoke. He wears red beanie hat and a dragon ring. He is the long lost son of Silas and Sarah Heap that became a young army soldier through unfortunate mix up.

DomDaniel, one of many Darke Necromancers and one of the few who became Extraordinary Wizards,  is rising from the Badlands to become Extraordinary Wizard again. And with him are several Things you wouldn’t like to meet on a dark night.

In this thrilling tale, you will find out what happens to Septimus after he was carried away by the Matron Midwife and hear how he defeats DomDaniel.

I love the parts where Magyk is involved. Septimus is good at learning Magyk!!

The concept of being the seventh son of the seventh son is interesting. And I like his many brothers coz I want to have brothers too!!

223 Words

1st Korean Summer Break

Summer break was filled with camps, performances, out-of-town trips and a loooot of reading at home.

Science, Math and Arts on Korean Liberation Day!

The highlight of our summer, I guess, is our Suwon overnight at a friend's place. P's friend took us to see the Gwacheon Science Museum and Seoul Land. We spent almost twelve hours in the area, almost half at the Museum and the rest is at the outdoor amusement park. I am not really a bit fan of amusement parks so most I hardly took any photos from there.

Since it was a national holiday, there were a lot of special activities going on in the museum. There was even an international math conference along with an art exhibit related to math. It is actually International Congress of Math which we had no idea about before. All I can say is it's a cool geeky thing. hahahaha..I just hope that P had something taken away from that experience since he met one of the exhibitors who had a written a book that looks like a guide in creating cool geometric stuff. That part of math is all I can dig. 

The photos below are the other art/math stuff we found interesting.

origami made from paper bills

posted from Bloggeroid

Korean Kids Lifeskills books

I found some new books that P has been using with his Korean drop-in tutor. They used to have some Korean language for kids which are at beginners' level. It look like first grader's book but just a bit less daunting as the ones that they usually use at school which usually consist of a two books per set.

On the other hand, the ones below are a bit different. These are basically life skills in keeping safe as a kid in Korea. The pages were illustrated in through comics which children can find interesting and easily relate to.

posted from Bloggeroid

Blog Update: Forward to 4th Grade in Korea (1st Semester)

P School's School Calendar 2014-15
1st Semester: March 3 - July 29

We haven't done any update on this end for quite a while. And it has just gotten worse since we moved countries. Here's a quick run through with what we've covered so far for the first semester at school.

The first semester has been an adjustment period for all of us and we still are adjusting until now. The classes are shorter. They finish at 3 pm on Mondays and Tuesdays, and around 2 pm on the rest of the week. The kids usually have after-school activities, either at school or at another private academy of everything like English, Math, Arts, Piano etc. They don't have to wear uniforms to school except for the after-school Taekwondo.

We were overwhelmed with the after-school activity choices during the first few months when P comes home with a number of newsletter from the school. All the notices were sent out to each kid including articles on proper parenting, nutrition, and even the school's cafeteria menu for the month. There was also the schedule for "neuk-sek omunim" or the "traffic enforcer mom" that helps out the kids going to school on the crosswalks in the morning.

Most of the after-school activities from school are either free or has a very minimum monthly fee. P ended up with Taekwondo four times a week and an orchestra twice a week. There was also a whole semester of one hour Korean one-on-one tutorial at school once a week and for free. He really needed the Korean language lessons still.

We also managed to get him another Korean language one-on-one lesson two hours, twice a week from the Multicultural Center for free. We had to wait for around a month after we signed up though.  He was able to start around June and we were told that they will start charging a minimal fee by the next month. Luckily, they haven't done so until now. :D P still likes the class and I think this is also helping him learn the language.

Part of the after-school activities are mountain trips once a month, weekly fun stuff at school which actually looks like "fancified" babysitting for kids whose parents are out working. Nonetheless, these Korean students have quite a lot of things to choose from.

During the first semester, he was able to join a bilingual speech contest and made it to City level and perform with the kids' orchestra. He sure had a busy first semester with nothing much to show yet for the academic side because of the language. He can fairly hang out with his classmates now but we still have our work cut out for us on the academic rigors of school. Most of the subjects are still a shot in the dark except English and Math. He was able to figure out the latter a bit easier than the rest, thank goodness.

Before the semester ended, the school sent out activities announcement for the summer break. This will be on my next post.