School Break Home School

Winter was pretty long and even though P attended a couple of winter classes, there were still plenty of time to make use of. The easier one to compliment his reading interest is catch-up writing. 

We managed to at least cover some basics of writing paragraphs and write three journal entries per week for a month. That is quite a feat!

This coming summer break will be a continuation of that with a reward of a game board before the break ends which is around his birthday anyway. 

I was able to get on it and finished the curriculum-of-sorts yesterday. Not a complete one strictly speaking should be enough to get a big picture of what we will be covering and hoping to accomplish for this summer school break. 

We (well, me at least) are also planning other non-academic activities like a couple of indoor games, kitchen/baking and hopefully, short day trips. 

I hope we'll manage to accomplish this! 하자!

Feb 25 PM

We headed to the skating rink after the bank stop this morning. Got there at 11:30 and it turned out they have lunch break til 12:30. We had to grab our lunch and wait before he can get in the rink.

We only paid 3500 for entrance and skates rental for one kid. I opted not to since I am not really up to it. P tried to convince me a lot of times but maybe next time. He even volunteered to pay for me. I have yet to gather enough strength and patience to try to learn that one.

He ended up hugging the wall for the first two rounds and I was following him while walking OUTSIDE the rink. He managed to move away from the wall before we hit the third round. It wasn't so bad. I got to exercise a bit but he stayed on until 4:45 with a couple of breaks in between including the 15 minutes official re-icing time. (I'm not sure if that's a correct term.)

He stayed there for four hours of skating and I stayed around watching and almost freezing. I had to hang out at the cafeteria where it was less cold, run to the rest room to empty my unusually busy bladder and warm my hands in the electric hand drier. I have never been a regular fan of rest rooms but that drier is such an attraction.

A day at the skating rink can be fun, I think. He just have to make sure to put enough foot powder the next time we go so his rented skates will not stink. What on the list for next time? Bring more food and drinks (buying so often at the cafe is too expensive), a towel, hand warmer, extra pair of socks, and foot powder a.k.a. baking soda.

Feb 25 AM

Sebeh Don finally made it to the bank today! The trip to open a new account to the newly opened branch in the area has been planned for a while. I had to prepare the documents: kajok kwangge jeong myeongseo, my passport and ID and his Dojang.

I had hard time finding his stamp coz I almost forgot where I kept it. Luckily, I finally found it last Sunday after a couple of days searching. We were ready to go to bank the next day but there was such a heavy dust alert so we postponed until it finally cleared out today.



This is the second time for him to open a Korean kid's account. The first one was at Woori Bank late last year. We came more prepared and confident in accomplishing the transaction this time. The teller almost had us in a glitch when she mentioned that we still need another document but we told her that we didn't need that one. We are not signing up for the online banking. P seemed fine with just going to the bank to do the transactions. there. It's pretty near and it's just for his savings anyway so most transactions will only be deposits.

He basically handled most of the process by himself except for the signatures (six at that) I have to sign. He said he only had to sign twice but I had to do a lot. Funny. He handed her his envelops of bills and coins. Then, he watched with amazement as the teller dropped the coins in the coin counting machine. It was just such a cool thing for him to see it for the first time.

P managed everything with his Korean language skills. Sure, he may not be very familiar with most banking terms but that is what he is learning. The nice teller was patient enough with us even though she almost ignored me when she was explaining the requirements. But that's okay. It's his account, he speaks and understands better Korean than me and he is there to learn. I just take a step back for him to learn.

I know I also need to learn and practice my Korean language but I can do so at another time. In fact, I've opened accounts quite a few times with my limited language skills even before. It isn't easy yes, there was even a time that I almost cried out of frustration a few years back. Things had improved now.

P will have to learn more on dealing with things like this though. It's just about time for him to do so and not end up like a silly teenager unfamiliar with life transactions. There are still plenty to learn and experience like riding the bus by himself. THAT... is for another day. :D 

Korean Steamed Rice Cake

We were lucky enough to get a chance to make a cake last weekend, a rice cake at that. The nice teacher called us up if we were interested which we were of course. I thought it was just a one time thing but it turns out to be three sessions, once every month. 

It is an interesting thing for my son coz he was as excited as I am. We've baked together in the our kitchen in the Philippines when he was younger but since he is older now and more capable of doing things himself, I let him have his way this time. I did have to do the 'lil bit of chopping and most of the cleaning. 

As I have guessed, the cake is a rice cake. The teacher showed us the ingredients, and demonstrated how the cake was made. There were dried dates, pine nuts, sprinklers as cake toppings. We even learned how to make a flower topping made from rice flour as well. It was just amazing how a little bit of art goes into culinary. Funny thing is we never got the chance to get a copy of the recipe. 

So I may have to write it down here or what I remember most, that is. 

Ing.

3 C *pre-mixed white rice flour

2 C *pre-mixed yellow rice flour (squash)

 *(this already has the sugar, salt and I don't know the rest)

Toppings:

pine nuts, sprinklers, cried dates (seeded, rolled and chopped thinly), blueberries, and a Mr. Santa cake topper

How:

1. Best to strain the flours (which we forgot to do.)

2. Pour them on the mold lined with paper foil. You can alternate the colors for a layered look or marble style. Whatever you prefer.

3. Set aside a clump of flour to steam outside the mold to use for the flower toppings.

mix in some juice to color the whites, like a food color.

4. Steam these for 15 mins. for the toppings, and 18 mins. for the main cake.

5. Take out the clumps and start flattening them out to cut out three circles using a cookie cutter or something round. Then , put the three round on half-on-top- of each other and roll it. Cut in half and tweak the "petals" a bit and voila, you have your flower toppings now!

6. When the time is up, take a chosticks/toothpick test to check if it's all well steamed. Then, turn off the fire, leave it for a minute or two before taking it out. 

7. Then, start designing the cake. 

Here is how the rest of the cake from everyone in the class turned out. We got to take them home in cake boxes too!

Before 

P's designed cake. Not too polished-looking but edible anyway. He can't wait to try it!

After

It isn't the typical western cake that is all too sweet. It was just almost tasteless, with only a hint of sweetness to it. However, we all like liked it as it is. Well, maybe with a little bit of the sweet toppings. Not bad for a healthier cake I'd say. 

This got me thinking to try steaming something one of these days. I can probably try bread or buns next time. If only our kitchen will be warmer soon. :D

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.

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