Seedlings start a garden

They started a garden at seedlings. The kids all helped, either with moving soil or planting seeds.

Pictures from Seedlings

The Seedlings program requires that parents volunteer every so often. Here are pictures from one day I was there. Kids are free to do whatever they want. They could spend all day on the swings if they wanted to. There are activities set up and parents are to help the activities and with snack. Snack is all organic and nut free. This particular day we had sun butter sandwiches and fruit. Some days the kids do a cooking activity. Most kids end up ditching shoes. There's also a extra clothing area in case the kids play require a exchange of clothes, since they have access to water and sand. Everything is reusable, towels for cleanup and cups for drinking, so laundry needs to be done by one of the parents every week.

Playground

Outdoor activity tables

Playing with mixing materials

Indoor activity tables

Outdoor clean up station

Snack time

Impromptu music session

New York City National Parks, Day 2

Today involved a boat trip to Governors Island National Park. We didn't get a chance to do the Statue of Liberty because I didn't plan enough in advance to get tickets. I want to go into the crown again.

Map inside the departure point.

The View

History

Inside the fort

New York City National Parks

We went to some National Parks in the city of New York and did the Junior Ranger program for the ones we could. Today we visited 3 parks:

African Burial Ground:

She's got the world at her feet!

Federal Hall:

Washington was our main man for this trip.

Found a friend

Castle Clinton: By the time we got here it was closed. So we toured around the outside a bit.

Trying to attract a bird

Baby woodpeckers

There's a woodpecker nest at my parent's house. I think they are red-belled woodpeckers but may also be downy. I managed to get a picture. You can see the red top just starting. There's more than one chick, but it's hard to take a picture down their nest!

Outdoor relaxing on a Fall day

Fall is such a lovely season in Florida, we hang out outside and I try to practice ukulele. Usually she likes to take it from me and strum a little too. I have quail I hatched from eggs I bought off ebay. They are coturnix quail and very cute. They give us a bunch of little eggs.

Dust Bathing

Rescued a turtle!

I saw this turtle trying to cross a busy road, so I had to stop and get it. We moved it to the bank of the canal and took some pictures before letting it go.

Play based learning

I found a wonderful program for my daughter. She's old enough now to enroll in Kindergarden, but I didn't want to limit her to the local schools. She's already reading now, so I'm not concerned so much about academics yet. The program is called Seedlings from Sunflower Creative Arts.

Vietnamese preschool curriculum

So while I was in vietnam I bought a bunch of books. These are the workbooks. They were all very cute, and very cheap, only about 6,000d (basically ~37 cents). I didn't really look that closely while I was in the bookstore, so it ended up that a lot are duplicate material. 

This is a series of books that have a story, pictures to color and letters to practice. The 3-4 year old books practice strokes, while the older ages 4-5 and 5-6 practice letters.

Inside Sample from 3-4 yo book

If you notice, the font used for the story is the same cursive that is taught for writing, so the kids are practicing reading cursive at the same time they learn to write.

3-4 Year Old books

4-5 year old books

5-6 year old books

These two are actually the same material, just presented by different publishers.

Inside of the two books from different publishers.

Visiting Family

Once Tet is started, people spend the first couple of days visiting family and friends. We took a bus to 

Rạch Giá, which was where my mom grew up. And went to visit several different spots where she grew up and people she knew. Here is the kitchen of a house of a neighbor.

These are the water storage jugs, covered to keep mosquitoes out!

 This is the family of one of moms cousins, and the sides of the house is tin. There's a hammock in the bedroom, it's actually a pretty small room.

We went to a temple where my moms grandparents are interred.

Moms Grandparents

In front of the main temple steps

Being tourists! Although the temple is doing well, there's a big addition being built.

She loves the mopeds!

 After the trip to the temple we went back to mom's cousins house for dinner. The concrete floor is a recent addition, it used to be a pond where they'd keep their own fish.

Charcoal braziers

No tables needed around here!

Dinner involved grilled seafood. We had bought some fresh shrimp and fish.

The old red roof part is a bit of moms old house. It's been taken over by newer buildings. I find it bizarre how people just add on there.