Alea is getting ready for her first Week Without Walls trip, as the 6th graders gear up to visit Matheran. I went with them last year, but am accompanying the 7th grade to Durshet this time around, so she’ll be on her own (to mom’s chagrin).
When we were planning our school trip last year, a group of teachers went for a ‘recce’ (I guess that is short for ‘reconnoiter’) and we went as a family. We stayed at the hotel that the school uses, and got to spend the weekend exploring.
As I was cleaning out some papers today, I came across a ‘notebook entry’ that Breck had made on the way home from the trip (he wants everyone to know that he was in the car when he was writing it!). I figured that, in honor of Alea’s upcoming trip and in light of the fun times he described, I’d post his description of Nature in Matheran. You can certainly compare that with pictures from our trip and see how wonderfully accurate his writing is!
(what follows is the ‘translation’ of his note)
Nature in Matheran
Waterfalls, crabs, snakes, and iguana. In cliff clouds. Hike forest, monkeys on building. Lots of trees. Horses. Monkeys saw in woods.
Well, we made it to DC, and are having a great visit with Uncle Rob, Aunt Blanche, Boyd, and Sam. They have been so gracious in letting us use their apartment, which is conveniently located right near a Metro stop, so we’ve been able to zip downtown on a couple of occasions to see a few of the sights. They are in the process of moving to the new-to-them house they just bought, so everything worked out perfectly.
This week was the fifth graders’ PYP exhibition, a culminating project incorporating all sorts of learning that took place over their elementary school years. The class focuses on a student selected topic for the last 8 weeks of the school year and then presents what they learned to parents, teachers, and peers. This year’s theme was “With Every Child’s Rights Come Responsibilities.” Because child rights are such a pertinent topic to everyone living in India, the students found that they had a unique opportunity to explore many different facets of the subject.
The main part of the presentation was a ‘newscast’ with Alea and another group member reading the latest news on child labor from several regions in India, followed by an “interview” with 2 ex-child laborers (also group members playing a role), and finishing with a puppet show detailing life as a child slave. After the movie, we were invited to explore the information that the kids had collected and detailed in poster form hanging around the room. There was also a labor simulation of work at a brick making factory, where Breck, and others, saw how hard it was to load and haul a wheelbarrow across the room.
As the year winds down, nothing around the school seems to slow down. The weeks and weekends are full of sports, student awards, socials, speeches, and all sorts of other “S” worded events.
Saturday was a full day at school. Dave got up early to go in for middle school girls’ volleyball practice (no, he’s not playing on the team – he’s coachingthe team!). Breck’s indoor soccer season then wrapped up this weekend with a tournament that afternoon at the school. The kids played hard and stuffed themselves between games on all the food parents had brought for the pot luck dinner. Alea got to go swimming during some of the matches, as one of her friends was at school (also to watch her brother – who was on Breck’s team – play in the tournament). In the end, his team ended up with a 4th place trophy, lots of smiles all around, and some standing invitations for play dates.
The whole school is aflutter this week because of a 
Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree (to continue the vegetation simulation). Alea has been reading “Where the Red Fern Grows,” which I told her was one of my all-time favorite books. I also had told her that it is one that makes me cry at the end, and so she should keep that in mind.
Imagine being able to play in your outdoor pool on Christmas Eve!! That’s what we did tonight, as the parents grilled chicken, the kids ‘painted’ each other and chased the crows away, and we all sat on the patio furniture watching the sun go down and the bats come up while we got ready for Santa to swing by.
And here she is, our second pet. Given almost the same name as 
So here it is, one day after our Diwali shindig, and we had the big Halloween get together. (You can bet the kids are just going nuts at school with all the parties, candy, days off, and break coming up.) We had a trick or treating night at our apartment building, and all staff kids were invited to go up and down the stairs, knocking on all the doors and getting tons of candy. There were even ‘adult treats’ being cracked open in one of the apartments.
Was a blast! We had a great crew of people show up, and we ate, drank, and danced the night away. Breck and some buddies were the ‘no shirt club,’ keeping things under control in the apartment, and Alea and her friends were very excitedly dancing to all the songs. It will absolutely become a Bombay tradition as we go forward from here. I have to run this morning for a week in Matheran, but will post a picture of the yummy keg we were able to get. Auf wiedersehen…