Scavenger Hunt

Over Christmas K-bao decided to entertain the family with a little Scavenger Hunt, conceived and executed entirely on her own (with some moral encouragement by sister C-bao).

Clue Number 1:

Under the large couch, we found the next clue, along with some cut out jumbled letters. "Fable? Stable?" we surmised airily. "Loko? Kool?"

Under the round table, here was the next clue.

 We located the "boom-boom" chair (the heavy duty massage chair) and discovered clue number 4.

In the porcelain bowl next to the plastic plates was Clue #5, along with the last set of jumbled cut out letters.

And the big payoff? $1000! What a prize. And a very successful first game-creation effort by little K-bao.

Wait A Minute

Hang on a second, isn't this supposed to be the other way around? #KidsIn2016

(and #ParentsIn2016)

Scary

Over her 7 years of enjoying Halloween, K-bao has moved from the sweet, to the silly, to the sassy, and now the scary.

To K-Mum, of course, she will always be our sweet little girl. Or at least she tries to remember that when the little one's sassy side comes out.

Check-up

K-bao recently visited Dr. Nancy, her friendly neighborhood dentist.

The pre-check-up wait is always nerve-wracking. What if there is a cavity?

Luckily, little K-bao has been doing her job with the bristles. Once it became clear she was in the clear, she relaxed. Quite a bit.

Check out the spa facial pose below..

Homeschool

From time to time K-bao and sister C-bao are off from school during a weekday, such as during teacher development days. These turn into homeschool days when either K-Pop or K-Mum have to work from home and try to keep the kids out of trouble.

To maintain some sanity and order, K-Pop generally creates a schedule that includes math and Chinese worksheets, some free reading and play time, a bunch of "instructional apps" (Khan Academy, DreamBox Learning, Kodable, and a Chinese vocabulary app), piano, and if he's feeling really ambitious, some art and painting time on the balcony outside. The below whiteboard schedule from last week is typical.

Sharing

Our little K-bao has been a proud second grader for over a month now, which means that, counting 3 years of pre-school (some of which was part-time) before kindergarten, she is into her sixth year of school already. Lucky for the K-fam, she loves to learn and has always enjoyed school.

One of the things the K-folks like about her class is that she is often given chances to speak publicly. Here she is sharing a book with her class. Fittingly, the book is entitled Laugh Out Loud Jokes for Kids. 

"That was a funny one, wasn't it?"

Here is another action shot of her sharing some thoughts with her peers, looking like she is improvising as she goes.

Singing Spinning Split

K-bao's latest obsession is doing cartwheels and the splits. At all hours on the day, and in all places - the soccer field, the living room, the playground - she can be found generally in one of these two positions. Ideally, she combines the two moves so that she first cartwheels and then goes directly down into the splits.

Even more heavenly for K-bao, of course, is to combine these gymnastics moves with her other passion, theatrical singing. In the below video, for example, the K-grandfolks observe K-bao leading her sister in Rachel Platten's Fight Song, all while doing the splits.



K-Pop's friends in Taiwan also got to see this up close and personal. When the family went down to Hsinchu to visit K-Pop's old high school, the National Experimental High School, K-bao quickly found the small theater room and helped herself to the stage. K-Pop's friends who stopped by to say hello were treated to an impromptu performance. No shyness here!

Poetry

K-bao's skills as a young writer have expanded of late, due in no short part to voracious reading. A few snapshots of random notes K-Pop found scribbled on pieces of paper are shown above and below.

K-Pop noticed quite a few nature motifs - sun, spring, firefly, star - as well as some keen awareness of what she is observing and feeling ("hear yourself breathing and you are calm"), as well as what is going on in the background (the observation about K-Mum is a gem). Emily Dickinson, here we come!

Bopomofo

Who still learns bopomofo, the ancient Chinese phonetics system?

Sister C-bao, of course, courtesy of Teacher K-bao!

"Come on Sis! I taught you that one already! Get with it!"

Chinese Chorus

The first week we were in Taipei, K-bao attended a summer chorus camp at K-Grandfolks' church, Hsin-Yi Friendship Presbyterian Church, led by one of K-Granpop's closest friends, Pastor Shen. K-Pop and K-Mum figured this was a way to combine music & singing (K-bao's interests) with Chinese and church (more the K-folks' priority).

The camp was no joke. The teachers were apparently "the strictest in the whole world," according to K-bao. The music was in German and Chinese - serious pieces by composers such as Mendelssohn. And K-bao arrived in Taiwan only in time for the second and final week of the camp, so she had to play catch up.

However, K-bao took gamely to the task. One of the great things about our little one is her gumption and adaptability. After a bit of hesitation on Day 1, she dove right in, and completed the week without complaint.

At the end of the week, the choral group and the drama team put on a little concert play. The full family group attended, including K-Grandmum (K-Grandpop had to be in HK for the weekend), Aunt Catherine, Uncle James, C-bao, and the parents.

Her favorite song of the camp was probably Abenstille Uberall, which K-Pop captured in the video below.

 

After her performance, Xiao Goo-Goo and Shu-Shu presented the little one with a rose.

ABC Hit It

One of the games that occupied K-bao this summer - and hence distracted much of K-bao's family - was a little clap-snap routine called ABC Hit It that she had learned from her friends from school.

Each and every meal, K-bao would entreat at least one nearby meal companion to do the routine with her, until long-suffering relatives like Shu-Shu had the words and moves down pat.

The most relevant part of the rhyme?

"'Poof!' goes the attidude!" Even K-Pop can get into that message.

Games in Taiwan

K-bao made her second trip to Taipei, Taiwan over the past few weeks. It was her third trip to Asia in seven years. Once again, K-bao thoroughly enjoyed herself.

The first thing she did upon arriving at the airport in Taipei was a cartwheel. Naturally.

K-bao hadn't seen the K-grandfolks, Xiao Goo Goo (Aunt Catherine) or Shu-Shu (Uncle James)in over a year, and she wasted no time getting her beloved relatives to play all sorts of games with her. This was a theme that would repeat itself throughout the trip.

In fact, here is a video of K-bao challenging K-Grandpop to a Rubik's Cube race.

Published Author

During her first year in elementary school K-bao made significant progress with her writing, to the point where she officially "published" several short works. Near the end of the school year, the K-folks spent a morning at K-bao's school learning a bit more about her journey as an author. She has come a long way from the when she self-published her first book in late 2014.

The works pictured above include a narrative of her first soccer game, a spooky story about an evil witch, a poetry anthology, and most recently a non-fiction work about her favorite animal, the horse (in a 3-way tie for first place, along with ponies and unicorns).

For the book about horses, K-bao had to spend some time researching her subject. In the process, she learned about the physiology of the horse (205 bones!) as well as distinctions among breeds. (By the way, the reader with a long memory might recall this early post in 2009, when K-bao was first exposed to horses. Clearly her interest has grown quite a bit since then.)

Naturally, the fact that K-bao loves to read has been quite helpful in her overall progression. Over the past year she has devoured countless short chapter books about detectives, rainbows and fairies, ponies and other related topics. It is also certainly true that K-bao's school and first grade teacher have actively fostered in K-bao's class a sense of authorship and a pride in writing.

Real Artist

Besides singing and dancing, one of K-bao's other favorite activities is painting. Over the summer we've had a few occasions to let the girls hang out for an afternoon on the patio and let loose with the brushes.

"I'm a real artist," K-bao likes to say dramatically, while painting big, bold strokes on the page, and pouring various unrelated colors together to create new hues.

When the girls are together painting, there's never a quiet moment of reflection or concentration. It's a never ending stream of chatter. queries, bantering.

"Did you see this color I mixed?" "Can you please not take that pink?" "No, you need to clean your brush first!" "Look at this purple flower!" "I'll trade you this brown for that yellow alright?" "This is very abstract." (Yes, K-Pop really heard that word being thrown around a few times).

Peter and the Wolf

Readers of this blog know well both the theatrics and theatricality of little K-bao. Over the summer the K-folks decided to give K-bao a taste of real theater, and enrolled her in a one week theater camp. The culmination of the week was a musical performance of Peter and the Wolf.

K-bao was assigned (or fought for, unclear which) the part of the Wolf. In the play, the Wolf is described as a "misunderstood character." K-bao shows us her fierce wolf face below.

There were some cute songs in the production. Below the Wolf makes its nefarious entrance. K-bao tries to keep a smile off her face as she thinks about pouncing on the silly duck. The cast then breaks into a song about food.


Her favorite song in the production was the Hokey Pokey.



Whether this camp is a first step towards Hollywood remains to be seen (we hope not). What is clear already though is our little one's love for performance, music and drama.

Chinese Note

Over the years, K-Pop has preached to K-bao the importance of learning the Chinese language and understanding her Chinese heritage and culture. At one point K-bao managed to memorize a good number of Tang Dynasty poems (which now unfortunately have been mostly forgotten); generally she practices a few characters at least once every couple of weeks.

These lessons have not always been well-received. Indeed, any and all Chinese lessons, particularly of late, have been met with not a small amount of resistance. In some cases, strong words have been used by the little one.

The below seven characters shown below, which were assigned this past week, might be a typical exercise. In this case, the usual complaining of course ensued, but K-bao eventually dutifully went off to write them, along with some other scribbles she added on of her own accord.

Much to K-Pop's surprise, the following message was scrawled on the back.

Perhaps all is not lost!

Performer

It has become abundantly clear that little K-bao is a natural born performer. Whether it be singing, dancing, piano recitals, athletic events, or literary performances, K-bao enjoys being on stage and in the limelight.

Below she writes a few versus and gets on stage - her IKEA children's table - to share her musical creation. Sister C-bao joins her with an inspired accompanying performance on the ukulele.

Spring Recital

Over the last 9 months, K-bao has made tremendous progress with piano. Last month, she had her second piano performance at Teacher Susie's Spring Recital. K-bao played 2 pieces, Bach's Minuet in G and Dinosaur Stomp (a natural pair, of course).

After the songs were all played, Teacher Susie handed out Certificates of Accomplishment.

In addition, as she does after each concert, Teacher Susie awarded two trophies, one for Most Improved and the other for Overall Honor Student. To everyone's surprise -- most of all K-bao's -- she was awarded the Honor Student prize, which goes to the student who shows up each and every lesson well-prepared and with a great attitude.

K-bao couldn't stop beaming.

Die Hard Fan

During the Warriors' postseason run, K-bao has been keeping close tabs on her favorite team. This last series with the Thunder, who were up 3-1 at one point but who finally conceded tonight in Game 7, was tremendously anxiety-inducing.

Not surprisingly, the "No TV during dinner" rule has been put on ice for most of the playoffs thus far.

Generally in the 4th quarter K-bao is a nervous wreck and occasionally has to run into the next room  and hide during Warriors' offensive possessions (from where she will call out, "Wait, did he make it? What's the score?"). She also has taken to various good-luck charms and idiosyncratic routines, such as yelling "Noooooo!" at the top of her lungs when a Warriors shot is launched in order for "the opposite" to happen. These little shenanigans are wearing thin with the K-folks, who prefer to watch the game in peace.

Her criticism for poor-performing players can be withering. During a difficult stretch for Bogut today, her comment was "Playing with Bogut is like playing with 4 players. I'm SOOOO mad at him right now." Tough critic.

Below, during the critical Game 6 on the Thunder home court, she describes how she feels.

Horsey

Despite having spent virtually no time around horses her whole life, and K-Pop's careful avoidance over the past seven years of all things related to that dreaded franchise My Little Pony, K-bao has now determined that her favorite animal is in fact the horse. In fact, she made horses the subject of a recent first-grade research paper. During her research period, she educated her family on facts such as the differences between pygmy horses and shire breeds. This weekend the K-folks finally decided to give her a little hands-on data to supplement her book knowledge.

K-bao had her first real riding experience at Five Brooks, a stable north of the city in a little town called Olema. She got to ride her very own horse, a feisty gal by the name of "Mac."

Here a ranch guide named Jordan leads her out on Mac to the trail.



Coincidentally, sister C-bao, who wasn't quite old enough for an independent ride, got a chaperoned ride on Mac's twin sister, Tornado.

Mac was a bit of a stubborn one, and after some misbehavior, the guides decided they had to tighten the reins a bit, so to speak. Entirely apropos symbolism, thought K-Pop approvingly from behind. (Notice the blue rope being held by Jordan in the below video)



 A couple of times the group broke into a steady trot, which K-bao had to admit afterwards was a little jarring. But overall,  K-bao handled the 45-minute trail ride like an old pro, even digging her heels in a few times to urge Mac on. "Go, Mac, go!"