. Please give our warm regards to Nanay and Rhina’s family. God bless.
Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.
Home » Archives » December 2009
Merry Christmas to all!
December 25, 2009
Christmas in Zhuhai 2009
It will be my 2nd year Christmas celebration here in Zhuhai, last year was our moment with Papa and Mama and this point in time we get to have a good occasion with all our close friends. Chilly winter season here didn’t prevent us for a more than 2 hour drive to our get together party venue in Shenzhen. With us too, is a very special guest Uncle Jonas from Germany.
I and my friend Sophi get a lot of present to bring back home.
Then a few weeks earlier than Christmas day, I get to make and send Christmas cards to my families, some relatives and friends back home in Philippines. And just ahead of Christmas day, I get to bring personally all my gifts to our friends here in Zhuhai with Mommy and Daddy.
It was truly a loving moment each time I get a warm embraces and lots of red kisses with them upon receiving the gifts with a big astonished look on their faces while showing appreciation.
Our Family weekend getaway too was a lot of fun! I was able to learn how to play Golf with Daddy.
Christmas Season for me is the Christmas trees making, Christmas gifts sharing, all the Christmas Jingles to sing and most of all its Papa Jesus’ Birthday.
Have a Holy and Merry Christmas Everyone! - Zek
CFA Q3 Progress Report
December 16, 2009Sessions/Activities:
We do our regular routine of lessons.
Friday we still do short quizzes but mostly review previous lessons orally then play some games & rest most of the day because he still had to attend a lot of activities on weekends.
Saturday he plays football game started since October 17 end summer 2010 but Zek wasn’t able to play regularly due to his asthma.
Sunday he attends his regular class for additional enrichment activities in PE (arts / cooking).
Progress per subject:
CLE: Zek recognizes Mama Mary and St. Joseph as parents of Jesus here on earth but with still so much questions or confusions about the Holy Family or as the Trinity. He was happy to give help or provides with the needy especially when we he saw a beggar he would ask for something to give to them.
He knows how to pray the basic prayers already like the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory be to the Father. We do pray the rosary too and he says 1 mystery sometimes if he’s not yet too sleepy after he prays his night prayer of Angel of God.
We also started to do his “Gratitude Journal” last Nov.21 and attended Family Fun day.
http://zeksantos.i.ph/blogs/zeksantos/2009/11/28/family-fun-day/
Math: He recognizes now the rational numbers, matching numbers with sets of objects, some words and figures. He is familiar with before, between and after, missing numbers and some shape patterns. He can somehow identify ordinal numbers too.
Language: He can described things now in colors, shapes and sizes. He can recognize clean from dirty, wide and narrow and the different faces too.
He played as policeman with his teachers from art classes for his community helpers. He can identify them and talk about some parts of the community.
Reading: Zek learns matching pictures to words now and words that rhymes mostly by playing his educational computer games includes the Beginning and final consonants.
We were able to do U.N Day Celebration with friends who do home schooling too, pls see details at http://zeksantos.i.ph/blogs/zeksantos/2009/10/23/un-day-celebration/
Science: Zek can described parts of a plants now and what they need to grow. He can identify now things and different taste mostly the sweet and spicy, hot and cold.
We’re able to visit a Nursery of http://www.birkdaleinternational.com/facilities.asp for his project last Sunday, Dec.13. A good friend worked as Horticulturist teaches Zek a lot about how to grow a plant & help us do skill assessment.
http://zeksantos.i.ph/blogs/zeksantos/2009/12/13/birkdale-nursery-visit/
Filipino: He is more confident now in speaking tagalog like magkatunog na salita at unang tunog na salita and letter sounds of A, E, I, O, U with the other alphabets.
Sibika: Zek recognizes people around the community now and can described them with their basic duties. He enjoys being a student now from his weekend activities and starting to know how to be a good student and listens well.
MAPE: As mentions above already for his regular weekend art sessions and sport activities.
Music, he also loves singing the songs he hears from the cartoons or movies he watches and ask us to record it for him then listens repeatedly especially the mandarin/ Cantonese languages that he do sings.
Problems Encountered / Solutions:
1. He has difficulty remembering some words and stories from lessons.
He plays words hunt with his daddy for reviews and mastery then we did acting out together some stories from his books for his easy understanding of the topics.
2. He still has some struggles to focus on some of our day’s topic.
We do include his favorite toys like Lego and robots during our lesson time, we talk to them instead than to him more and he replies with different voices for his toys with correct answers and full cooperation. We let him color or draw on his drawing pads too just to make him concentrate while he listens to the subject and answer properly or make him listen to his favorite songs or music just to calm him down for awhile.
We still need to do a lot of work to channel his energy into more productive way that he may learn how to focus on things one at a time to be able to do more lessons correctly.
Let’s Go Green
December 13, 2009 
Sunday morning we went to visit the 12 hectares Birkdale Nursery here in Zhuhai with Uncle Tibs for Zek Science project. He worked in the company as Senior Horticulturist and Nursery Manager and he was so kind to show us around in spite of his rest day and teaches us a lot about parts of plants, stages of growing in a way how a boy like Zek grow and what they need to grow healthy. He helped us to do some skill assessment too for Zek 3rd quarter progress report. He let Zek do some plow up of soil to the seed tray then show him stages of growing plants and how they store them during winter season to protect them from cold strong wind. 
the kind of grass that grows tall with flowers. Also the monkey puzzle tree called Araucaria that uses as Christmas tree to some foreign countries and the Banyan tree that grows alot of roots that likes a curtain and there’s so much more to learn about this place.
Zek had a great time! He likes most the soil plowing part and how they water the plants by using sprinkles in a timely manner but most specially to big trees that has dripper fixed into their soil. Uncle Tibs described it to Zek like when people get sick and stay in the hospital with injection. He is also amazed how they put name tags on each plants and how they lined them up so straight in groups together.Uncle Tibs gave him an outstanding grades with a remarks that “he is very inquisitve and likes to explore but he needs to focus more.” because Zek keeps asking questions while running around and jumping in between of uncle Tibs lectures.
Thank you Uncle Tibs for your time spend with us, having a lot of understanding with me and very informative tour around the Nursery of
http://www.birkdaleinternational.com/facilities.asp
My Daddy’s Birthday
December 11, 2009
It was Zek’s ideas to made the balloon shaped as flower, sun, rainbow, butterfly and make a big heart shape out of small heart shaped pink ribbons as decor for Daddy’s birthday celebration. We started giving or making something special from Dec.1 to this date for daddy like letting him eat chocolates, new socks on his closet, a new shirt then decorating the house little by little everyday.
We invited some close friends to join us in greeting him and share some simple dinner with us while we sing the Zhu Ni Sheng Ri Kuai Le (Happy Birthday to You) 祝你生日快乐 song in mandarin version with Zek and his friends Sophi, Melody and Tiffany including their parents.
Daddy is so happy and surpised when he arrived back home from work with his colleagues.
Happy, Happy Birthday Daddy! We are so proud of you. May you always be in good health and safe wherever you go.
We love you always - Zek, Mommy & Angel Maia