Thursday, May 27, 2004
We visited again today after a two-week break. When we came, just Khadija, Noor and the baby were home - the baby was fast asleep, and Noor kept dozing on his feet, doing this cute staggering thing as he walked.
Literacy: We tried to help Khadija with her homework, which was just copying words like "mosques" and "world". We tried to explain what the words meant, but it was difficult and I'm not sure she understood. Somehow we got on the topic of numbers, and I started drawing numbers for her to identify. Although she can count aloud in English from 1 - 10, she has trouble matching the numbers with the way they look on the page. She and the kids have a similar problem with the alphabet. It seems that their main difficulty right now is not being literate, not learning English specifically. Well, I guess the first problem makes the second even more difficult.
Gimme five. Today I taught Noor the ol' "give me five, up high, way down low, you're too slow!" bit where you pull your hand away on the last five. This was immediately deemed HILARIOUS and soon Mohammed was into it as well. I think I did the 'you're too slow' part about 45 times, including with the baby who really didn't understand the high-five concept but was laughing anyway. This craze could sweep the nation, or at least the under-9-year-old boys in the nation.
Does Chicago have any TV channels in English? Because the only English show we've watched in the apartment has been the Sharon Osbourne show. Today we saw a very, very odd show on what seemed to be Animal Planet: Korea! featuring a Korean girl (the winner of some kind of contest?) washing dogs and scraping dog poop, making exaggerated faces and holding her breath. Grace translated some what she was saying, which was amusing. Grace also pointed out that the girl had had surgery on her eyes, I think to put a fold in the eyelids (Western-style)?
After the Korean show the kids started to watch "Laura" on Telemundo, which as far as I can tell from Spanish closed-captioning in my dorm, is like Jenny Jones with 150% more crying children exploited for dramatic effect.
Hassan seems to hate clothes. The last few times we've been over, his first action upon arriving home from school has been to take off his shirt and pants (and change into other pants). Today he did both right in the living room, and then changed into other pants as usual. He is a funny, funny boy.
To anyone who is reading this: we are tentatively planning a party/park outing for Saturday June 5. All are invited. Come bask in the glory of Grace and Roselyn before they leave Northwestern... forever. OK possibly not in my case; anyway this is actually just a manipulative ploy to secure enough people to field a soccer team. Although I suppose we've already got enough people with the kids alone, I know for a fact that the babies suck at kicking. (They are, however, pretty good at dribbling. Rimshot!) So if you want to come contact the appropriate authorities.
Literacy: We tried to help Khadija with her homework, which was just copying words like "mosques" and "world". We tried to explain what the words meant, but it was difficult and I'm not sure she understood. Somehow we got on the topic of numbers, and I started drawing numbers for her to identify. Although she can count aloud in English from 1 - 10, she has trouble matching the numbers with the way they look on the page. She and the kids have a similar problem with the alphabet. It seems that their main difficulty right now is not being literate, not learning English specifically. Well, I guess the first problem makes the second even more difficult.
Gimme five. Today I taught Noor the ol' "give me five, up high, way down low, you're too slow!" bit where you pull your hand away on the last five. This was immediately deemed HILARIOUS and soon Mohammed was into it as well. I think I did the 'you're too slow' part about 45 times, including with the baby who really didn't understand the high-five concept but was laughing anyway. This craze could sweep the nation, or at least the under-9-year-old boys in the nation.
Does Chicago have any TV channels in English? Because the only English show we've watched in the apartment has been the Sharon Osbourne show. Today we saw a very, very odd show on what seemed to be Animal Planet: Korea! featuring a Korean girl (the winner of some kind of contest?) washing dogs and scraping dog poop, making exaggerated faces and holding her breath. Grace translated some what she was saying, which was amusing. Grace also pointed out that the girl had had surgery on her eyes, I think to put a fold in the eyelids (Western-style)?
After the Korean show the kids started to watch "Laura" on Telemundo, which as far as I can tell from Spanish closed-captioning in my dorm, is like Jenny Jones with 150% more crying children exploited for dramatic effect.
Hassan seems to hate clothes. The last few times we've been over, his first action upon arriving home from school has been to take off his shirt and pants (and change into other pants). Today he did both right in the living room, and then changed into other pants as usual. He is a funny, funny boy.
To anyone who is reading this: we are tentatively planning a party/park outing for Saturday June 5. All are invited. Come bask in the glory of Grace and Roselyn before they leave Northwestern... forever. OK possibly not in my case; anyway this is actually just a manipulative ploy to secure enough people to field a soccer team. Although I suppose we've already got enough people with the kids alone, I know for a fact that the babies suck at kicking. (They are, however, pretty good at dribbling. Rimshot!) So if you want to come contact the appropriate authorities.
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