gold eagle award, baby!

xia ended up getting a GOLD EAGLE award for the 1st semester! woohhooo!!!  her enthusiasm and hardwork paid off.  it felt good too because my overtime on her was worth it!  the gold eagle award is the highest recognition given to top students.  it is followed by red and blue eagle awards...

good job, my dear xia!!!

coming from a montessori school the past 2yrs without a concept of grades and honors/awards, this is something new to me.  at least with the big / traditional school now, i am able to gauge her capabilities.  and with this, i am walking on clouds, really!!!

however, i have to stop and ponder because this is not about grades or awards.  while it is easy to fall in a trap of competing against others, i want xia (and me too!) to just enjoy studying and learning together.  minsan lang sya bata so i don't want her to miss out on the fun and play that should make up the most of her childhood...

so even if this is going to be the first and last time to get a gold eagle award, i wouldn't mind because i know now the feeling :)  we will just continue doing our best without compromising her childhood needs - that is what is important to me... :P

wrap up for the first term!

i am excited today for the card distribution of the first term and parent-teacher conference.  but the torrential rain was a killjoy!  classes have been suspended and so all the other activities have been postponed also ;(

xia has been giving me amazing results from her mid-term and end-term exams as well as her weekly short quizzes and activity sheets.  so i am excited to find out on her overall result!

but more than the grades from her academics, i wanted to find out how she interacts with her teacher and classmates.  while it's great that she's getting good grades, interpersonal skill is far more important to me.  so i grabbed the chance to have a parent-teacher conference with Ms Agus. 

due to bad weather though, i have to keep the excitement until it gets rescheduled.  hope it's going to be soon!!! ;) 

amazing xia!

for the first time this weekend, i was not able to teach and prepare xia for the week's lessons.  this was because the teacher has not provided the lesson guide for the next term and i also thought i need to give xia a rest since last week was tough because of the end-term exam for the first term.  she deserved a break after the rigid review we've been through.  in fairness to her, she was so cooperative during the week-long ordeal of going through her lessons.

she went to school today without knowing what her lessons are.  and i was glad she came home with perfect scores!!!  they did a lot at school today in english, math and filipino.  allow me to brag :)

and again the math worksheet reminds us that we REALLY have to practice more on writing!  while she answered correctly, there is still a lot to improve... me ika-career ako sa weekend hehehe!

so there, she can actually function properly on her own :)  it's good to know that you can just toss her in the water and you know she will survive.  that means a lot!!! :)

lesson on different feelings

xia handed me another surprise (after her ID of me) last night.  it was her drawing from school about the different feelings or emotions.

when i first saw it, i had to take a look at it many times because there was something on it that i can't explain.

while i had long realized that xia does not really have talent at drawing, this one just surprisingly got me.  it conveys the feelings of each faces in the drawing that it represents even if the drawing itself is not that outstanding...

posted it in instagram and friends had the same comment!  hehehe ang galing... siguro nga that's the real essence of art - it goes beyond what you see or superficial... 

but yes, she has to practice more and more on her writing... :)  we are working on it...  dapat magmana sya sa akin na maganda amg penmanship hehehe... 

"ID of me"

the little girl was too excited to show me her ID.  while parking the car, she was shouting about it and waving it at me.  she said:

"mama! mama! look, i have the ID of me already!!!"

hahaha ang cute lang ng ID of me! :P

and she's even cuter in her "ID of me".  hehehehhee...

#ootd

we hardly have ootd posts in instagram when school started because xia has uniform now in school.  i am quite relieved because it means menos gastos on clothes.  but there are times when i miss dressing her up the way i did during her first 2 school years...

so whenever i get opportunity, usually on weekends especially on sundays when attending church service, i try to really dress her up like a doll :)

she loves getting dolled up also.  and she puts together her accessories for the day too! 

she's my kikay kid! :) 

tagalog time

xia is trying really hard to speak in filipino especially when talking to her yaya and our househelp.  while she sounds funny, i don't laugh at it and i had to remind everyone not to laugh at her too.  

today these are her statements while waiting for her car pick up in going to school: 

"ang init ako!" (should be:  naiinitan ako)
"ang bagal si nathan" (should be: ang bagal ni nathan)
"sakit kamay ko" (ang sakit ng kamay ko) 

i am giving her an A for effort! :)