Cloud watching

We were in the bus on our way to IEP yesterday evening. I was telling the girls about earth day and the topic moved to cloud watching.

Looking out of the bus window, we were trying to spot shapes -I saw mostly circles.

"I see an elephant" said Sophia

"Yes, i also see it", said Anjali. "it is spouting water from its trunk".

And there is was, a baby elephant, spouting water from its trunk, held aloft.

"I see a lion", I said "Its Nala"

"Yes", said Anjali "Its Simba and Nala on top of Pride Rock"

"Kiaya with with them", said Sophia, looking out of the window. "Kiaya is on Nala's top. They are alyeady mayied"

There is a lot of beauty in Simplicity. We often talk about activity centered education, and child centered education. And over time, much of me has come to realize that education is about spending time with the children, and about looking at the world through their eyes. it is not about teaching them to look at the world through our eyes.

Later in the evening, we were rollerblading in the rooftop of the 4th floor. Sophia had on her Barbie rollers and Anjali had on the new pink rollers that she had bought. She is getting really good at at and tries really hard. All last evening, she fell down about twenty times and picked herself up. As we had been to IEP, Anjali had missed her afternoon nap, and was rather tired. Nevertheless, she kept picking herself up and trying to rollerblade.

It was 7pm and the sun was setting. There were a lot of low clouds the the setting sun made beautiful rays across the sky, and the clouds reflected a myriad of colors.

Who ever says that there are no beautiful sunsets in Singapore? Forget Marina Bay sands. Just go to the top of a multi storey carpark and wait it out.

We watched the sunset for a bit and were ready to go back home. Anjali fell again, landing bottom first on  the cement.

"She is tired", i remarked to husband

"She tries very hard", said husband

"If she tried half as hard in the piano", I said "She will be improving in leaps and bounds"

"I am tired", said the subject in question "But I am still trying my best"

Sophia's skates came off as we climbed the stairs

"Why dont you take off your skates and run to the elevator", I said to her. "That way you can beat Anjali to the elevator, since she cant go so fast with her skates"

Duh

Anjali zoomed as fast as she could on the rollers to the lift lobby. Husband raced after her and Sophia raced after him, leaving me to handle Sophia's rollers, two water bottles and a carry bag

on roller blades

Thankfully he circled back after a minute or so to take the bags from me.

"She skates faster than me", he said.

"But she does so because she is such a daredevil about it and doesnt care where she crashes", he added by way of compensation for the fact that a five year old is better at skating than he is.

We came back home and Anjali' took off her helmet and rubber bands to stand in front of the fan. Her hair was sopping wet from sweat.