Back to School night was last Tuesday and we learnt just how much work the first graders will have to do. My boy is in a Mandarin immersion programme so everything is taught in Mandarin, with 90 minutes of English a day. He also gets science lab and music once a week. It seemed like a lot of work but when he got down to it, most of it was quite quickly done.

I’ve been trying to figure out a good after school schedule for the kids. They do swimming on Mondays, the 6yo has piano class on Thursdays, on Fridays they hang out after school where some of their classmates’ dads are trying to start up their own basketball class. And in between, there’s homework and piano practice and I work with the older boy on some extra Math (I think the math here is too easy and we work on Singapore math textbooks). The kids have started taking tennis lessons on Sunday but I’m considering switching that to Tuesdays. And sometimes I wonder, should they try other sports? Soccer? Add in an extra swim class? Some kind of martial arts? Isn’t this time for them to try out different things and figure out what they’re interested in? Some of their classmates go for Chinese class on weekends, or attend extra Math classes, others do kungfu, ice hockey, many of them go skiing in winter. I have absolutely no interest in skiing but I always wonder, are my kids missing out because of something I’m not keen on?

Anyway, enough about all that. I’m loving how the temps are cooling down a bit here after that heatwave. I even braved turning on the oven to bake some tangzhong raisin bread (you can read my previous post on that here) and I also adapted that recipe to make a chocolate chip and sliced almond bread. I made shepherd’s pie too and a tomato soup that my 4yo kept asking me to make again and again. I usually make my tomato soup with some carrots and celery added in, although since I just picked up some lovely leeks at the farmers market, may try one with leeks instead.

Currently…

Reading:

Watching:

Gossip Girl

Eating:

I made some fresh spring rolls (summer rolls?) for dinner – crabstick, cabbage, carrots and cilantro.

Drinking:

Water

Cooking:

Tomato and leek soup?

Fried noodles

Chicken rice

Also something to use up these lovely colorful peppers!

Last week:

I read:

I posted:

#ripxii Fox Woman