Leader-what?

Aim, like his kuya Matt, is very much into Lego building. One playtime, he went for the space theme creations complete with the ISS (International Space Station), space explorers, satellites and lots of spacecrafts. Curious at his latest set-up, I started asking him serious space-stuff questions.

Dad   :   Aim, what is this space-craft?

Aim   :  That’s the rocketship that will bring supplies to the ISS.

Dad   :   Wow! And how about those ones?

Aim   :   Those are the spaceships that will fight the incoming enemies.

Dad   :   OK. How about that very big ship in the middle?

Aim   :   That’s easy! It is the mothership (obviously enjoying our Q&A since he can answer them all with ease)

Dad   :   That’s cool. So what about that ship in front of the other ships, what is it called?

Aim   :    (beaming with smile) That’s the leadership!

I love this kid :)

Summer Sportfest

That was fun!

Our KICC teacher Sir Joni invited us to join the Intra-Parish Sportsfest that was held in De Lasalle Greenhills. Other choirs and youth members joined too.

Me and other choir members met at the Edsa Shrine Church and instead of taking the car we walked so we can exercise already.

Before we played some sports, we have a mass with Father Aldrin. After the mass, our host named Ate Twinsy, explained how this sportfest came to be and what we will expect that day. After she explained everything, we have our national anthem and then we went out to watch the runners pass around the torch. After they run around then they lighted a bowl of coal or wood. It was like in the Olympics J. Then sportsfest officially began.

First, we played the novelty-game “Patintero”. This was how we played it. The yellow team was the “blocking” team who needs to block horizontally and vertically any opposing team member from crossing to and from their base. The blue team, that was us, is the “running” team. If one of our team member gets caught, then we lose our turn. The blue team becomes the blocker and the yellow will be the runner. Unfortunately, we lost that game.

Our next game was Dodge ball and this was how we played it. The “throwing” team will have 5 members on each opposite sides and the “dodging” team was composed of 10 members in the middle. Our blue team was the throwing team and we threw the ball against the members of the green team until all of them were out. Each time a member of the dodging team catches the ball, the team can add one more player. The team with the most number of members in the middle after a given time won. Again, it was not us.

Our next game was chess and this time all teams are allowed. This was also an elimination game contest.

There were other games like basketball and volleyball but these were mostly for the young adults.

So far our EDSA team lost a lot of games but even though, we still have a lot of fun. We even get to eat lunch in the big school canteen.

After the sportfest ended, one by one, the people left with smiles on their faces.

Midweek Camp-In

What a blast!

The Seven Pillars school hosted a 2-day camp-in last March 16-17 about survival in the forest, desert and other difficult places.

On day one, I arrived in our school and unpacked my stuffs. After that, I went to the gym for the students grouping. They used the planet names of the solar system to name each group and the name of our group was Team Venus.

Our first activity was to pitch a tent. After they taught us, they made a challenge how fast we can pitch our tent. We finished in last place.

After that we had a break for a few minutes and then we went down to learn how to go to a location without a compass using only a watch. This is how you do it, first find the sun and then use your watch to point it your time is 10 to 12 find the middle which was 11 so that’s south. That’s your quide-direction to find north, east and west.

And then they taught us how to capture, kill ,clean, cut and cook the piglet. It was kinda sad killing an animal.

We prepared our breakfast using fire, coal and some papers, same thing in breakfast lunch and dinner,

Afterwards, we played “Capture the Flag”. We needed to be stealthy if we want to win this game. Our “enemy” were the girls and we captured a lot of flags so the boys won.

It was night time but before we slept some of my classmates and even our teachers told stories. We slept and woke up at 6 am for day 2.

For breakfast and lunch my group-mates and I cooked some food outside the school after we made fire.

 On day 2, we jogged and have a little break when we went back. And then they taught us how to use arnis to defend against an enemy.

Lastly, it was treasure hunting. Well, it took two or more hours to find all the clues and to figure out the riddle before finding the item. It was pretty exhausting.

 Finally, we all went back to our homes.

Awesome Holiday

We started our school vacation on Dec. 16 at the start of Simbang Gabi.

On Dec 17 we went to the Lego competition to try my luck to win another Speed Lego competition but I lost to another kid. Better luck next time for me but it’s a good thing that others have chance to win.

On the next day, I went to the Awesome Kids Christmas party. We ate there and have some activities and even met new friends. I joined the AK choir that sang during the mass for the Feast. After that I got to meet Bro. Bo Sanchez’s friend and Feast builder Brother Arun. We have photo together.

After we went to the church, we went to the Jollibee to join the youth party. In this party we sang to the Lord and prayed. It’s like the youth party is a place to worship God, but of course we also have activities such as shooting the marble in the small cup and another is bringing the small chocolate candy in the cup using straw and the prizes are a couple of sweets. These activities reminded me of the show called “Minute to Win” cause these are activities are challenging also.

After the youth party we bring our mother to the WFMA party while my father, brother and I watched the latest Star Wars movie – Rogue One, that was just released on Dec 15. The movie was kinda cool and sad but I don’t wanna spoil the movie so you’ll have to see for yourself. It’s a surprise.

I recently joined the Bosconian Voice Chorale (BVC) and we had a mini concert at the Vista Mall where we sang many Christmas and other love songs. we sang for one hour and its kinda cool too cause at the end we have free food The BVC is a group of teenagers that sing in the Don Bosco church every Sunday mass.

On December 24, we went to Malolos to visit my grandfather’s house to hold and join the Christmas party arranged by our Maia Outreach Programs. There were so many young and less-fortunate children. There were fun games such as “drinking soda” race, “passing around this item” and tongue twister words. There were also two performances. First was a song number “See You Again” by myself with my father and my cousins. Second was a magic show. And then we have a raffle where the grand prize was a rice cooker. Of course the little kids ate and I helped by passing the food to them. After the party, we went back to my grandfather’s house to celebrate our own Christmas party.

At the rest of the Christmas season, we visited our relatives and have a party too. My father’s relatives live in Malolos and my mother’s relatives lives in Paranaque. All my cousins were there too so we played games, performed songs, received gifts and of course ate a lot.

This was our busy happy holidays.

Thank you Lord, it was awesome!

Speed Building

On November 26, me and my family went to the Alabang Town Center to join the Lego weekend contest called Lego Star Wars speed building.

In this competition you need to build as many Lego mini-figures within 1 minute. Each mini-figure must be correctly build like the head, arms and legs are all facing forward. If one part is incorrect or inverted, that’s not counted. If there is a tie between one or among players, a tie-breaker face-off will be done. Whoever has the most mini-figures that built wins P1,000 worth of Lego toy.

In my age category, there were 4 contestants so I have a few opponents though they all looked determined to win also. I made 10 Lego mini-figures but 2 pcs were not counted due to wrong parts position. The other kids  some got 4, 7 and 8 as well so a tie-breaker was called by the judges.

For the face-off round, I got a heart-racing 11 correct mini-figures (out of 12)  while the other kid still got 8, so I won the competition.

My prize was a Lego Chima set, a Star Wars poster and the Lego book catalogue. The other contestants also got a poster of Lego Star Wars as consolation prize.

I thank God for giving me this wonderful gift

Why are we homeschooling?

Homeschooling, presently, has gained quite a solid base following after many years of being frowned upon and misconstrued as a sort of deficient learning method. We clearly remember before how well-meaning friends and family members around us either giving us their blank stare of disbelief or an upfront unsolicited advice to bring our son to a traditional school whenever we told them that he is being home-schooled. 

Looking back, our home-school journey started with painful a family tragedy. Back in 2008, while we were living overseas, we lost our 22 month-old daughter. We were devastated. But with God’s healing and loving support of people around us, we slowly picked-up our broken hearts and discerned how to move forward with our eldest son Zek who was barely 4 years old at that time. Wanting to spend more time with him, intent in sharing our own and shared family values and for lack of any Catholic educational institution in our host country, we searched for options, found a few choices and ultimately decided to home-school our son.

We him enrolled into one of the pioneer-provider of home schooling in the Philippines, the Catholic Filipino Academy (www.catholicfilipinoacademy.com) from Pre-school up until Grade 6.

We had a great time learning lessons together, making it fun and creative. Despite living in a foreign land, Zek learned a lot about our Filipino culture specially our religious belief while taking advantage in learning other things around him. We use lots of Legos, game boards and materials that can be interactive to help us to have more fun in learning. Admittedly, making every lesson interesting to Zek was really a great challenge for us every time. He’s unending questions wore off our energy and our patience so we needed a lot of time out just to gain back our strength to finish our daily tasks. Praying together everyday is what makes us at peace together and helped us persevere.

Zek is more of a visual learner with an entertainment type of personality. We needed to prepare a lot of drawings, posters or visual aids for each topic and we did a lot of art works together that all our walls around the house are filled with hanging papers. We looked for his activities related to his lessons for the mastery of his skills. We visited museums, watched theater plays and frequented theme parks. We also enrolled him to a music class for he loves to sing. We also encouraged him to write about every event that he attended to or any outdoor activities he did into his blog site from www.zeksantos.ph to www.readyzekaim.blogspot.com for this is one of our way to keep track of his amazing journey in learning besides making his portfolio with his progress reports to be submitted quarterly.

After more than 7 years of homeschooling, we still ask the same question to ourselves every now and then especially during tough times teaching our eldest son. For now, he has started his Grade 7 in a traditional school because we feel he needed to learn and experience a real-world educational environment and to learn to deal with different kinds of people and situations too. We also decided to build our own house away from the city to improve our lingering health concerns like endless asthma attacks, sinusitis, rhinitis and the host of other pollution-related allergies.

Now that our youngest son Aim has turned 5 years old and is a preschooler, we are leaning towards independent home-schooling based on his learning pattern and do his lessons according to his interest. Aim is showing skills as an auditory learner with organizer type of personality and he loves to read books. With God’s guidance, we will hopefully journey with him as well throughout his young learning life.

We are always thankful and grateful to God for all the amazing years of home schooling journey of our family.  After all, enjoying while working together with our kids is always a mutually learning experience we look forward to.

May God bless us all.

Animal Arts

Last Sunday, we went to Alabang where we made our dragonfly artwork

First, we went to the Molito Building where the artwork is located, and then we registered and went to the table where we will make the art.

These are the items we used – wooden clothesline clip, paintbrush, color paints, water, two eyeballs, glue, wings, bendable wire and button.

To make the dragonfly, these are the steps:

1. paint the cloth clip, add some design 

2. glue the button then the two eyeballs

3. put the wings to the cloth clip

4. to make the other kind of wings get two bendable wires

5. make the bendable wire into wings

6. do the same with the other bendable wire but make it smaller

7. then put it to the cloth clip

After we were done making the dragonfly we all went home

Buddy Builders

Last May 21, 2016 we went to the Robinsons Magnollia for our Lego Nexo Knight shield-building contest.

As I entered the mall, there were lots of stuff in the Nexo Knight contest such as displays, statues of knights, a building area, a game zone, mini cinema, shelves of Lego toys and even the mascot Clay, one of the mini-figure character from the Lego Nexo Knights.

The contest is to build a shield that is rare or unique, stable, and close to reality. Once chosen, the winner will get to win P3000 worth of Lego items.

After we built our shields, Aim and I took a picture with mascot Clay before going home.

Then next day, we received an SMS message that my brother Aim has won in his category! We were so excited to claim the prize and build another sets of Legos. 

[Daddy Rowin : Zek and Aim also joined a Lego cake building at Lego Shop BGC last May 15 but the winner will be announced at the end of this month. Both are excitedly waiting for the result and hoping to win again.]

Learn and Play

Thank you to Edu-Cube and its energetic teachers for an hour-long free learning through arts and play.

The East of Galleria kids surely had a blast.

Cheers.

Ready...Aim....Fun

On May 17, 2016, we went to Malolos for our yearly swimming vacation.

In the swimming area, there are four kinds of pool. First is the big blue lap pool, second is the shallow kiddie pool, third is the deep Jacuzzi, and the fourth is the wave pool which is the biggest with fascinating waves. In the wave pool there is a beach shore design with water sprinkler in the middle.

There is a couple of big brown bahay-kubo where we stayed to place our stuffs and to eat. There are also two zipline and a playground within the resort.

The wave pool is nicer because it has giant waves that can push us back. My cousins and I do tricks like two people locking arms together while the third person sits on our arms. We tried going over the waves and under the waves. After each set of waves, we raced around the wave pool using our yellow and pink ringed float.

After swimming, we went back to our grandparent’s house to celebrate my brother’s birthday. My brother likes Minecraft so we bought him a minecraft-themed cake with surprising details.

Then we all went back home.

Word Play

1.     Who is the actor that likes changing weather?

Answer: Liam Season

2.     Who is the Autobot that cannot be seen?

Answer: Iron HIDE

3.     Who is the Decepticon robot that likes to block?

Answer: Barricade

4.     What do you call a tower full of pizza?

Answer: Leaning Tower of Pizza

5.     What is the favorite movie of rabbits?

Answer: Hoppit

6.     Who is the Autobot that likes music?

Answer: Jazz

7.     Why does Darth Vader’s army always bring umbrellas?

Answer: Because they are Storm-troopers

8.     What is the pogostick’s favorite season?

Answer: Spring

9.     What happens when the Flash falls into a water?

Answer: He becomes Splash

10.  Who is the Star Wars character that always wins?

Answer: Obi-WON Kenobi

11.  What do you call a bread spread that has many colors?

Answer: Butterfly

12.  Who is the Star Wars character that likes to mental-exercise?

Answer: Master Yoga

13.  Why can Batman drive well at night?

Answer: Because he is Bruce Way.

 

.(Daddy R: Zek has always been fond of reading jokes and amongst his favorite booklets are those old copies of our Snoopy and Archie digests. He also loves reading K-Zone magazine and guess what section he immediately flips onto as soon as he holds a copy? Your guess is right – Jokes Section! So it is not a surprise anymore that every time out-of-the-blue, he would blurt out a joke to us or his friends or cousins. Above are some of his “originals” and surely more will come. :D)

Hello Summer!

On March 16, 2016, we went to a resort named Sol y Viento where there are hot and warm swimming pools.

Before we went swimming, we first went to the reception area to inquire for a room. And as soon as we went to our room, we left our stuffs to swim.

There are four kinds of pools. Two are with warm water and the other two are hot (like boiling!) springs, One of this pools has water sprays around the sides of the pool while the other bigger one has a bridge in the middle.

After and before swimming we fed the koi fishes and saw the beauty of the mountains and trees.

We enjoyed the trip because of its fresh air out there and the fun relaxing swimming.

Stargazing

It was a very early wake up call for me and Aim. We woke up at 3:00am so we were still sleepy to go there.

We were going to a place called University of the Philippines or UP to visit the PAGASA ( Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and  Astronomical Service Administration ) Astronomical Observatory for our stargazing. There were so many kids there and some are from my CFA school. There were even some camping tents there because there were people that went to the UP early and slept there to wait for the early morning stargazing.

There was a big telescope for us to see stars and planets like Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. As my father and I walked towards our car, I saw a giant telescope that looked like a turret. My father said that the telescope was inside the building and not going out there. We went inside the reception area where there were posters of the universe and parts of the telescope and how it works. We also learned about the time differences of the other countries.

We have so much fun there and we learned more about the stars and the planets after we left the UP site. 

Shell Eco-Marathon

We went to the Shell Eco-Marathon last week and we saw so many stuffs there such as exhibit tents, promotion booths. And as we entered to the marathon there were so many things to do. 

We first went to the Fan Zone where there was a Shell booth that gives away mini toy cars that runs with salt water. Then we saw the part where the participants assemble their cars which is rare because they run with only a little fuel inside. But they are more small than the normal car because only one person can fit inside. We also tried the remote controlled toy cars to move around a mini city within 2 minutes. After the game we collected prize giveaways such as notebooks and key chains with LED light. 

After that we went to the picture booth with a mini gas station and two cars.We pretended we were a gasoline crew and a car owner who wants to gas up. Next, we watched the race track competition of the assembled mini salt cars. Later, Aim joined the drawing zone and put his drawing in the wall of pictures. Meanwhile I joined the Coke zone where I tried to make a puzzle in one minute. They gave me a red rubber bracelet.

Because it was only the first day and all competitors were still assembling their cars, we were only able to see 1 car go around the tracks for their test-run. 

Finally we went to the energy zone where we learned, using virtual 4D glasses, how Shell company explores gas under the sea and how the engine car works. We also received more giveaways inside the Energy zone.

Lots learned and lots of fun!

Paint-Me Masks

Kung Hei Fat Choi !

At Robinson’s Galleria last February 8, Chinese New Year, their event was free painting of Chinese masks! There were so many big golden statue animals like pig, rabbit, dragon, snake, rooster, rat, dog and so on.

This 2016 it’s the year of the Fire Monkey. In the event there were so many stuffs to design our mask like glitter glue, paint and sprinkler. Aim made one mask while I made two masks. Aim’s painting on the mask was a bit messy but nice ( because mommy help my brother). I did a striped mask at first. Then I made a half face painting, one side has green and yellow to the other side. I even put my name on its forehead.

We brought these back home for our play.

Nayong Pilipino

On Dec 30, 2015,  we went to Nayong Filipino in Clark, Pampanga where I learned new stuffs like dancing the Tinikling, a Filipino folk dance, how the old Philippine villages looked like for the Aetas, Ifugaos and the Kalingas. I even saw a small Banawe rice terraces.

We also saw the replica houses of our three heroes named Dr Jose Rizal, Gen. Emilo Aguinaldo and Apolinario Mabini, the brains of the katipunan. Next we went to the Barasoain church. It looked just like our church in Malolos! Beside that is the Teatro, the place where the cultural dancing show by lively Filipino dancers was shown. After that, we went to the museum of old clothes (Museo ng Nayon). Next, we saw an orchidarium and even a laboratory for plants breeding.

Before leaving, we bought a sungka board and a lot of bird whistle for our New Year celebration tomorrow.

Wakeboards Up!

Just do it.

On Dec 31 2015 we went to Deca Wakeboard Park (http://www.clarkwakeboard.com ) in Angeles City. It was our first time so we were excited and a bit scared. We went there in the morning after breakfast so not so many people will be there.

There are two kind of wake boarding areas, the beginners and the experts zone. We were at the beginner stage. It was a straigth body water where one can just go around. The expert zone is such a big one where there are even a couple of ramps.

At first, we kept flopping but we kept practicing. We listened to the wake boarding guide until we made it to the end. My mom took videos of us as remembrance. 

It was fun.

The tricks for a good wake boarding are:

1. Toes up

2. Move your board right

3. Hold the handle tightly but don’t pull back.

4. Sit down during the wake boarding

5. Make a strong grip on the handle and push your heel into your board to move left or right.

The Force Awakens

I am a Star Wars fan because it is all about the battle between good and evil. And good always win.

Today, December 17 2015, my father and I went to Robinsons Galleria mall to watch Star Wars – The Force Awakens.

My favorite old character is Hans Solo because he once worked with Jabba the Hutt but he helped the rebels defeat the evil Galactic Empire. I also like Chewbacca because he just keeps talking in roars and helps Hans Solo in flying their ship. His nickname is Chewie. Finally, I like C-3PO because he could speak billions of languages. He is also a bit funny and always helps Princess Leia.

My favorite new character is Finn because he is once a Stormtrooper but he wants to change. He wanted to be a rebel one day. I also like BB-8 because he is a robot but a ball version of R2-D2 and both BB-8 and R2-D2 has same accessories such as grappling hook, taser and hologram. Finally, I like Rey because she is a scavenger in Jakku finding scraps, cleaning them or make new things to sell them to make money. But she joined the rebels and she slowly discovers the Force of the Jedi and uses Luke’s lightsaber to defeat the evil Sith lord Kylo Ren.

I enjoyed the movie because the rebels are trying to save the galaxy from the enemy’s deadly weapon.     

Lego Mini-Build

On Sunday, we went to the Lego Store with David and Tita Vicky. https://www.facebook.com/LEGO-Certified-Store-PH-906192569433172/

Today’s free Lego set is a scuba diver. It’s a simple set that’s why it was easy to build. You just need to register (first 50 kids). David, Aim and I built the divers and we brought them home.

Then we ate at JCo. We ordered burgers, Chocó shakes, hot Chocó and lots of donuts then we all went home.

(Daddy Rowin : The previous day, Zek also participated at the Lego Speed Building Challenge. He did not win but he did well with 5:40 minute completion time. He congratulated the winner although he felt bad. Good job, kuya Zek!)

Butterfly Haven