Chenzhou - The Baby Floor

The hotel we stayed at in Chenzhou was within walking distance to the orphanage.  I got a lot of walking in during our trip!  I couldn't track my food while we were there, so I assumed I'd gain while I was gone, because I pretty much ate whatever I wanted.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I didn't gain at all!

This was our first visit to the orphanage, the day we arrived in Chenzhou.  There are 3 rooms of cribs on the baby floor.

Shannon, our team leader, has spent several years cultivating a special relationship with this orphanage, where 2 of her children lived before adoption.  As a result, we had wide open access, which is really unusual in China.

We went around saying hello to all the babies, and then started pulling them out and taking them to the play room.

The nannies smiled as they watched us love on the kids.

This baby is very special to Shannon.  Last time she was there (during the summer) a tiny 2 pound preemie was brought in.  Shannon got to hold her then, and it was awesome for her to be back and see how much she's grown.

In China, most kids are dressed in multiple layers to keep warm.

They tend to look a little chubby in pictures, but it's really all the clothes they have on.

I scooped up this little guy, who the team calls Jude.

Behind Jude, in a crawling pose is Sampson.

Little Jayla is not available for adoption because she has a known living birth parent.

Jenny was great with Sampson, massaging his legs so that he would be more flexible.

Laura's sweet little Nellie.  No file yet for this preemie.

This little boy is already matched.

Steve, our guide, with a little girl who is matched.

This little guy is Lochland.  His file is not ready yet.

The feisty ones sometimes toss things out the window.  We're on the 5th or 6th floor here.

This little guy is Tyson.  He has Apert's syndrome.  We met a family adopting a child with Apert's when we adopted Katie.

This sweet doll baby is Finley.  I did a whole post on her from China.  Out of every child we met, Finley was the one I most wanted to bring home.  One of the nannies, who could tell I adored her, teasingly told me I could take her with me.  It was tempting!

This shot shows most of the baby playroom.

This is the other side of the baby playroom.

If you missed other posts about Chenzhou, you'll find them here and here.  I'll get to the older kids and the activities we did in Chenzhou soon, hopefully.


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Home Sweet Home

I'm back home from my trip!  6 hotels in 15 days.  Planes, trains, taxis, vans, buses, and even a boat!  I'll be going through the 2,000 pictures I took and sharing some of them with you soon.  It was a good trip, but there were some hard parts to it, too.  It will take me a while to decompress, get over jet lag, and process everything we saw.

Surprisingly, this morning, we jumped right back into homeschooling.  The kids are working on paintings right now, since we finished all our subjects for today.

It was great to hang out with my teens last night, and catch up on all the latest with school and friends and such.

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More from Hefei

First day here, toured orphanage, met all the camp kids, took them to our hotel conference room to play games, do crafts, get to know them. 

Second day here, took younger kids only. Dressed them up, took pictures, went out to lunch at KFC. Then we took them to play place in mall for a couple hours. 

Richard, the MAA guide in GZ arrived while we were playing. 

We've seen a couple of brides this trip. 

We walked to Walmart last night, and this intersection had a police man with a whistle in the middle. Seems like an awfully precarious job. 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. 

I saw all these roosters and asked Steve, our guide, if next year is year of the rooster. He was thinking and reciting to himself when I said, "This year is year of the Monkey."  (My son, Jack, was born in a Monkey year, and he's 12.)  Steve's face lit up, yes yes. If this is year of Monkey, next year is rooster. I was surprised that he didn't know what animal year it was.

I thought the cat on the dishwashing liquid was amusing. Let's pick an animal that hates to be washed to sell soap.

Fresh fish for dinner.

Steak flavored chips, honey flavored chips, in addition to regular Chinese flavors like cucumber, shrimp, tomato. 

That's our hotel. The 29th floor is a rotating restaurant. Gorgeous view of the city. 

Will be with the bigger kids today. 

Hefei

Our van full of luggage on the way to the train station. 

Train ride 7+ hours. I had motion sickness. Took a few pictures when we passed through the city I met Luke in. Other than that, mostly had my head down. 

This breakfast buffet has signs, which is fun. 

No, I did not try that one. 

My new little friend, Bailey, on the bus.

Internet spotty. Hopefully this will post. 

Meet Finley

This is Finley. 

She is 11 months old. 

She has only been here since July. 

She has 7 teeth, with #8 about to erupt. 

She has stranger anxiety, but she calms down when I bounce and sing to her. 

She has me wrapped around one of her tiny little fingers.

She walks independently already. In fact, she was wearing squeaky shoes outside yesterday, and those who know me in real life know that I loved when my girls wore squeaky shoes.

There are 2 kids here that I would bring right home with me, if such a thing was permitted. Finley is one of them. 

The Critical Thinking Co.

Wow!  That was my first response when I opened my review package from The Critical Thinking Co.  When I agreed to try out Language Smarts Level E, I was expecting a workbook.  This 392 page book is a little over an inch thick and packed with good stuff!

Language Smarts can be used as a complete curriculum or a supplemental resource.  I really wanted to get a feel for what the book has to offer, so I photocopied small packets from several different sections for my students.  This book is a teacher's book, with license to photocopy pages for one classroom or home.  The answers are in the back of the book.

We worked on quotation marks, syllables, prefixes and suffixes first.  Language Smarts E uses a variety of activities to keep kids engaged in learning, including crossword puzzles and word searches.  I like books that go beyond "fill in the blank" style learning.

I'm very excited about this book, because it's easy to find activities that will strengthen specific areas that my kids need to work on.  If I notice a problem with homophones in their creative writing, I can go to pages 215-249 and select the worksheets that I feel would benefit them most.  We've really only scratched the surface of all the topics available (which you can read a better list of here).  I'm looking forward to using the reading comprehension passages next, and then going through the entire writing section, start to finish.  I'm pretty sure that by the time we work through those 30 pages, my students will be better writers than they are now.  We haven't done much editing of their work before, and no "pre-writing" activities at all, so I know they'll be learning new things.

If my pick and choose approach is making you a little twitchy, you could start at the beginning of the book and work your way through it, from cover to cover, for a full service English program for a child working at a 4th grade level.  Your child will learn a wide variety of things; from punctuation, to spelling, to creative writing, and much more.  They teach kids how to use reference materials.  Not just old school dictionaries and encyclopedias, but also online encyclopedias and how to use the internet to search for a topic.

Language Smarts starts with Level A, for kindergartners, and has a stand alone book for each grade level through 4th grade at this time.


The Critical Thinking Co. offers a wide variety of educational materials.  They have resources for every subject and every grade level.  They even offer a call in consult with an education specialist who can help you select the right materials for your students.  You can connect with The Critical Thinking Co. on Facebook, G+, and Pinterest.

In addition to Language Smarts E, other Crew families have been checking out Sentence Diagraming:  Beginning, and several early learning software programs, including Alphabet Song Game, Letter Sounds Song and Game, Vowel Sounds Song and Game, and Fun Time Phonics.  Read what they have to say by clicking the box below!




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More from Chenzhou

Feeling better this morning. Had yummy stuff for breakfast. Noodles, red bean roll, fried bread, and a meat dumpling. 

This is Ella. She's adorable and she needs a family. She has seizures. 

I was paired with this little boy today. His advocacy name is Paul. He has Down syndrome. 

We took some of the kids to a park. 

We had a pleasant walk with pretty scenery. 

Then we went to McDonalds for lunch. He was very patient waiting for our food to arrive.  

Arrived in Chenzhou

The team at the airport.

I'm sure we made quite the spectacle as we dragged all these suitcases from the hotel to the train station at 6 am. 

My first train ride, and I had my head down, trying to sleep almost the whole time.

On the bus from train station to hotel. I made it to the hotel before throwing up again, and slept while the rest of the team had lunch. 

This is the orphanage at Chenzhou. We spent a couple hours here yesterday, just meeting the kids and hanging out with them. I have lots of pictures on the big camera, only a few on my phone. 

The mama in pink is adopting the little boy. This was their first meeting. 

We were allowed to take the babies out of their cribs and bring them to the play room. I scooped up this little guy. 

He's pretty floppy, but he can roll from tummy to back. 

Tomorrow, well no, later today (it's 2:39 am now) we'll be making sure to get all the babies our of the cribs and into the play room. 

I'm told that this little one has a family coming for her. 

I'm hoping to spend some time with this one today. He or she never made it to the play room yesterday. 

The team with one of the directors, as we left the orphanage. 

Prayers appreciated. I'm still sick. I thought it was air sickness, but it's been too long for that. Managed to eat some dinner last night, including donkey, which was pretty good, but spicy.