Jack's Show and Tell - Take 2

In an encore performance, Jack's class had another Show and Tell this week. We started with the agenda for the event. Three guesses who's silly...



The class went to see a German play called Alle Seine Entlein . Unfortunately, Jack was unable to tell me what the play was about (this could be "lost in translation" or it could be"why would I talk about that when I don't find it that interesting" - I'm never sure). His picture is on the middle row, to the slight right of him on the picture (which means it's to his actual left in the picture):

Next was the Vacation Picture, where Jack drew the swimming pools of Bispinger Heide, from our October Break trip:

And of course, the Snowflake window. Jack's is the vertical A4 page with the big cut-outs, in the middle of the window:

Next we headed to the "germs" which are washed away at the sink. Anyone remember how Jack loved to clean as a toddler? Well, let's just say the majority of germs around the sink were drawn by our little sanitation engineer:

After washing our hands, we visited the Shapes Drawings.:

And last, but not least, I read the story about The Unicorn and the Snake that Jack co-wrote with his friend, Alejandro, from Mexico. It's the story of a Unicorn that flies from Mexico to California in a fighter jet and hooks up with a family of snakes. Ya gotta love that.

Here's the class, with Miss Alison, Jack's teacher, on the far left. Miss Bonnie, the English as a Second Language teacher is next to her, and on the far right is Ms. Hansen, the Teachers Assistant. They're standing in front of the mural the class painted for their Christmas play:

And with silly faces...

And we leave you with the 3 Musketeers...Sejin (Jack's best friend since last year, from Korea) Jack, and Alejandro.

Or, maybe they're really the 3 Stooges??

Metric Madness!

It was only a matter of time.

But, really now. This is embarrassing. Especially since neither John nor I are strangers to analytics. Calculations. S-I-M-P-L-E M-A-T-H. So, here goes:

It all started with the Texas Chili recipe. We haven't made chili since we moved here. I wasn't sure I could get the right chili peppers (I can't!), and I wasn't sure it would be good with different peppers (it was!), so we hadn't tried. But yesterday was cold and snowy, and we were inside cooking, and well, we wanted chili.

All our recipes are American. duh, right? But not always so easy outside America. Sticks of butter? No TBSP markings - it's all in grams. Milk? Liters. And meat? Kilos. No pounds. And unlike the US where packages of hamburger meat all weigh something slightly different, the standard pack here is 250 grams (quarter of a kilo). Handy, really.

But yesterday, after our careful conversion calculations of 3-3.25 pounds, John returned from the store with 6 packages of ground PORK. What self-respecting Texan eats PORK chili??!! So, Catherine, braving the cold, left to find 6 kilos of rinderhackfleish (AKA hamburger meat...which, BTW, always freaks me out a bit. Rinder hacked flesh. Don't know what a rinder is, but the hacked flesh part is disgusting.)

Clearly, we realized upon her arrival we had confused 6 PACKAGES of hacked flesh with 6 KILOS.

Got hamburger recipes?

To Bispinger Heide We Go!

What could be more fun than 7 hours in a car with two children under the age of 5, both of whom had thrown up in the last 12 hours?

Here we are, somewhat suspicious of what lay ahead, but clueless nonetheless - all packed up and ready to go.

Great visibility, eh? Makes you wish you were on the road with us, doesn't it?!

(Have I mentioned how much we love our portable DVD players?)

Since Jack had SEVEN days of Fall Break (wait, didn't school just start?!) , we took the opportunity to take a road trip across Germany. (How did we know the stomach bug would strike after we already had the car packed?!) Frankly, it wasn't intended to be such a LONGGGGG trip across Germany, but due to the road construction and traffic, our 4-hour jaunt turned into almost 7 hours.

Now, there's some fun. We drove...and drove...and drove...through tiny little villages where all the buildings were made of red brick with red roofs...like driving through the pages of a fairy tale book.

Europe has a variety of "family vacation hotels," built with kids in mind. Earlier this year at a Kinderhotel in Austria, we met a family that recommended CenterParcs, another family resort. So, after a few hours of surfing http://www.centerparcs.com/, we were all set for a long weekend in Bispinger Heide, in the heart of the Lüneburger Heide between Hamburg and Hannover, Germany.

This place was a kids' wonderland. We had a 3 bedroom cottage, with two bedrooms and a playroom decorated like a circus tent. Jack and Luke quickly built the world's largest MegaBlok tower...

The CenterParc was a huge campus, the center of which featured a MarketDome, with numerous restaurants and shops. Luke called it the Zoo because it had "Mangos" which is Lukey for Flamingos, along with ducks, turtles, parrots and a few spiders.

Picture by Master Jack...he's got a photography gene!

The MarketDome also housed the AquaMundo, a large water play area, with pools for adults, children and babies, plus several water slides for all ages. It even had a huge wave that reminded us of the Pacific!

Finally, it had a crazy indoor play area, complete with a racecar track! The kids had all sorts of fun driving and climbing.

For the older kids, the CenterParc had archery, boating, climbing walls and other "adventure" activities.

It was cold and rainy the whole time we were there. This snow was just for fun...not real...YET!

So, with all this fun around, what do you think the boys enjoyed the most?

...Riding bicycles...in the rain....

And we drove how long?!

P.S. Must have been a One Act Wonder stomach flu...we were all just fine once we left home.

Unsere Umleitung... (Our Detour...)

We just returned from a long weekend holiday in northern Germany. On the drive up, I pulled out the travel guidebook to learn a little history about the sites and villages along our route. I was stunned to realize our holiday destination was quite close to Bergen Belsen...the concentration camp where Anne Frank died.

Some of you may remember our honeymoon story when, on the train from Prague to Amsterdam, I pulled out the travel guidebook and was stunned to realize the Anne Frank house was in Amsterdam (I'm sure at one point I actually KNEW this, but it was years prior, so it was like a whole new realization for me...). We visited the house and the bookstore, from which I purchased numerous (heavy) books that John schlepped through Europe in his backpack, whilst I cried myself to sleep every night after having read a few chapters. Patient though he was, it wsn't long before he said, "Enough is enough!"

So, here we were again, approximately twenty years later.

I've always wondered if I could muster the courage to set foot on the grounds of a former concentration camp...and I've dreaded the opportunity.

Yet, here it was.

http://www.bergenbelsen.de/en/

We walked down the path to a huge clearing. Straight ahead was a map showing the grounds in 1944 compared to today...

To the left (see above left photo) would have been the SS Store for Clothes and the Star Camp in 1944. Per http://www.bergenbelsen.de/en/karte/1944/

...Approximately 4.000 Jewish concentration camp prisoners, intended for an exchange, of which the largest contingent were Dutch Jews, were interned here. "Star Camp" meant that the prisoners had to wear the yellow Star of David on their cilvilian clothes. Men and women were accomodated separately but families were permitted to meet during the day. Work was obligatory.

To the right (see right pic above) would have been the main entrance to the camp, as well as the Neutral Camp, Special Camp, Hungarian Camp and POW Camp.

Per http://www.bergenbelsen.de/en/karte/1944/:

In the Neutral Camp, several hundred Jews with passports from neutral countries were imprisoned. Compared to other sections of Bergen-Belsen, conditions here were quite tolerable until March 1945. Prisoners were not allocated to work commandos.
In the Special Camp, in mid-1943 several thousand Polish Jews had been deported here. Most of them were in possession of temporary passports from South American countries. These prisoners were not allocated to work commandos either and kept in strict isolation since they had full knowledge of the cruelties committed by the SS in Poland. By mid-1944 most of these had been transported to Auschwitz and murdered. Only about 350 of them remained in the camp.
The Hungarian camp was established in July 1944 for 1.683 Hungarian Jews. Himmler negotiated with Jewish organizations in other countries to exchange these Hungarian Jews for money and goods. They wore civilian clothing with the Star of David; they were not forced to work.
The Häftlingslager (Prison Camp) was established at the very beginning. At first it was used to accomodate a 'construction commando' of some 500 prisoners whom the SS had brought to Bergen-Belsen from the concentration camps Buchenwald, Wewelsburg and Natzweiler.
Since March 1944, this section of the camp received prisoners of other concentration camps who were sick or unable to work. They suffered horrendously bad conditions. Prison uniforms, hard labour to the point of collapse, abuse by the SS and the Kapos, inadequate medical care and a high mortality rate characterized the situation in the Häftlingslager.

We continued along the path that led through the grounds, and then we saw the first mass grave.

(In German)Here lies 2500 dead, April 1945

The raised mass graves were everywhere.

Here lies an unknown number of dead, 1945

The Obelisk and Inscription Wall, erected by the British.

The Polish Wooden Cross

The Jewish Memorial

Unfathomable heartache and sorrow.

Jack's Show and Tell

October 1, 2009

In late August, Jack's new school year started at FIS. He's in "Primary" grade, which is Kindergarten for the folks back home. Here are a couple of pictures from his first day.

We really like his teacher, Miss Alison. She grew up all over the world, but graduated from Yale, so she seems quite American. She is warm, friendly, energetic and always smiling. Most importantly, Jack really likes her.

With the exception of a few mornings of separation anxiety early on, Jack is off to a great start this year. He is such a big boy now that he's expected to walk into the classroom alone, put his things away - change into his "inside" shoes, hang jacket and hat, file his lunch ticket and tuck his backpack into his cubbie - then kiss me goodbye...and wave to me through the "goodbye window" facing the parking lot. It's quite a nice routine.

Today was a special "Show and Tell" day. Jack and his classmates had been working for weeks on projects to share with their parents. I had a personal tour through the classroom (and out to the treehouse), then had a delicious chocolate chip cookie (baked by the class) before heading off to work. Here are a few pictures, some taken by Master Carpenter himself...

Jack and the Outline for the Tour - personalized with his drawings - very clever.

Mom with Jack's "Frederick" drawing.

(it's the one by my shoulder with the black frame.)

(Frederick is a book about a mouse - that's the extent of my knowledge)

Jack in the Treehouse (guess the class opted against the Beanstalk)

Jack and his creation, The Crocodile

Jack and his "Pattern Period" art

His is the sheet just to the right of his left shoulder plus up above, the top row, second from the left.

Jack and his "Kissing Hand" Art

It's so amazing to see what our children create, to learn what captures their imaginations, and see the world through their eyes. It was, indeed, a delightful way to start the day!

Frankfurt International School Worldfest

On Sunday, May 17th, Jacks' school held Worldfest, a celebration of the cultures that comprise the International School. The parking lot became a collection of kiosks, each featuring food from a different country, usually served by folks in native dress. I spent an hour working in the USA booth (wearing shorts and a T-shirt), serving HUGE hamburgers with Hellman's Real mayonnaise and French's mustard, now a luxury in my book. As it turns out, the woman who organized our booth is an Aggie, so new friends were made. But the best part? The eis (ice cream) at the booth next door.



Just ask Luke.

Have a great week!