Clay Bracelet

A beautiful, self-made, bracelet of beads of clay, painted in different colors. This came out of an envelope with science work on soil, sand, pebbles and clay.

First Poem

Her very first poem ever!

And she turned 7. She's been celebrating her birthday for about 3 weeks now, with a party here and a party there. She still writes her number in reverse, but I switched the 'd' for the 'b' forever.

Pumpkin Teeth

She’s got three wiggly teeth. She frequently checks them with her fingers, but no, they are still wiggling. “If they all fall out at the same time, I will have pumpkin teeth,” she says.
In Holland we would call that a bicycle rack (fietsenrek).

On Hana's Arabic Reading & Proud Mom

Hana has had issues with reading. We (her teachers and her mom) thought it would all come naturally, as she seems to be quite a bright child, but it didn’t.

And so in came some serious reading intervention. All this of course is taking place in English, as this is her main language, and the language in which she expresses herself. But 3 months later, although she is improving, her reading is still coming along very very slowly.

Everyone sort of ignored the Arabic reading, because – after all – that is only one of the subjects in class. She doesn’t even speak Arabic, and if you cannot read and write English, but speak it very well, than how on Earth can you read a language which you don’t even speak, right? Wrong. She can read Arabic much better than she can read English. Hats off to her Arabic teachers who managed to do such a good job and such a short time without anyone noticing it!

So here’s some of her Arabic reading! A story about Maha and Mamma, and a boat in the rain. Only Arabic speaker swill understand the story, I'm afraid, but it is a story about Maha and her friend Bassem, and the rain.