True or false? Put your pencil-case on your hair --Nina

We got our midterm grades back today. This resulted in all of the teachers at the school enduring about two hours of lecturing and reprimanding by our principal and dean about how poorly our kids did and how we need to change our teaching techniques in the future. Although this made me feel pretty down for a little bit, I then got a chance to look at the county-wide midterms that our kids were required to take. It's standardized across our school district, and we didn't get a chance to see the tests until after they were taken. Here are samplings from the 6th grade and 4th grade English tests. 

Welcome Grandpa Bob! --Nina

On Monday, everyone at Yongfeng was very excited to welcome a special visitor to our school--Grandpa Bob! Grandpa Bob (otherwise known as Robert Lipp, for those of us who are not elementary school students) is the generous donor who helped to rebuild the school from the shack it once was, and he continues to support our school by sponsoring two foreign teaching fellows (that's us!) every year, financing extracurricular projects at the school, and just generally being wonderful and kind to our kids (and to Abby and me). All of the students love him, and they very much look forward to his visits a few times a year. This fall, it came at an especially good time, since they have been pummeled with midterm review this week, and it was a very welcome break. 

A Package! --Nina

I received the most wonderful package from my parents this week! It has everything necessary to get us through the holidays. Most importantly, Christmas Bear has now traveled all the way to China! Abby may or may not end up replacing my dad this year as the person most annoyed by Christmas Bear's incessant singing.

Morning Exercises -Abby

The kids have started learning a new routine for their morning exercise period.  For the past month and a half they have spent this period running around the yard in circles by grade while counting to four over and over, but this new routine is tricky and accompanied by some awesome music that may or may not have been taken from a video game.  


The whole school does it together and shortly after I took this video Nina and I were persuaded to join in.  We'll update with a new video as the semester progresses and the kids get their routines down.