Trips afield

My daughter has been attending a local kindergarten for almost a year now. I've been teaching at a local kindergarten for longer than I care to think about. One might assume that Amber would go to the school where I teach, especially as we could take advantage of an employee discount regarding tuition. Well, one would be wrong. At this stage in my daughter's young life, I want her to have fun and make friends while getting a start on learning. However, my place of employment places far too much stress on academics IMHO, and the last thing I want is for Amber to get on that train and ride to that academic hell known as the Taiwanese school system. Of course, the kindergarten where I teach provides a mostly English language learning environment, but unless Amber's English starts to be suffer from her present school (and so far it hasn't), I'd prefer she continue to go to her present school, which she really seems to enjoy.

Every now and then, however, my kindy gives the kids a break by taking them on a field trip, and the principal graciously allows Amber to come along and join in the fun, which was the case today. Our destination was the K'ueihai Nungch'ang, or Sunflower Sea Park 葵海農場, and though it was a long day, my daughter had a blast. Here are a few pictures of our field trip this morning and afternoon:

The "farm" was located on the outskirts of Tachia 大甲, close to the waters of the Taiwan Strait 台灣海峽, in an area dotted with giant wind turbines, which the kids found fascinating (as did I).

The day was filled with lots of activities for the children, including rowing boats on a small pond...

feeding fish...

making kazoos out of reeds, and blowing them en masse...

tormenting live crabs in a workshop...

walking over to the beach to catch crabs in their native element (and releasing them afterward)...

and collecting some sunflowers to take home.

All in all, it was a great experience for Amber, and both of us are looking forward to the next excursion.