Daycare....the sequel ;)

So, remember how I was frustrated about daycare in Abidjan and how I took now out of his daycare?

Well, I teamed up with a friend called Anne who has a son that used to go to daycare with Noah. We looked everywhere for a better daycare but we realized that the culture in Cote d'Ivoire was to keep your baby at home until he started school at 3 year's old. They have all the facilities here of having a nanny and the support of their entire family, cousin, aunts, uncles and grandparents, hence they do not find the need to put their kids somewhere else. I will not go and say that these kids have a lack of stimulation because I am sure that they are well surrounded and constantly stimulated. My case however is not the same because everyone in our family here work and Noah cannot stay at home all day and play with the nanny !

So, after we've failed miserably to find a good day care, we decided that we would go ahead and do weekly activities with our kids.
The first week was Anne's turn and the kids learned about insects. They painted a butterfly and we read a story about insects. We then taught them a song related to insects. I have to say two year old have an attention span of about 5 minutes, so after 20 minutes, they got bored and started playing with other things. Of course, this caused a lot of frustration for us....

Nevertheless, we tried again the next week. It was my turn and we did musical instruments. We created a guitar, we learned about different instruments and I wanted them to record a song in Aimann's music studio but that didn't go through.

Anyway, the point of it was that we realized that we could not force 2 year old into an activity but it was important to do a bit of art everyday with the kids. So, I had a much better idea. I printed a bunch of art stuff and gave it all to the nanny.
Everyday she did a bit with Noah. He was free to do it for 5, 10 or even 20 minutes. When he got bored, he played with something else and it was OK. Noah now loves to paint and do things but of course, he rather be playing football of doing physical activities. So...we put him in summer camp.

We found a fabulous summer camp in "2 Plateaux" it's at the Capuera's school. he goes from 9 to 12:30. He has a lot of fun. They play football, volley ball, Capuera, they play musical instrument (drum, flute), they do pottery...it's wonderful. On top of that, they have a bunch of animals over there. They have a monkey, huge turtle and rabbits.
Noah loves it and I can see that he has grown so much in two weeks just by being surrounded by older kids and being treated like a little boy and not a baby ;)

Until I post the pictures of the camp, check out his "Chef d'oeuvre" ;)