VPS

How nice to have the whole apartment to myself for a whole day! It's rare for a homeschooling mum, as either I'll be out sending one or both of the boys somewhere, or they would be home with me. But today, I've sent them both early in the morning to the Zoo Negara (National Zoo), where they will work from 9 to 5 as volunteers.

It's not that they love animals, but it's thanks to EYAA: the Edison Youth Achievement Award Programme, started and run by Amy Delph, a young mother of 2 small girls, who despite her slight figure is packed with creativity, ideas and dynamism. One important component of EYAA is the voluntary public service (vps) that every one of the youth has to fulfill, double the number of hours for the other parts, viz. personal development, physical fitness and expedition/exploration. They have to do 30 hours of the vps to get the bronze certificate, 60 hours for the silver and 90 for the gold, and so forth for the medals.

So Elliot has begun helping out on Monday afternoons at SPICES (Support for Parents, Infants, Children through early services), a community service centre set up and run by Emmanuel EFC for children with learning disabilities. Ethan, who once said that he had no patience to be a drum teacher, is now teaching 3 boys from the Chinese congregation of our church who cannot afford to pay for lessons, besides having 2 other paying students.

Apparently, the national schools close for a two week break from tomorrow, but for homeschoolers, every day is a day of varied work and play and rest, and learning through it all.