Champs des Bois had another house meeting today in which we discussed the wellbeing pillar. This week we specified on the topic racism and stereotypes. With so many different nationalities in the house, we feel this is an important subject to touch. To do this, we played a little game. We put out some statements and every time something applied to the children, we let them take a step forward. Statements varied from “Take a step if you feel like you have been judged because of where you come from” to “Take a step if you have ever bullied someone”. The children were great. They thought the situations through and answered honestly. Afterwards we talked more about how it made us feel and what we could do about this.

Tonight we celebrate the National day of China. Zhiyu’s mum came by the house to cook some delicious dumplings for us. The boys ate plate after plate and enjoyed a nice dinner at the house. Special thanks to Zhiyu’s mum for preparing 200 dumplings for us!

Yesterday we had another house meeting in which we discussed we rounded off the first wellbeing pillar. During the housemeeting we learned about stress. Through a video we learned what stress is. After the video we discussed things that can cause stress, such as not understanding, schoolwork and pressure. After discovering what gave us stress the children listed things that can help then manage stress: reading, doing exercise, watching TV, drawing… That last one we put into practice when doing a drawing meditation. We listened as someone guided us through connecting pen with paper and our bodies with our minds. The perfect end to our evening. 

Watch a short video here!

Furthermore we selected our first primary House Captain. Matvei has been chosen as our House Captain due to his good behaviour, kindness, homework ethic and being responsible and joyful. 

After a morning filled with activities, some went horse riding, others running or boating, we spent the afternoon in Geneva. The children enjoyed roaming around in a few stores and playing in the park. One of the stores gave Liam a skateboard deck, which he wants to paint and turn in to a complete skateboard. We also payed a visit to an exhibition about happiness in the Quartier Libre SIG. After all this fun, there were a lot of sleepy faces on the bus.

After talking about healthy food and good sleep, in this weeks wellbeing session we talked about screen time before bed. We talked about the effects of screen time on our physical and mental health. Because of these effects we decided to not watch TV anymore for an entire week. There were screams of shock in the house when we announced this, but the children came up with some nice alternatives for the evenings. Next week we will paint, play hide and seek, boardgames etc. instead of watching TV.

Because of the holiday, we had some more time today to play in the house. We spent the late afternoon and evening playing some board games

Today, Liam and Zhiyu went to visit two museums in Lausanne: the Vaud Geology Museum and the Olympic Museum. In the first one they found some crystals, dinosaurs and other fossils. In the Olympic Museum they became athletes themselves in front of a green screen after learning all about them.

Today, Nicholas, Mikaella and Matvei went for some wakeboarding fun in the lake. Our boat was definitely the loudest boat on the lake with their laughter.

Today we had another house meeting where we talked about healthy bodies and healthy minds. Last week we discussed the importance of a balanced meal. This week we focused on sleep. We asked the children to draw the activities in their day twice: once with enough sleep and the other with too little sleep. Want to know what a sleepy breakfast and lazy football look like? Try to find them in the drawings below!

Today we celebrated Zhiyu’s birthday by going bowling and we enjoyed an amazing dessert.

Zhiyu also had fun playing with LEGO and everyone played Mario Kart on the skateboards.