We had such a wonderful time at Chinese School yesterday! I was happy that Colin was able to join us. It is going to work out great that it is on Sunday, so he will be available to participate in the process.
They usually only allow one parent to stay, but since it was our first day, they let us both stay. Colin ended up leaving and walking around; talking with the principal who was also born in Hong Kong.
School is three hours long, but it is broken up into three different segments with snack and recess in between which makes it nice. The first segment the teacher reviews common words with them all together as a class before handing them each some individual work. There were 12 kids in his class yesterday. Christopher worked on writing the numbers 1, 2 and 3 (yi, er, san). At one point, he looked at me, smiled and said "I love Chinese School".
He will even get to bring a little lunch box for snack time and a back pack for his notebook with all of his work sheets. It is so adorable. It is great that at least one of us can stay because that eliminates any anxiety and just lets him get excited about it and look forward to going. He is already looking forward to going again and going shopping for his notebook and pencils and crayons.
I could tell by the last segment yesterday that it won't take too long and I will move to the back of the class rather than right next to him and then before I know it, he will be telling me that I don't need to stay. At least it will be on his terms though when he is ready to stay alone which will set my mind at ease.
He was so pleased when the teacher pointed to a bowl of rice and asked how to say it because he knows how to say rice in Chinese, so he was all smiles and very proud! He was shy of course at first, which made him very well behaved. When the teacher took him by the hand to lead him somewhere, he would turn around with this worried look to make sure that I was following, then I could see his relief as I smiled and gave him the big thumbs up. They did work sheets in the class room, sang songs in a big room with a stage and organ and then back to the classroom for more work sheets and coloring.
At the end of our last segment, he smiled and said "Dis is juss like First grade or Kindergarten or somethin" with a wide grin. I think this was a great idea!
1 comment:
sounds fun :)
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