Back to Schools and Schedules!

       Today was technically our first day back to the reality of everyday life.  We were on vacation last week, enjoying the last HOORAH of summer.  Today, it was back to Language Stars* classes and tomorrow it will be back to preschool.  New year, new teachers, new schedule . . . and no more summer!  :(
     My youngest son attends the Parents & Tots class with me.  He seemed really excited to get back to class today--a little TOO excited, as I suppose 2-year-olds can be.  But, his new teacher (new to him, not to me, because my older children had her for a teacher) was very patient and tried her best to keep him engaged today.  

Learning the color blue with a blue bowl and a blue dog

     The theme was "Colors of the Rainbow" (or something like that).  First, we played with dogs of different colors, matching them to bowls of the same color.  I suppose this sounds kind of silly until you think about how much 2-year-olds LOVE putting smaller objects inside larger ones, carrying them around the house, dumping them out, shaking them, and so on.  This is actually one of my son's favorite pass-times.  If you're missing something (like keys, for instance), just look in his recent favorite sack or container.  

Learning colors with several dogs and bean bags in bowls

      The teacher continued this idea by bringing out bean bags of various colors to sort.  Of course, I think the kids were just too used to the idea that you throw bean bags, so this required a little more parent direction.  I guess I should have taken his bowl across the room so he could appropriately throw the bean bag.  But, to be honest, it's hard to try to learn Mandarin AND think of these things at the same time.  

     Our craft/coloring project was really cool today.  We made windsocks (We called them kites in Chinese.) with rainbow-colored streamers.  He really enjoyed whipping it around and around in circles.  Very cute and colorful.  
     So, even though summer fun is over,  I need to remind the kids (and myself) that fall fun is on the way!  

As always,
Thanks for reading!
Tammy

P.S.  Here's a little update on my own Mandarin efforts.  I finally opened the box!  I did it!  I took the Rosetta Stone Mandarin with me on vacation and I am now about 4 or 5 hours into it.  I have to say that it is just as amazing as they say.  You learn new vocabulary and sentence structure at once, as well as the characters!  Pretty cool!  

*We get 50% off our tuition for blogging about our Language Stars experience.  But, still, all opinions expressed here are my own.  We LOVE our Language Stars classes!