The journey began with Jennifer in Brussels. I met my new friend and her daughter, Josephine, from Taiwan at the park across from our school in Chant d'Oiseau. We started an informal Chinese-English exchange and taught each other how to cook various dishes on top of playing with the children, going on long walks and goofing around together. Frunty started picking up some Mandarin and could identify characters very easily.
Through Jennifer, we met her friend who lived with us for a short while between homes. She taught us how to cook and also spoke Mandarin to Frunty. After awhile, we started a Chinese club at Yoshinobu's home with his mom, also from Taiwan. By then, Pit had been born and came to the informal classes as a baby.
When we got to Singapore, we hired Shea from Shanghai to come to our home and teach the boys Mandarin, in order to prepare them for school. Once school started, we had hoped that the one hour a day would help our boys really flourish in Mandarin. Unfortunately, their levels were too low and the teachers could not help them. Pit picked up a minimal amount in K1 and K2 and Frunty basically has learned almost nothing in his two years. Actually the Mandarin class was too big so he got moved to the Malay class. He says it is a very nice language and he is trying to learn it! Yesterday he sang a song to me in Malay! What the heck! It's all good and if it is fun, that's the main thing!
But back to our Chinese Learning Journey. This year, we decided to start at Berries as I mentioned in the last post. The amazing thing is that they have had enough exposure over these few years to be able to pick up the language quite quickly. This makes us very happy. Both boys are able to say the words using the correct tone which is a difficult skill as a child grows into an adult. Starting when they were very tiny paid off indeed.
Our journey will continue with Berries which is a lot of fun and I have found a teacher from China named Rita. She will come over on Saturday and work with the boys to cement what they learn at Berries. Even though China will probably be the biggest English speaking country in the world one day, it is good fun and exercise for the brain to try learning their language. Frunty and Pit will become our secret detectives when we go to Beijing to hike on the Great Wall one day. We will get them to tell us in Italian or French what was just said in Chinese! It'll be awesome!
We enjoyed our family holiday to Bali during the boys' school break! It was fun to fly KLM! We went to Tulamben, Amed, Ubud and Benoa.
Frunty enjoys playing floor ball a few times a week and made the school team which will compete in the Nationals.
The three of us are learning the recorder and starting to practise Christmas songs so we are ready to entertain family and friends this holiday season.
Frunty is excelling at typing with both hands and all fingers. This is a gift Gramma gave to me and I want to hand it down to our boys. Pit has started too! (bbc.com)
Papa is passing along his enthusiasm for scuba diving. Both boys tried it in the pool in Phuket. This time, Frunty wanted to do his bubble maker class and Pit enjoyed playing with the sharks instead. He was only given 40 minutes of air but somehow made it last for 1 1/2 hours. (maybe the yoga we have done together has helped keep him relaxed.) The instructor had never seen anything like it!
