Ben and DASH Chinese Summer Camp

This summer, I enrolled Ben in the DASH Chinese Summer Camp to keep him busy while he waits for the summer program in Explorations to start.  I was both excited and nervous.  I've been wanting him to try DASH out since last year.  I was not sure how he'll deal with being in a new school but my goal this summer was to give him more exposure to the Chinese language so I went ahead with it.

The DASH Chinese Summer Camp program is scheduled in two-week intervals.  It's Mondays-Fridays, 9am-12nn, with a combination of learning Chinese conversations, cultural activities, and arts & crafts / cooking.  The teachers use mandarin as their main mode of instruction.  They call the students by their Chinese names (if they have them) but the yayas who assist the teachers would talk to the kids in Tagalog and English.  I think this set-up is okay.  At first, Ben didn't like me dropping him of to school.  He didn't like the idea that the other students were bigger than him.  (The program is for ages 4-7 so he was one of the youngest.  He would also tell me that he does not understand what the teachers are saying.  However, I find him not wanting to leave the school whenever I pick him up which I take as a good sign.  I think it's good that he gets to interact with older kids and try to adjust to new surroundings since he will be moving on to big school next year.  

I promised Ben that they will learn to make dumplings at class.  That was what got him going to class during the first few days.  Finally, during their second week , they go to cook them,  Yehey!  I like that they have arts and crafts every day and they brought it home with them.  It made me feel that they did something productive during the day.  Also, during one of those days when I was asking myself if Ben actually getting more familiar with the language, he got a blue cup and said "lan se".  It made my day!!!!  

It was (and  still) an effort to bring Ben to school,  Since DASH's main branch is in New Manila (the only one that offers this kind of camp),  we had to adjust his schedule.  I'm glad I decided to enroll him though :)  I'm just a bit sad that some of the friends he made during the past two weeks aren't around for the next two weeks because they had other plans (which means another adjustment for Ben, sigh).  Anyways, I'm now thinking how we can be more consistent in making him familiar with the Chinese language throughout the next school year and most especially at home, wish us luck!.

For more information about DASH Chinese School.  go to their website.

How about you? What are your summer plans? :)