Welcome to our blog!
Along with our social media, our blog keeps you up-to-date with our stories. We want to share reviews of books and learning resources, educational activities and people’s language journeys. If you have a story you’d like to contribute, please email us directly! Let’s share our experiences to encourage cultural and lingual confidence!
An Egg-cellent Library
It’s time for longer days and brighter skies and hopefully those Spring showers don’t catch you while you’re out! Spring time can be a really exciting for little ones; aside from egg hunts and eating chocolate, there’re a lots of things to do and see when you’re out in the Spring! Gardening, watching flowers bloom, seeing little baby animals… There are simply too many opportunities to explore the world outside, as well as the one in your books!
Book Review: So This Is A Year!
Non-fiction is great. Books that can last for a whole year are also great. This series simply combines the two! Every book makes every solar term a delight to discover. It helps children engage with the world they live in by asking them to make observations about seasonal changes and incorporates that with festivals and celebrations, customs and culture. Its format and content mean even adults (including me!) can enjoy, too. Just be mindful when around babies and toddlers!
‘Tis The Season! For Books
I remember getting very excited for Christmas every year as a young kid - and I still do! There’s something about the cheery atmosphere and all that delicious food and meeting family and friends. We’ve compiled this list with short summaries on books we recommend for Christmas.
Book Review: Draw Me A Star
Aside from some issues with race representation and some nudity in the book, Draw Me A Star is like most Eric Carle books in that you can’t go wrong with the bright, eye-catching collage art and the engaging narration that accompanies it. In reading and engaging with the book after reading, the child is encouraged to observe and admire their surroundings.
Kid used Rain Dance! 下雨了 It wasn’t very effective…
What have you been doing on the first day of the heatwave? Children can learn from anything and it’s important to give them the environment to let them enjoy and explore languages!
Play-do(ugh!)
While my sister is spending hours watching YouTubers making desserts, I’m looking for recipes for something I can’t even eat… But the end result really was worth it! My daughter loves playing with it and it’s a great tool to give her hands-on learning about the things in her books!
Zipping into space and function!
As an architect, what is most important to me is the space and function of the building (how it is structured and how it is used). So, in many ways, whenever I think of how I have learnt languages, the heart of it lies in the environment I was immersed in and the way I use languages now.
The cherry on top - 樱桃
My daughter’s got a special place in her brain for the books about food - we are a foodie family after all! One of those books is about drawing a cherry tree. We love the little catch at the end where the birds try to eat the drawing so we thought we’d do a little activity.
Things to do with: Apple 苹果
Apple picking is one of my personal favourite activities. She gets tired and we get apples! But whenever she does something, we always encourage her to talk about it in the language that we speak.
I’m De best!
I suppose being thrown into a majority English-speaking environment meant that I quickly dropped that. It came to the point where I completely rejected any notion of Chinese as a language of utility or value. (I really regret this now because it cut off years of language exposure…)