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.

Does A Kangaroo Have A Mother, Too? is a classic Eric Carle book told with classic Eric Carle art style and vibrancy. With many books of his, the art style is far from realistic. But we really love the repetitive sentence/question structures - it opens up the opportunity to learn new vocabulary and gain confidence in reading aloud.

Ever since I found out about Luka, I’ve been dying to try one out. When I finally got hold of one, I started exploring how well it worked and the ways in which it could fit into our bilingual household. EU Luka is slightly different from China/US Luka but it still works well - mostly!

The book we’ve chosen today is called ‘动物的脚印’ (‘Animal Footprints’). The aim was to get her to start recognising body parts, animals and improve her comparison skills.

We keep coming back to Le Le Chinese but a lot of my daughter’s favourite books are from the set so it’s inevitable, I guess. This time we’re looking at an art activity inspired by 变颜色 (‘Changing Colour’). It’s really quite simple actually!

What we needed was to strike a balance by managing her digital content exposure so she wouldn’t forget the value of her books. The things we introduced were things that we believed would help her gain knowledge of the world around her.

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.