Little Dragon Summer Camp (8/26-8/30, 2019)

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Thank all our teachers, counselors, and volunteers for bringing the 2nd week of Little Dragon Summer Camp an outstanding ending for our students.

At the beginning of the day, students worked on math work that was slightly beyond their current levels. Some students solved these problems together; some students drew pictures to process the thinking, and others got assistances from teachers, counselors, and volunteers. 

Before instruction began, students read the morning message to know daily schedule and played whole group activities to build a friendly learning environment.

This week’s theme was architecture. We ed on how cultural practices, cultural perspectives, and cultural products were dynamically related and were expressed in architecture and how art, science, and math of architecture and civil engineering evolved over time. We also emphasized improving students’ intercultural competences. Here are some highlights with brief deions in five days’ learning.

Day 1: Great Wall

Content Learning: Introduce chronological building history, function, and notable features of the Great Wall.

Language and Cultural Learning: Listen and read Chinese folktale, Meng Jiang Weeps Down the Great Wall.

STEM Learning: Is the Great Wall of China Visible from Space?

STEM Activity: Make the “Great Wall”.

Day 2: Bridge

Content learning: View a variety of fantastic bridges in the world.

Language and Cultural Learning: Introduce 桥, as a pictographic character, for understanding the basic function of bridge and how the bridge evolves in years. 

STEM Learning: 1) Design a bridge; 2) solve a bridge riddle.

STEM Activity: Make a Straw Bridge.

Day 3: Skywalk and Underground Tunnel 

Content learning: 1) Describe the functions of skywalk and underground tunnel; 2) introduce that Minneapolis has the largest skyway system and share opinions and reasons to have more skyways or underground tunnels if they were engineers in Minneapolis.

Language and Cultural Learning: Vocabulary learning ed on morphological awareness of compound words. For example, 天桥=天+桥（Skyway=sky + way）. 

STEM Learning: Understand triangles are the most stable shapes to build skyway

STEM Activity: Marshmallows skyway

Day 4: Castle

Content learning: 1) Compare and contrast castles in Europe and in China; 2) discuss Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Language and Cultural Learning: Introduce different styles and unique architectures of “castle” in China.

STEM Learning: Describe inner structure of castles.

STEM Activity: Make tiny 3D houses (step 1, 2,3)

Day 5:

Content learning: Understand Silk Road and Tea Horse Road are examples of globalization.

Language and Cultural Learning: 1) Listen a story in the book, Journey to the West; 2) learn the theme song in the cartoon, Journey to the West. Through the song, students understood the transportation was very difficult and dangerous.

STEM Activity: Make tiny 3D houses (step 4, 5, 6)

Chinese Work

In the basketball class, the beginners ed on dribbling, shooting gestures, passing movements, and three step layups while older children continued to practice various forms of dribbling, the passing, passing layup, defense, and teamwork. The children have improved a lot!

This week, we added two classes: Chinese traditional dance and crafting. Crafting class helped students become acute observers and follow instruction and directions.

Chinese traditional dance is a cultural practice class. Li Laoshi is an excellent dance player and teacher. She arranged the class in two main parts: basic dance training and Jasmin Flower dance learning. The basic dance trainings include barre leg stretch and tuck; shoulder and arm stretch; front and back leg kick; lower back stretch and bend; small and big jumps; spot turn. Li Laoshi share a link of introduction to Chinese dance: https://youtu.be/4VCrA8h9pgY. Please enjoy! After a week of instructional and learning time, I believe your children will tell you, “I can dance well.”

No matter what, Maple Maze and Swimming pools were still their favorites. Happiness and laughs fully filled the camp and left a very good memory to them.

At the end of the week, our students sang a song named Thank You to parents, teachers, and the world.

We appreciated all your trust and support and look forward to seeing all of you in the Little Dragon Summer Camp in 2020.