International Playgroup Half-way Report

I have been hosting an international playgroup at our home. We don't plan to send our girls to local schools, but I still want them to have social interaction with local kids and I wanted some structure/schedule to our daily routine here. However, I'm also very pregnant and feel my energy waning so I didn't want to over-do it. So, we planned a sort of trial-run for this playgroup which would only be two mornings a week and only for six weeks. 

We have some local kids, some foreign kids, and some kids who have one local parent and one foreign parent. We also have moms, dads, and grandmas who come along and others who come alone.

We learn two letters and one color each day and have some kind of a theme for the vocabulary we learn in English (for the locals) and Chinese (for the foreigners). 

We're just over half way finished now so I thought I'd give you all a report. Here are some pictures of our participants and some of the activities we've done so far. 

This day was a crowd favorite. A guy we know who trains a police dog brought the dog and taught the kids about how to train a dog. They LOVED it. Also, are you as astounded as I am that we got this many little kids to sit still and look at the camera? 

This day we talked about feeling words and practiced making different kinds of faces. 

And each of the kids made their own "emoticon" of sorts. 

Ann's friend Molly

We made green paintings.

Snack time. Also known as the only time the kids sit still in one place and are relatively quiet. 

Another kid favorite: we made an "ocean in a bottle." 

Today we took a field trip to the museum, but today technically is the second half so I'll save those pictures for the next time I update.