It's a wrap on Cornerstone Learning Foundation's summer camp!
The third session of our Mandarin immersion camp concluded with five outstanding skits from five different classes. The Session Three theme, Science, challenged students to use Mandarin to express concepts like melting and floating. Students also carried out experiments and cooking projects, testing both their hypotheses and their language skills! Their hard work was evident in their science-themed final performances.
The Butterfly Class, our youngest performers, taught our audience about the different states of matter. Students represented ice, rain, and steam with handmade props and costumes, and showed off how many new vocabulary words they had learned in relation to the science of water!
The Snowflake Class, like the Butterfly Class, chose to center their story on the complexities of water, depicting the lives of snow-children and their rabbit friends. When the rabbits' house catches fire, the snow-children decide to charge inside to save their friends — at their own expense. As the fire burns, the snow-children melt, and as the ensuing winds blow, the snow-children freeze. The Snowflake Class concluded their performance with a touching song about the power of loyal friends.
Following the Snowflake Class was our oldest group of scholars, the Afanti Class, who re-enacted a fable about their namesake. The cunning Afanti, a folk philosopher from ancient China, convinces a greedy neighbor to sell the shady spot under his biggest tree. But later, to the old neighbor's dismay, the tree's shadow has shifted, allowing Afanti and his friends to merrily sing and dance while blocking the house's main entryway. The old neighbor has no choice but to buy back his tree and its shade, returning an entire bag of precious gold coins to Afanti. In preparation for their performance, the Afanti Class also conducted several sun-related experiments, including creating sundials and cooking s'mores in solar ovens.
After the Afanti Class shared their story, the McDull Class split into two teams for their performance (McDull is a popular cartoon piglet from a Hong Kong children's program). The McDull Team faced off against the Panda Team in a game of soccer — but first, each group practiced calisthenics and learned special tactics to use during their match. After the game was over, the students also explained to our audience the foundations of soccer and, of course, concluded with an enthusiastic song.
Our Session Three performances concluded with the Rainbow Class. They shared the tale of three little geckos that lost their tails. The geckos hope to borrow new tails from their other animal friends, including fish, oxen, and swallows, but each animal has a strong reason for why they need to keep their own tails to survive. The Rainbow Class presented this educational story with great enthusiasm, helping to end our summer session with a bang!
In addition to the five performance classes, Session Three also included the Piglet Class. These preschool-age students learned Mandarin through our full immersion environment, practicing songs, dances, games, crafts, and everyday communication with their teachers and classmates.
With the conclusion of Session Three, our focus turns to the fall semester ahead. But first, we'd like to thank each and every student and family who participated in this year's Cornerstone summer camp. Whether students were longtime Cornerstone community members or first-time campers, it was our honor to spend this summer learning and growing together.