Summer is here!  School is out!!  Hurrah!!

Guess what!  The girls will not be making their 4-6 weeks trip to Taiwan this summer, as we just moved last summer and started our new jobs a few months ago.

Instead, it is back to homeschool, with lots of fun added in of course 😀!!  (I can almost hear my DDs cringing in the background! 😂)

DD#1 “Charlotte”, who just finished 9th grade, will have her hands full with online Chinese IV (to get it out of the way for some Spanish), some science and SAT prep, guitar-band, babysitting, and tennis league games.  She is also working on two summer projects, writing and illustrating her own Chinese-English children’s books, and preparing a speech in Chinese on her own bilingual upbringing.  She will be going to a creative writing camp also.

Charlotte loves art and here is her first summer sketch.  She imagines herself to be the fox and her taller friend (a girl) in real life, the smaller owl, touring Italy on a scooter! 😄

DD#2 “Georgia” (funny, since we moved to the state of Georgia last summer) who just finished 6th grade taking either 7th grade courses or gifted courses, have her hands full also.  We talked about her taking 8th grade math over the summer so that she can just move onto Algrebra I/part of Geometry sequence next year, as she has done some pre-algebra already.  But, what’s the hurry?  According to that sequence in this state, she will finish Calculus B/C in 10th grade and will take two years of college math afterwards.  But, she “only” wants to follow our footsteps and, really, few physicians need that much math background – ever.  I know, since I majored in Chemical Engineering as an undergrad and took much more math than I ever needed later and nobody cared!!!

Instead, Georgia will have a broader summer experience.  Yes, she will do some math, but not as much.  She is jumping back to where we left off five years ago with our Spanish program.  At that time, they read Spanish with our Colombian au pair and later a few South American babysitters.  So, we took out those same books and she is now reading them with their part time summer Colombian “babysitter”.

Georgia loves to learn more cooking and baking.  So, the “babysitter” is showing her how to cook Colombian and Dominican cuisine and bake as well.  Two days a week, an Indian American college student will come show her how to cook Indian food also, plus checking on their academic progress.

Here is Georgia preparing ingredients under the babysitter’s supervision.  You can see that she loves reading her Doraemon comics still!

cookies?

arroz con pollo…..

…. and cooking some Chinese food under my supervision when I have the time.

So, this summer, lunch and dinner are on DD#2 Georgia!  Hurrah!  She wants to learn how to cook and we need to eat!  ¡Perfecto!

At the mean time, Georgia will continue her Saturday Chinese classes as well in extra-summer sessions, focusing more on cultural topics, I think.  She continues taking guitar classes and will try out voice lessons as well, for her role as a lead singer in our band!  Then, there are the tennis practices and time for the pool!

At the mean time, both girls will read and discuss Chinese novels and cultural and contemporary topics with a tutor at home twice a week.

Lastly, we try to practice as a band every night.  Here, Charlotte recorded her part for the song we are working on, so that I can practice bass without her.  Can you guess what Chinese song we are working on?  Hint: it is one of 蘇慧倫’s all time hits, a cover of a song by a German band!

So, that’s that for our summer plan, so far!  I hope you are having a blast oversea or in the US!  Travel on!