Tinker Lab Meets PAASSC!!

I think the words love, great and awesome may be the most over used words in my blogs and FB posts but I just can’t help it. I really love these kids and I love our PAASSC events. At our most recent Tinker Lab the children were able to create, build and explore – all while communicating in Mandarin!! I’ll admit that they did speak to their friends in English “sometimes” but the Instructors were engaged, playful and using the student’s second language.

My favorite FB post was from a dad, Randolph Belle. He said “Went to the PASSSC Tinker’s workshop today. It’s always a blast watching a group of African American kids with a Mandarin soundtrack.” Thanks Randolph I couldn’t have said it better!

After meeting with parents and instructors we will look at the following changes to our next meeting.

• There will definitely be food. Sorry that was an oversight on my part that will not happen again.
• We will limit the activities that we have and instead of the youth floating to stations an instructor will be assigned to students as they arrive and work with them during the event.
• By limiting the activities the youth will have time in a small group to talk (in Mandarin of course) about what they created, show their peers how it works and learn new vocabulary words (written and oral).
• We will have more flash cards! The flash cards were really helpful to teach the youth new vocabulary. The instructors will use the flash cards to highlight the new words throughout the event.
• And much, much more!!!