From: NWCS Principal

Date: 3/21/2014 9:47 AM

Spring is here! Spring is here! The snow is finally beginning to melt, so it is no longer icy white everywhere. You can actually see some green (or almost green, more like yellowish green) coming out of the ground! I am sure all of you welcome the warmer temperatures (like above freezing would be good) and it is finally here and hopefully it will stay for a while … however, my gang is planning to go skiing this weekend.

So what do we have for this Saturday? Teacher Parent Meeting is scheduled on our calendar. Please communicate with your teachers if you, or the teacher, are not able to meet this Saturday. Communication between the teachers and parents should be ongoing, so don’t wait until the scheduled Teacher Parent Meeting day. We scheduled it as a reminder to all. If you need some private time, please reach out to the teacher. I am sure it can be arranged.

One of the mothers in my class sent me a note saying her son wants to know if he has the homework pages correctly. I was so impressed that he actually asked for the homework, as it does not happen often in the Thomas house. Then the mom said he wants to finish it so he can have his game privileges…. A light bulb went on in my head (happens a lot with me by the way) and that is we need to be POSITIVE. My husband and I have been doing the opposite, “… you don’t finish this, you are going to lose that …” when we should be saying, “… you do this, and you will earn that … and what you earn is a PRIVILEGE, so cherish it with your LIFE”. Well, maybe not the last part …

I always love to hear parents’ experiences because I learn so much from everyone. A mom told me a while ago that when they first started Chinese School, she had to fight and argue with her daughter EVERYDAY, when her daughter came home from Kindergarten during the week. After snack, she had to force her to sit at the table to do her Chinese homework for 15 minutes. (Sound familiar, parents?) After about 3 weeks … one day she was about to yell at her daughter to wrap up the snack because she thought her daughter was prolonging the snack time … when she got to the dining table, there her daughter was, already had her Chinese homework out and actually was 5 minutes into it … WITHOUT the mom’s LOUD reminder. When she was telling me the story, I thought I saw something sparkly in her eyes, or maybe it was my imagination or maybe it was actually me who had tears in my eyes. THERE IS HOPE FOR OUR CHILDREN! All kidding aside, what I learned from this story is to “be consistent” and it will work. I mean, what parents enjoy yelling and screaming at their kids (ummm … uh … sigh … never mind), but the kids fight you because they are hoping you will give in, and many of us do. However if you stick to your position for a little bit, they will understand mommy and daddy mean business! That said, parents, we need to support each other while traveling down this Chinese Learning journey. We can do it! We can do it!

Our Dean is working on our Spring speech and writing contest rules and we will share with everyone shortly. The contest is going to be at the end of April. So have your kids start practicing their pronunciations and tones (for the lower grades) and writing, grammars, sentence structures (for the higher graders)! So stay tuned!

Order your lunch here so you do not have to cook and have more time to enjoy the beautiful weather!

See you all tomorrow! Classes start at 9am sharp. Please be on time (including the Principal, wink wink)

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李宜蓉 Eileen Y. Lee
北威校長 NWCS Principal, 2009-2014
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GO NWCS!!!! Visit www.nwcsny.org
or email LearnChinese@nwcsny.org