Play based learning

I found a wonderful program for my daughter. She's old enough now to enroll in Kindergarden, but I didn't want to limit her to the local schools. She's already reading now, so I'm not concerned so much about academics yet. The program is called Seedlings from Sunflower Creative Arts.

Vietnamese preschool curriculum

So while I was in vietnam I bought a bunch of books. These are the workbooks. They were all very cute, and very cheap, only about 6,000d (basically ~37 cents). I didn't really look that closely while I was in the bookstore, so it ended up that a lot are duplicate material. 

This is a series of books that have a story, pictures to color and letters to practice. The 3-4 year old books practice strokes, while the older ages 4-5 and 5-6 practice letters.

Inside Sample from 3-4 yo book

If you notice, the font used for the story is the same cursive that is taught for writing, so the kids are practicing reading cursive at the same time they learn to write.

3-4 Year Old books

4-5 year old books

5-6 year old books

These two are actually the same material, just presented by different publishers.

Inside of the two books from different publishers.

Visiting Family

Once Tet is started, people spend the first couple of days visiting family and friends. We took a bus to 

Rạch Giá, which was where my mom grew up. And went to visit several different spots where she grew up and people she knew. Here is the kitchen of a house of a neighbor.

These are the water storage jugs, covered to keep mosquitoes out!

 This is the family of one of moms cousins, and the sides of the house is tin. There's a hammock in the bedroom, it's actually a pretty small room.

We went to a temple where my moms grandparents are interred.

Moms Grandparents

In front of the main temple steps

Being tourists! Although the temple is doing well, there's a big addition being built.

She loves the mopeds!

 After the trip to the temple we went back to mom's cousins house for dinner. The concrete floor is a recent addition, it used to be a pond where they'd keep their own fish.

Charcoal braziers

No tables needed around here!

Dinner involved grilled seafood. We had bought some fresh shrimp and fish.

The old red roof part is a bit of moms old house. It's been taken over by newer buildings. I find it bizarre how people just add on there.

Tết is here!

Getting a drink

Stairs

 Today everything is closed and people spend the day at home or visiting family or close friends. So the traffic is much lighter than usual. These are pics of the house, the moped is an electric one I'm borrowing from my uncle. It's pretty fun.

This is the way to the place we're staying. I keep thinking alleyway, since it'd fit one car width, but since no one has cars, it's not a big deal. This really shows how light the traffic is, since normally you get at least several moped in a pic.

Tết  Foods : a pickle plate with dried shrimp, thousand year eggs, pickled shallots. Ban Bao, Thit Kho, rice and noodles.

Li xi: good luck money for the kids.

Altars everywhere

Bus Altar - I think the horses are to help keep the bus moving.

Vietnamese are mostly Buddhists, and some are Catholics, and I'm sure there are all sorts of minority religions too, but the one thing they all have in common is that they put up little altars. There's usually an image of whichever deity they're praying to, incense, and some flowers or fruit offerings.

My Aunt prepping for Tet. 

Multiple altars

Funky Amusement Parks

Suối Tiên is a cool, funky Vietnamese take on an amusement park. It's got a lot of historical inspirations, and is part amusement, part educational, part spiritual. There are sections based on cultural or historical stories, and some temples to various notables. And then there are ferris wheels, roller coasters and various other rides. There's even a water park. It definitely shows a different culture!

Main entrance

Tickets - about $1 for kids, $1.60 for adults.

It seems cheap, and it is, but the amusements are separately purchased, so if you just want to go to the temples and walk the gardens, that's fine. If you want to ride the rides you buy tickets for each one. And really, the rides cost something like 25-50c, so it was really very reasonable.

Temple to King Hung

So pensive..

Loving the ice cream there!

View outside

Awfully large crocodile

She loves carousels!

I guess these are elephant tusks, but not sure what they mean.

Food prices: about $1 or 75c

Another temple

Lovely lotus flower

Tiên Dong beach


This is actually a separate little section with its own entrance fee. My parents didn't feel the need to go in, so we were only in for about an hour.

Do you see the funky swimsuit she has on? It was a rental. Yes, they rent swimsuits there, just in case you hadn't planned ahead. I rented one too. And didn't think about sanitary conditions. Nope, wasn't going there. So it was an interesting thing.