New Sprouts Chinese School

Archived Q&A and Reviews

Jan 2009

Has anyone had experience sending their kids to the New Sprouts Mandarin Immersion summer camp? (Lake Merritt, Oakland) Please give a review of your experience. We are considering signing our 4 and 7 year olds for the camp and would like to hear from parents who have sent their kids. -looking for Mandarin immersion camp

My older daughter, adopted from China, attended New Sprouts last summer and really liked it. She attended with a friend of hers from school so she had a built-in friend for the first week, but made friends pretty readily for the rest. She was in the older of 2 classes. It's reasonably priced and the staff is friendly. Class make up was about 75% kids of Chinese families. About 90% girls, too.

She will probably attend this year too. Bear in mind-it's a fairly small and new enterprise that fills up quickly so reserve early! Sophia's mom

Our 7-year-old daughter did two weeks of this camp last summer, with a friend. She really liked the camp, and so did we. I spent a little bit of time there as a volunteer and accompanied one field trip, so I got a sense of what was going on. I really like the immersion aspect, I think they learn a lot more from this than from other Chinese classes we have taken. Our daughter and her friend were very animated in their back-seat discussions on the way home, comparing different prounciations for Chinese words, and using Chinese to speak to each other. lori

We are new to the bay area, having arrived in June of this past summer. We found new sprouts chinese camp on the internet before we arrived and signed our son up for all three weeks (he was 4). He has had mandarin sitters off and on since he was born and we thought a concetrated camp would be good for him. He LOVED it. He absolutely loved chinese camp and all the stuff they did. he didn't notice or care that it was all in chinese and did quite well there. he loved the outside activities as well as the writing and arts and crafts they did. he enjoyed the kids and made friends. He is going back again this year. He isn't very good at telling me what he did every day so I'm not entirely sure, but I do know that he loved it.

About the camp. the teachers seem friendly and the administrators seem that way, too. the teachers my son had didn't speak much English so I'm not entirely sure about what they thought about him and his engagement. As it's new, I'm sure they're still learning a little about what to do better each year. I felt my child was safe and engaged.

As to how much mandarin he spoke before vs. afterwards, I can't tell you as we don't speak mandarin and couldn't evaluate it.

hope that helps, anon