Extended School Year students are big fans of Dr. Ping's latest project

When we last caught up with Warwick Valley Middle School and High School Mandarin Chinese teacher Dr. Ping Moroney, she was teaching students in the WVCSD Summer Enrichment Program how to make their own homemade wontons! Well, Dr. Ping was back at it again today, working with nearly 30 students in the Extended School Year program on another hands-on, art-based activity.

Take a look at a gallery from today's activity below this story.

The students spent part of Monday morning painting Chinese characters as well as sketches depicting "love" onto colorful fans, or shàn in Chinese. After the students decorated their fans, Dr. Ping carefully wrote their names on each one in elegant calligraphy. The group also talked about some of the animal signs of the Chinese zodiac, along with a few other cultural details that Dr. Ping teaches in greater detail during her school year Mandarin classes.

Including art projects in her lessons is a hallmark of Dr. Ping's teaching style. Her Summer Enrichment Course included a number of art projects, which you can read about here. During her annual wonton lessons in the school year, Dr. Ping's Mandarin students work in pairs to prepare the wontons, speaking only in Mandarin to relay instructions to one another! Here's a peek inside one of those lessons, if you'd like to learn more.

To end the activity on Monday morning, some of the students took up a round of Jianzi, which is quite similar to American hacky sack. In this game, players must also keep an object in the air without using their hands, but the object is a feathered shuttlecock. Everyone had a great time with Dr. Ping, as well as Dr. Ping's special assistant throughout Summer Enrichment and today, her daughter Anne.

Here's a look at the learning... I mean fun... it's actually BOTH!