Every month during the school year, NU China Care holds a free playgroup for children adopted from China by American families. These consist of a variety of activities and educational lessons based on different aspects of Chinese culture, ranging from ancient Chinese history to modern Chinese foods. In these playgroups, we hope to help our kids cultivate a better sense of their own personal identity and have the opportunity to meet and befriend other children from similar backgrounds. In addition, our playgroups offer families the ability to network with one another in order to form bonds that will potentially last a lifetime. With the support and dedication of our student organization members, we hope to create experiences that children, their families and our Northwestern students members will treasure!
The dates and locations of our playgroups are typically announced at the beginning of each academic quarter of Northwestern and usually take place on Saturdays from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. To learn more about our playgroups, get placed on our mailing list or find out how you can help, suscribe to our newsletter on our homepage, email us at nuchinacare@gmail.com!
Examples of Past Playgroups
Lunar New Year
Despite given the fact that in-person events were not allowed when this playgroup was last held, we still managed to have a lot of fun and learned a lot about Lunar New Year! We introduced the origin of the 12 animal signs to the children, and we also were creative and came up with our own mythical stories and creatures!
Chinese Family Trees
Today during our playgroup we learned about family trees and all the different ways to say the Chinese names for family members. After this activity we had a brief snack before creating our own family trees! Thanks to the parents, we were able to attach pictures of the kids’ family members onto their posters. It was great learning about all the different branches of family and learning about the kids’ families as well!
Mythical Creatures and Calligraphy
This playgroup was our Chinese New Year special! We first learned all about the origins of different Chinese mythical creatures such as dragons and Phoenixes. Afterwards, we got to practice our calligraphy and learned a few important Chinese characters along the way. Towards the end of our playgroup, we put on a skit featuring Nian, a monster being chased out of town by the villagers, which explains the origins of popular Chinese New Year traditions. We all had a lot of fun putting it on!
Making Dumplings
For this playgroup, we made (and ate) scrumptious pork and vegetable dumplings with the kids! We also played a variety of different games and learned all about the importance of making food together as a family. Additionally, we were lucky enough to get the chance to collaborate with Northwestern’s Chinese Student Association and had many of their members come help out.