From January through August, Clara attended the kindergarten affiliated with Academia Sinica, "Academia Sinica Kindergarten". It was here that she learned to speak Chinese.

Here are photos of Clara's last day in Kindergarten. The very next day she was a 1st Grader!

Here are photos of Clara's kindergarten: the hall, the shelf for putting shoes, the classroom, the playground, and a photo of the back of the school.  Notice that students don't wear shoes in the classroom, and they keep a pair of tuoxie (slippers) at school to wear when they are outside the classroom.   The first thing kindergartners do when they arrive at school is take off their shoes and go into the classroom.  The floor of the classroom is wood, and the students help the teachers clean it every day.  Taiwan is very hot, so it is good that all the classrooms have doors that open directly to the outside, and have windows in the front and back to allow for a good breeze.  Notice also the fans on the ceiling.

In front of the school is a large playground.  Kindergarteners are supposed to change back into their regular shoes to play on the playground, but sometimes they are so excited that they just run out in their slippers!

The Chinese word for teacher is laoshi.  Students call their teachers by their family name plus laoshi.  Clara's teachers are He Laoshi and Zhang Laoshi.

Clara's class has about thirty students and two teachers.  This is the standard size for a 5-year-old kindergarten class in Taiwan.  Nearly all of her classmates are Chinese-speaking Taiwanese children.   Since Academia Sinica is an internationally-known research institute, a few of her classmates have lived abroad and know a little English.  She also has a Russian classmate, who hardly knows any English at all ... but she speaks beautiful Chinese!

Each class has a name: the "White Cloud" class, the "Star" class, and the "Sunshine" class, which is Clara's.

The class next door put on a play, and all the other classes (including Clara's) came and watched.  Clara's class also put on a special program, and invited all the parents and children from other classes to come and enjoy refreshments (papaya milk), read stories, and do crafts and puzzles with them.

They also celebrate birthdays of classmates and important holidays, like Chinese New Year and Dragon Boat Festival.  (Christmas is not a holiday in Taiwan)

On Chinese New Year in February, they all dressed up and went around Academia Sinica, singing songs and dancing to greet the new year.  For Dragon Boat Festival (the fifth day of the fifth lunar month), they made a traditional holiday food called zongzi, which you can see in greater detail here.