Buds Buddies Mandarin

After our child attended a Montessori Mandarin program until age 3, we were eager to continue his language learning journey in a similarly thoughtful, Montessori-inspired setting. We feel so fortunate to have found Buds Buddies Mandarin. He also attended three different camps this summer, and this one was by far his favorite. Ms. Cui and Ms. Lu put in so much effort to make this program outstanding. Every activity reflects careful planning and thoughtful preparation. The lessons are engaging, playful, and spark curiosity. As a teacher myself, I can recognize a high-quality program, and this is absolutely one of them. The team has also been very accommodating to our family’s needs, which we greatly appreciate. We highly recommend this program to any family looking for meaningful and joyful Mandarin learning for their child.

We absolutely love this Mandarin school and highly recommend their programs! They offer both school-day camps and afterschool/weekend classes, and the experience has been wonderful for our family. The school-day camp is very thoughtfully designed, with well-structured activities and enriching field trips such as museum visits. We attended the Lunar New Year themed camp, and it was truly one of the best camps my daughter has experienced. The teachers introduced the traditions behind the Lunar New Year, taught the children a Mandarin New Year song, guided them in making dumplings, and organized fun cultural activities like stencil painting. My daughter enjoyed every moment and came home excited to share what she made. After this experience, we plan to enroll her in the upcoming spring camp as well as weekend classes so she can continue learning Mandarin, Chinese culture, and poetry in such a positive and engaging environment. Highly recommended for families looking for an immersive and joyful Mandarin learning experience!

The program offers such a rich and engaging environment for children to learn and grow. The kids absolutely love attending, it is filled with fun, meaningful activities that seamlessly integrate language learning with Chinese culture, history, and traditions. We especially appreciate how the camp balances structured learning with creativity and hands-on experiences. It’s clear that a lot of thought and care goes into designing the curriculum. The teachers are warm, encouraging, and truly passionate about helping the children build confidence in Mandarin.

Buds and Buddies a is top notch experience for kids, not only for Mandarin language and culture but also as a wonderful, caring, enriching world of adventure. I’m so thrilled that we found them for our 3 year old. My son is fluent in Mandarin and is now learning Chinese calligraphy even faster than he’s learning to write in English in his regular school. Beyond that, I never would’ve imagined my toddler would be casually mentioning (over dinner conversation) his trip to the Guggenheim, or pointing to a Met magazine photo of Egyptian temples and saying “I went there,” or that we’d be sending the grandparents photos of him testing magnetism of real meteorites at the AMNH. He always wants to go back, it’s one of his favorite places to be! And the caretakers really care, they learn and understand and appreciate and watch out for the needs and happiness and growth and development of each child, with meaningful friendships formed between the children. Many thanks to everyone involved and looking forward to more years to come!

My kiddo has been in the mandarin program for over a year and she has learnt so much from Andrea and Ms Liu. These women are super warm, kind, personable and my kid is always looking forward to her mandarin (and sometimes math) classes. We also do summer camp and school break camp and it is a wonderful program always curated to keep the kid’s engaged. I definitely recommend you give this program a try and don’t be intimidated if you are a no -mandarin speaking family, they meet your kid where they are and make the language fun for the kids to learn.