It’s Day 4 of kindergarten at Forest Grove Elementary for a group of Burnaby youngsters enrolled in the district’s first-ever elementary Mandarin program.

The teacher, Ms. Tang, claps to get the group’s attention and counts to five as they quiet down and find a place to sit on the floor.

“So, boys and girls, I’m going to show you what Chinese characters look like,” she says, drawing on the flip chart.

“It looks very different from the letters we are learning.”

Ms. Tang writes the characters for “hello” on the chart.

“Oh!” exclaims one child. “They look weird,” says another.

“So how do you say hello in Mandarin again?” Ms. Tang asks, and they all chime on cue: “Ni hao.”

Ms Tang then pulls out Fluffy the squirrel, and the children salute Fluffy, again in sing-song unison: “Ni hao, Fluffy.”

The kids then disperse to play areas. One child sits at a table with a bowl full of cotton balls and a pair of chopsticks.

There are 22 kids in the full-day class. About half are Caucasian, and some are Asian and already speak some Mandarin. Class runs from about 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the students spend 30 minutes a day learning Mandarin. The program will continue as they move on to Grade 1, and a fresh crop of kindergarten kids will start learning Mandarin next year. As they get older, the time spent learning Mandarin will increase by about 10 to 15 minutes a year, explains Forest Grove principal Deborah Taylor.