Vicky Wu Davis has always wanted her son to embrace his heritage, but a year ago, when he was 3, he began to shun all things Chinese.
So Wu Davis developed the Adalia Enrichment Program, a weekly class in Andover that teaches children ages 2 to 6 Mandarin Chinese through storytelling, play and scientific discovery.
"I didn't want glorified flash cards," she said. "If you wrap it up in fun things, they don't even realize they're learning another language."
By making ice cream from scratch, for example, the children learn in Chinese about water, solids, temperature and taste.
They also learn how plants grow and how bees make honey.
They dance to Chinese songs. And in milder weather, they go on treasure hunts.
It's a formula that has paid dividends. Wu Davis' son now teaches her husband Mandarin.
But while other children in her class also have flourished, their parents, some of whom speak only English, often ask her how they can reinforce at home what their children learn in class.
Last week, Wu Davis, a serial entrepreneur, launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $60,000 by Dec. 17 to fund Peach Ice Cream Adventures, the first of several planned language learning games for tablets.
Built from an existing technology platform, PICA is designed for 3- to 6-year-olds and comes with a dashboard to allow parents to watch their children's play and switch languages.
Like Adalia, it teaches language by spiraling: Children cycle back to prior words and build vocabulary through repeated use in different contexts.
"Having no Chinese background, we would love to have some way for us to learn together as a family," said Juliet Correll Wright, whose 4 1⁄2-year-old daughter, Willow, takes Wu Davis' class. "PICA would reinforce what she's learned and would engage her with technology in a meaningful and purposeful way."
Correll Wright wants her daughter to learn Chinese because it has becoming an increasingly important language as China has become an economic powerhouse, and she feels there's a narrow window of opportunity for children to naturally pick up another language.
Waipeng Lee, another Andover parent, signed on to develop the content for PICA after enrolling her own 5-year-old daughter in Wu Davis' class.
"With an application, she would be able to learn (Chinese) any time," said Lee, 45. "I feel like if my daughter can be more independent using an app, she'll be more confident speaking Chinese."
As of Friday, 90 people had pledged a total of nearly $5,000 to fund the Kickstarter campaign.
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