Yes. I hope your kid is annoying you with the Mandarin Journals nightly. Like Aiden here... Meanwhile, his big brother is quite cooperative.
Community | Responsibility | Empathy | Sustainability | Trust
Monday, March 31, 2014
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Week of March 24-28, 2014
SPEAKING
We named our stuff animal friends, gave them birthdays, assigned their favorite and not so favorite foods. We also presented it in front of our friends. This was not as easy as I thought, but the children were able to brainstorm ideas and deliver half if not all of it correctly. As I mentioned in the video homework post, putting words together and speaking is a huge part of language development. Remember four or five years ago when your baby was just learning to speak and you filmed every precious moment? This is it. I know there might be lots of tears due to anxiety, so lots of encouragement will come in handy!
CHINEASY
If you have not watched TED: Learn to Read Chinese with Ease, you should!
MATH
We compared numbers using numerical symbols as well as Mandarin characters.
We named our stuff animal friends, gave them birthdays, assigned their favorite and not so favorite foods. We also presented it in front of our friends. This was not as easy as I thought, but the children were able to brainstorm ideas and deliver half if not all of it correctly. As I mentioned in the video homework post, putting words together and speaking is a huge part of language development. Remember four or five years ago when your baby was just learning to speak and you filmed every precious moment? This is it. I know there might be lots of tears due to anxiety, so lots of encouragement will come in handy!
CHINEASY
If you have not watched TED: Learn to Read Chinese with Ease, you should!
Blurb from Amazon
Learn to read and write Chinese with Chineasy - a groundbreaking approach that transforms key Chinese characters into pictograms for easy recall and comprehension.
Chinese is one of the oldest written languages, and one of the most difficult to master, especially for Westerners. With Chineasy, learning and reading Chinese has never been simpler or more fun. Breaking down the Great Wall of Language, iShaoLan Hsueh draws on her entrepreneurial and cultural background to create a simple system for quickly understanding the basic building blocks of written Chinese. Working with renowned illustrator Noma Bar, she transforms Chinese characters into charming pictograms that are easy to remember.
In Chineasy, she teaches the key characters, called radicals, that are the language’s foundation, and then shows how they can be combined to form new words and even phrases. Once you’ve mastered these key characters, you can practice your skills with three stories—a fairy tale, an Asian legend, and a contemporary fable—told using the radicals.
With Chineasy, readers of all ages will be able to navigate a Chinese menu, read signs and billboards, and grasp the meaning of most articles in a Chinese newspaper.
Below are just few of the art we have been making. Watching the characters progress is just another creative way to introduce the infamous Chinese characters. I don't think I ever thought the words were pretty until I opened this book.
MATH
We compared numbers using numerical symbols as well as Mandarin characters.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
|Introducing...| WATCH ALL VIDEOS HERE!
Enjoy!
If you have sent me the Youtube link, it's here! Keep them coming!!
Listening Exercise - We did this in class today and it was very successful. You may have your child translate the videos at home and see what he can comprehend.
If you have sent me the Youtube link, it's here! Keep them coming!!
Listening Exercise - We did this in class today and it was very successful. You may have your child translate the videos at home and see what he can comprehend.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
|Project| Due: Friday, 3/28/2014
IMPORTANT UPDATE - A lot of you have expressed concerns and worries regarding this project. It is important to let you know that the purpose of this video is NOT to make every word, every tone, and every phrase perfect. It is simply a practice to put words and phrases together while making sense of them. Please encourage your child to try their best and not be afraid of making mistakes. There will be mistakes, and they are the beauty of the learning process.
We have been practicing and reciting conversations in class, and now it's the time to put the skills into practice. Over the next few days, your child will be introducing someone, anyone. Mention their name, birthday, and likes/dislikes of foods. That is it. Whatever extra you want to throw in there would be great, but it must have something to do with the person.
E-mail me the video clip by Friday, 3/28. You may choose to post it on your personal youtube page and send me the link IF you want the clip to be shared on the blog.
Get creative. The kids can even talk about someone whom he/she has never met (the president). Holding up a picture while filming would be a plus!
Here is a sample -
We have been practicing and reciting conversations in class, and now it's the time to put the skills into practice. Over the next few days, your child will be introducing someone, anyone. Mention their name, birthday, and likes/dislikes of foods. That is it. Whatever extra you want to throw in there would be great, but it must have something to do with the person.
E-mail me the video clip by Friday, 3/28. You may choose to post it on your personal youtube page and send me the link IF you want the clip to be shared on the blog.
Get creative. The kids can even talk about someone whom he/she has never met (the president). Holding up a picture while filming would be a plus!
Here is a sample -
他的名字是 ____________________. His/Her name is_______.
他的生日是_____________________. His/Her birthday is_________.
他喜歡吃____________________, He likes to eat_________.
他不喜歡吃_____________. He doesn't like to eat_______.
他不喜歡吃_____________. He doesn't like to eat_______.
PS. In Mandarin, he or she are both called ta (他/她).
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Week of March17-21, 2014
Culture plays a big chunk of the Dual Language Immersion Program. Today we watched a video clip on a travel documentary in Taiwan. We focused on three components - Scenery, Food, and Transportation. The children noticed the huge contrast between their environment and that of Taiwanese's. The mountains are very much like the Midwest of the US (although I have never been), but the markets are so different. I have attached the video so you can see it for yourself.
Below are some observations the children made ...
Notice the detailed picture of the market...
Monday, March 17, 2014
Friday, March 14, 2014
Week of March 10-14, 2014
Mandarin Journal has been coming home in the past two weeks and will continue to be sent home until the end of the school year. Students have been learning so many songs and poems, so it's only appropriate for them to read and sing to the words at home. This should be a fun activity to be enjoyed. Please encourage your child to share a new poem he or she has learned.
Good pre-reading skill - Point at each word as you read!
Good pre-reading skill - Point at each word as you read!
Writing - Like and Dislike of a certain weather
Class Picture
Mystery Reader with Rick Beato
Girls building a nest on this beautiful Friday!
Thanks Mrs. Boyanton for donating your time, energy, talent, and supplies for the project! Thanks Joe Lane for building the tables. Thank you for all the parents who donated the metersticks! Can't wait to see the final product!!
Monday, March 10, 2014
WATCH :: What's in Your Book Bag? ::
:::::::::::: I had fun creating this video, it goes with the flashcards from last week! ::::::::
Friday, March 7, 2014
Week of March 3-7, 2014
Flashcards should remain in your child's reading bag. I will be going through them and marking the ones they have mastered throughout the week.
NOT one, but two mini iPads were delivered this Wednesday! Thanks for the outpouring support from our parents! I was also so excited to purchase apps because of the iTunes credit donated. We immediately put them to use on Thursday. There are so many neat games that reinforce reading, writing, and math skills.
Dr.Seuss' birthday celebration was a success! We read several of Dr. Seuss' books and discussed what we noticed in his poem. We all made Horton's ears, which they were so proud of wearing. We then compared and contrasted the difference between a story and a poem and an English poem and a Chinese poem written by Li Bai .
From Wikipedia -
NOT one, but two mini iPads were delivered this Wednesday! Thanks for the outpouring support from our parents! I was also so excited to purchase apps because of the iTunes credit donated. We immediately put them to use on Thursday. There are so many neat games that reinforce reading, writing, and math skills.
Dr.Seuss' birthday celebration was a success! We read several of Dr. Seuss' books and discussed what we noticed in his poem. We all made Horton's ears, which they were so proud of wearing. We then compared and contrasted the difference between a story and a poem and an English poem and a Chinese poem written by Li Bai .
From Wikipedia -
Li Bai (701[1]–762), also known as Li Po, was a Chinese poet acclaimed from his own day to the present as a genius and romantic figure who took traditional poetic forms to new heights. He and his friend Du Fu (712–770) were the two most prominent figures in the flourishing of Chinese poetry in the mid-Tang Dynasty that is often called the "Golden Age of China".
Around a thousand poems attributed to him are extant, thirty-four in the canonical 18th-century anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems. The poems were models for celebrating the pleasures of friendship, the depth of nature, solitude, and the joys of drinking wine. Among the most famous are "Waking from Drunkenness on a Spring Day", "The Hard Road to Shu", and "Quiet Night Thought", which appears frequently in school texts in China today. Legend holds that Li drowned when he reached from his boat to grasp the moon’s reflection in the river.
In your child's Mandarin journal, you will find the poem "Jin Ye Si 靜夜思" by Li Bai. It's a beautifully written poem and you can even sing it. Below is the clip. And for your own entertainment, you may watch the other one that is more suitable for adults.
Below is a glimpse of what we were working on all week. Story problems were introduced this week...the children read the problems, drew pictures, jot down facts, and got it all done!
Top left - Math Story Problems
Top right - Cutting out poem for the journal
Bottom left - Writing
Bottom right - Math Story Problem
Top left - Writing
Top right - Poem on the fan
Bottom left - New carpool practice
Bottom right - Hortons working on writing
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