Week of October 27-31, 2014

Peace week was successful! Students were introduced to the meaning of bullying, heathy eating, and the importance of good reading habits. Asides from all the exciting programs, we continued on retelling in reading, learning to introduce self (name, age, favorite fruit, number of siblings), and comparing two/three dimensional shapes.

Shape book should remain in your child's reading bag. Please practice reading nightly. The video is posted HERE.

Parent teacher conference is coming up between 11/3-11/10. Click HERE if you are unsure of the time you signed up for. Be sure to arrive 10 minutes early as we are running a very tight schedule.  MAP test scores and portfolio will be shared during that time.

Book Character Day Class Picture

Book Characters

Mystery Reader

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...

Mountains after Mountains, Taxis after Taxis...

 Night Market

              

Week of January 8-10, 2014

CHECK OUT these two websites for lots of great resources for parents whose children are in Mandarin Immersion Programs.

Mandarin Parents Immersion Council

Yellow Bridge 

And you all probably have heard, we are required to speak to friends and Mandarin teachers in Mandarin ONLY (some obvious exceptions, of course!) starting this past Wednesday! All the cool kids are doing it at G.L.O.B.E.! Being the one to break the wonderful news to the French kids, I was able to make them feel how amazing their journey will be. I moved to Atlanta when I was 18 years old and did not have the option to not speak English. The key to be fluent in speaking any language is to...SPEAK IT! Some weeks kids only have two out of seven days to speak Mandarin
(hopefully all day), and that is just 16 hours a week. I am so proud of how much progress the kids (and I) are already making.  It might be a little quiet at times now, but not for long..hopefully!! 

In another news, we received our Better Chinese curriculum in Traditional Chinese this week. The students were engaged during guided reading group lessons and I was thrilled at the moments they click between the spoken and written language. It is truly magical! 

Below are pictures of student work and a short video...

 Building Animals Using Squares

 Counting the Squares and Writing them down in Mandarin

Ajay as Our Mystery Reader! Thank you, Ajay! 

Happy (almost) Hump Day!

To celebrate a new laptop donated by the Rhame Family Foundation (thanks Amy!), I am posting few pictures from class. I also want you to know I am in the process of burning CDs, but would like a volunteer who is able to "burn" them all for the class. Who is in?(Thank you C's Mommy!) I will hand you a copy and you will burn the rest, 43 of them of course. I have the sleeves (Thanks Jen and SuoHsien!)

Important Dates -

Thursday, 9/19/13 |Curriculum Night| 5:00-6:00
Friday, 9/20/13 | Mandarin Parents Night Out |Amy's|
Saturday, 9/29/13 |Welcome to GLOBE| 

                                                       Blocks - Putting Numbers in Order

Independent Reading

Singing Familiar Mandarin Songs

This One Translates to "I am Special!"

Thank You M's Mommy for the Spice Racks, R's Dad for the Leaf, and for A's Dad for hanging all of them up!

Thank You M's Mommy for the Wires!

Mandarin Number Wall

Very Red :)