|WATCH| Reading Body Parts Book in Mandarin

Have you wondered how students take off to read...in MANDARIN? My kindergarten students have been with me for two and half months, but they began to build sight words starting day one. The theme of the month is Body Parts, and some students are really taking ownership of the words and their meanings. Watch how two friends read the book by matching the words to the pictures and using one to one correspondence skills.

Welcome to the GLOBE Academy!

Ni Hao Mandarin Kindergarten Families!

Welcome to Kindergarten at The GLOBE Academy! My name is Vivian Liu, and I will be your child’s Lead Mandarin Speaking Kindergarten teacher.  I know starting a brand new school can be nerve wrecking, but hopefully this letter answers many of your questions.

A little about me

I was raised in Taiwan and came to Atlanta for college when I was eighteen. My passion for teaching started young, as both of my parents and sister are educators. After receiving my degree from Georgia State University, I taught first and second grades in Gwinnet County Public Schools. Being able to teach has been great, but being able to feel rewarded, inspired, and valued at GLOBE is something else. The freedom to be creative and immediately watch the children sprout has made my career more purposeful.  Watching five and six year olds pick up a foreign language and converse with it is not something you see at a traditional school everyday.  When I am not at work, I enjoy spending time with family, cooking vegan dishes, and traveling. 

What does a Mandarin Immersion Classroom look like?

Your child will be immersed in Mandarin across all content area as well as art, music, culture, and many more. Beginning the first day of school, students will learn routines and “survival” words in Mandarin.  There will be lots of opportunities for your child to learn the skills by acting out, drawing, pointing, and sharing.  The first few weeks could be interesting for your child and he might show anxiety towards a new language. Please know that it is totally normal.  Most language learners go through the silent stages and it can vary how long it will take for them to start imitating or responding. 

My Teaching Philosophy

I have taught in a variety of classroom settings throughout my nine years of teaching.  It is my belief that all students are capable of achieving at different rates. While some may be extremely verbal, she may require extra support in another area.  Identifying the strengths and weakness in students is most helpful for students’ overall success.

Homework Assignment and Communication

To learn and master a new skill, repetition is essential. Although we will not be sending home busy work, you will assist your child in creating some of the homework assignments. These assignments will be announced on the newsletter as well as the blog.  Many of the assignments involve speaking in front of a camera or teaching a family member new words or phrases learned in class.  If you have any questions regarding assignments or events, please check the newsletter or blog (globemandarin.blogspot.com) on a weekly basis. I can also be reached via email at vliu@theglobeacademy.net .

Sincerely,

Vivian Liu

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 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 - 

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

When is Your Birthday?

(((Important!))) If you have sent me your video but do not see them here...it's because it's not uploaded to YouTube. I had first started to upload the first few videos (sent to me as a movie clip) to YouTube with permission myself, but it was very time consuming. So please please upload the video, forward me the link, and make sure it's not set to private! Thanks so much!! 

I really enjoy the intimacy of these videos. Thank you for taking time and effort into the assignment. I hope you all had a restful and fantastic Thanksgiving break!


PS) Please email me the link to your Youtube video..for some reason the .mov ones won't play on here.