Week of September 15-19, 2014

:: Project Alert :: A home project will be assigned at the end of this month or early October, get ready! You and your child will dine at an authentic Chinese restaurant while your child converse with the waiters/waitresses. To make the project more worthwhile, we will be practicing basic greetings and ways to order water and tea. The feedbacks from last year's families were positive, so I am excited to hear what's in store this year! 

Writing - The children continued working on an Opinion Piece. They copied the statement and illustrated. Next week, we will be brainstorming on why readers should eat certain vegetables or fruits. You will find their writing in English to be similar, that is because the teachers collaborate frequently to ensure understanding. 

Reading - It is important that your child is familiar with the Routine Phrases in their journal by now. I will continue to assess and provide one-on-one support during center. 

Math - Please review numbers in Mandarin (1 to 10) with your child. Encourage him to count objects (cars sitting in traffic, trees, crackers...etc) in Mandarin and perhaps even make words out of pretzel sticks. 

And as always, pack water bottle and fresh fruit/veggie daily! :)  

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

              

WATCH :: What's in Your Book Bag? ::

:::::::::::: I had fun creating this video, it goes with the flashcards from last week! ::::::::

Week of November 11-15, 2013

THANK YOU PARENTS FOR SUCCESSFULLY FUNDED OUR FIRST DONORS CHOOSE PROJECT WITHIN 2 DAYS! YOU ALL ROCK! 

Friendly Reminder
*Fresh Fruit Snacks and Water Bottle in Your Child's Backpack Daily!
*Please Label Coats and Jackets!

 Aside from all the excitement from Fun Run, we had a lot accomplished this week. The children are now asking and responding birthdays with accuracy. Since questions do not begin with the typical "What, When, How, Where, Why", Mandarin beginning learners do take awhile to get accustomed to. Thanks to all who have completed and sent in the flash cards in the reading bag. We identified the words during Poetry Reading, and played games during teacher directed literacy centers. I am amazed by how quickly the children catch on and how much fun we had "playing"!

In Math we continued to learn different ways of making a number and solving word problems by manipulating objects. The kids all enjoyed solving problems on the individual dry erase boards as well as the paper Aja Mann donated! It is interesting to see how some kids decided it was okay to write a number sentence with Chinese characters. Ha! They make my day!

As part of the immersion experience, I introduced my favorite song writer / singer Jay Chou to the children this week. Here is the song "Listen to Mom's Words" I played for the kids. They begged for more...I promise you, I am going to sob when they learn to rap in Mandarin. Oh my!

 

My Husband Came to help with Math :)

 

Puppet Show

 

Semi-Concrete Problem Solving

 

The Poem We are Reading and all...