This was the last week of our Mandarin class for 2010. We talked about the weather, the holidays, and on the last day, we had a puppet end of school year party in the class.

They’ve been introduced many different types of weather over the year. You may ask your children at home during the holidays, ask them about the rain, sun, snow, wind, fog, cloud, or maybe if you are lucky to see a rainbow (maybe double rainbow?).

They were also introduced an important traditional holiday in China, winter solstice, called “冬至（dong1 zhi4)”. Here is some information you can read about this holiday if you’d like.

Origin of the Winter Solstice

In ancient China, the Winter Solstice was a very important festival, which has been dated back to over two thousand years ago. From the time of the Yin Dynasty, and through the Zhou and Qin Dynasties, the Winter Solstice was regarded as the first day of the New Year. In the Han dynasty, the Winter Solstice was referred to as the “Winter Festival.” Government officers would hold a ceremony called the “Winter Celebration,” which was considered an official holiday. The Post Hanshu wrote, “At the Winter Solstice, people calm down and relax. Government offices are closed and officers are off from work. They will choose a good time to look back on themselves.” On that day everyone from royal families to government officers stopped working and the army stood down. On the borders all gates were closed, and businesses were closed. Family and friends exchanged good food, and visited each other. Everyone spent the day in a relaxed and happy manner. After the Song dynasty, the Winter Solstice became a day for remembering ancestors, on which people would salute their parents and other elderly people, and the emperor would go to the suburb and hold a big ceremony to worship the heavens. The Winter Solstice was once referred as the “Quasi New Year”. In the book Records of Qingjia, it read, “Winter Solstice was as important as the New Year”, and it was called “Winter Solstice Festival”. This showed how important Winter Solstice was to ancient people. People believed that the Winter Solstice was the natural result of interactions between Yin and Yang, and it was a good blessing from heaven.

Folklore about Winter Solstice

Henan province, people eat Chinese dumplings on the Winter Solstice. They call it “frozen ears” because the shape of the dumpling was similar to human ear. Where did this custom come from? It was said that Zhang Zhongjing, a miracle doctor whose patients called him a saint, lived and worked in the city of Changsha as a government official. When it was time to retire, he went back to live at his hometown of Nanyang. He arrived back in Nanyang in the wintertime. It was freezing, with heavy snow and strong winds. He saw many poor people, who had little clothing to keep warm, with frostbitten ears. Zhang was saddened when he saw this. He asked his students to set up a tent near the east gate of Nanyang and put mutton, chili peppers, and some herbs that could dispel the cold Qi, together in a pot and boiled them. The cooked medication was then chopped into pieces, and wrapped into ear-shaped dumplings with flour sheets, then boiled in the pot again. This food was named “coldness dispelling and frozen-ear healing soup.” After eating it, peoples’ frostbitten ears were healed. After that people made dumplings for the Winter Solstice and called them “frozen ears.” The Chinese people now call them Jiaozi. Others call it “flat food” or “boiled dumplings.” This tradition has been passed from generation to generation.

For our end of year party, all the students had a puppet to have a simple friends introduction and conversation in the class. We also played some new fun games. It’s a card guessing game called “what am I”. Every students had a card on their back, they asked other students about the shape, the color, the usage, to figure out what card they had on their back. Whoever found the right answer got a new one. I had some students ask me about 5 times in about 5 minutes, so fast! Here are some pictures from the party. Enjoy it~

I wish you all and your families will have a great holiday break . Thank you again for all your support. Happy 2011!

Hello everyone!

We had a wonderful end of the year party/class yesterday. Lots of parents were able to join us, including Duke’s grandma, Georgia. We had a fun Cranium-type game: niños v/s adultos. The teams took turns throwing a die. Each number on the die was a different task (charade, riddle, question, pictionary, 2 free points, and word formation). It was fun seeing everyone getting into character and participating actively. The cutest thing was seeing the faces of the kids rooting for their parents even though they were on the opposite team.

After everyone got a turn we proceeded to give out the awards. The best part was that the kids knew exactly who got each award when I said them. They were:

La más Considerada: Dolores

Mejor Hablante de español: Serafina

La más Entusiasta: Leah

Mejor Clavadista: Yoshi

Mejor Gimnasta: Sadie

Mejor Esfuerzo: Ella

Mejor Lectora: Piya

Mejor Artista: Evan

Mejor Cantante: Rashaad

Mejor Ayudante: Duke

Mejor Actitud: Emmett

Mejor Compañero: Jonathan

Since the kids had filled up their good behavior felt ball jar, at the end of the class, we stepped out to enjoy a picnic in the backyard with ice cream and hot chocolate. We took a group picture and before we knew it our time was over. Everyone got to take their work folders home.We missed Zaya and wish she had been there with us!

Needless to say, I have enjoyed spending time with your kids and seeing them evolve in their language ability and as children. I am looking forward to next semester but am happy to have two weeks off! 

Enjoy your holidays!

Merry Christmas! Happy Holiday!! I hope that you will have a greet holiday time. I will see you on Jan.

Hello. I am Daisy lao shi from i-Immersion. Welcome to Daisy Lao Shi Mandarin Class.  Fall Session class is be ending now. I excited winter/spring classes will be coming soon. We will have more fun on Jan-June. Let’s learning Mandarin with Daisy Lao Shi. We will learn about Community Helper theme. Topic is Cooker & Waiter, Performance& Enterainer, Farm, Policeman, Doctor and Family Member. When you enroll to Daisy Lao Shi Mandarin Class, I will send you about all session main vocabulary list. You can review at home with your baba(father) mama(morther) or your jiejie(older sister) or your gege(older brother). I hope you will enjoy with Daisy lao shi. We will learn more chinese songs and chinese stories together.

Thank you so much. And i will see you soon. Welcome to Daisy lao shi Mandarin class. I have class location where are White Oaks Elem, Arundel Elem, Center Middle School, Woodside Elem and San Mateo .

Hello parents!

We had a great week and I can’t believe the end of the semester is right around the corner.We started off talking about the weather and having to stay in the classroom due to rain. We spent our recess drawing and quietly speaking about the holidays. Some of the things the kids enjoyed the most were:

- Board Pictionary: the kids took turns drawing famous characters on the board for the rest of class to guess. They got a bit too excited at some point, for some reason they absolutely love doodling on the board and then erasing it. They got to show their artistic skills and practice patience (waiting for their turns to guess and/or draw).

- I also brought in a short video of a children’s band called Mazapán.I told the kids this is a Chilean band that started back when I was younger than them. For almost 30 years Mazapán has delighted Spanish speaking children from all over the continent and beyond with their sweet songs. They’re a group of very talented women. If you want to gift your child a good Spanish CD, I highly recommend this band. They have a song for everything. This particular one is about a small caterpillar who wished she could fly… and is able to do so later in her life. The kids watched the original video three times and then we had a trivia circle in which they got to answer questions related to the video (in full sentences). They did a great job. Here’s the video:

There’s a lot more of their stuff on YouTube (you can tell it’s the original if it has the TVN logo, of the tv channel they worked for, on the top right corner).

- We played vocabulary Bingo and the kids got to take the images from a bag and put them into a sentence in order for the rest of the group to see if the key word was in their bingo card. We had several sticker winners.

- We also read a few books. Ms. Piya brought Spanish is fun #2. This time I read it and they shouted out all the Spanish vocabulary as it came up. Even though it’s not a Spanish book throughout they love it. I made sure to use as much Spanish as possible by asking questions about the images they saw in the pages. ¿Tu mamá es una llama? (Is your mom a llama?) was another story they enjoyed, about a llama who asks all the other animals questions about their mom’s identity, and then guesses what animals they are.

Last but not least, I’d like to remind you we’re having an open class on Thursday 16th, from 2:30- 3:50. Feel free to come and join us and watch your children in Spanish action.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Hi Parents, How was your week? Here is an update from our Mandarin class this week.

This week is a fairytale reviewing and enrichment week.

We have reviewed three fairy tales with about 30 words and two new songs. We did role plays and many different kinds of games to practice all the vocabulary and phrases.

Here is the vocabulary list from the three fairy tales. (the number after the pinyin is the tone of that word)

-嫦娥奔月（chang2 er2 ben1 yue4)

嫦娥chang2 er2 (the lady living on the moon, hou yi’s wife)

后羿hou4 yi4 (the archer, chang er’s husband)

玉皇大帝yu4 huang2 da4 di4 (the jade emperor)

飞 fei1 (fly)

太阳tai4 yang2 (sun)

月亮yue4 liang4 (moon)

- 杰克和豆荚（Jack and the beanstalks)

卖mai4 (sell)

豆dou4 (bean)

魔法mo2 fa3 (magic)

城堡cheng4 bao3 (castle)

巨人ju4 ren2 (giant)

金母鸡jin1 mu3 ji1 (golden hen)

竖琴shu4 qin2 (harp)

斧头fu3 tou2 (axe)

-拇指姑娘 (Thumbelina)

大拇指da4 mu3 zhi3（thumb)

食指 shi2 zhi3 (index finger）

中指 zhong1 zhi3（middle finger)

无名指wu2 min2 zhi3 (ring finger)

小指xiao3 zhi3（pinky finger)

种子 zhong3 zi (seed)

花 hua1 (flower)

老鼠lao3shu3 (mouse)

鼹鼠yan4 shu3 (mole)

荷叶he2 ye4 (lotus leaf)

鱼yu2 (fish)

青蛙qing1 wa1 (frog)

金龟子jin1 gui1 zi3 (scarab)

蜜蜂mi4 feng1 (bee)

蜻蜓qing1 ting2 (dragonfly)

蝴蝶hu2 die2 (butterfly)

燕子yan4 zi (swallow)

They are all very classic fariy tales from Chinese and western culture. You can review with your child(ren) and have them tell you the story in Mandarin. Allow them to use some English since they are not very simple stories.

Also here are the two new songs we have learned in class, I hope you can enjoy it with your  child(ren) at home.

我们不怕大野狼（wo3 men2 bu2 pa4 da4 ye3 lang2)

我爱我的家（wo3 ai4 wo3 de jia1)

Have a good weekend, everyone

We were finally able to watch Dumbo this week! I had promised the kids I’d bring the movie and they were very excited. We watched it in two sessions, on Wednesday and Thursday along with Ms. LeAnna’s group. They really enjoyed the movie, some of them had never seen it before, and although they felt sad for the little hero at times, they watched this Spanish version with attention. Afterward, we talked about what parts they had liked the most, and what animals and circus numbers that we had discussed in class were present in the movie.

We also talked about the holidays and winter vacation. We spoke about how important love, family, and caring for each other is… and that this is a time of the year to keep this in mind. One of the crafts they enjoyed the most was coloring and putting together an Hombre de nieve, or Snowman. We designed the ropa and dressed him up with chaleco, corbata, bufanda, guantes, sombrero, etc. (sweater, tie, scarf, gloves, hat, etc). Once done, the kids showed their projects to the group telling them what their snowmen were wearing.

We also had our first group of kids with full good behavior sticker cards. The kids took them home and are waiting for a lovely day out with their parents, they deserve it!

Last but not least, I would like to invite you to come into our open house to enjoy Spanish class along with your kids. They have worked hard preparing something special for you. Please come by at 3:30 pm and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Enjoy your weekend!

Hi everyone, time runs fast, our class started in the summer, and after just a blink, winter is here already. It was very nice to meet with some of you, thank you for all your questions and suggestions. For those parents who want to set a meeting with me but didn’t have a chance to, as Ms. Catalina mentioned in the email, I’m free before 5:00pm on Monday (Dec. 6th), so let me know if you want to schedule a time with me. Alternatively, you can also email me if you have any questions about the class.

We will have a long break before next semester comes. To help them review what we have learned this semester, we used this entire week to review the 5 main topics they have been introduced to(not including the fairy tale theme). Below are the 5 main themes.

Farm (farm animals, plants and food)

House (parts of the house, rooms in the house, house items in each room)

Clothing (clothes for different parts of the body, clothes for each of the seasons, clothes for different situations)

Holidays (Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas)

Fairy tale (four fairy tales in Mandarin and key words from the story, 嫦娥奔月chang er ben yue, Jack and the Beanstalk,  Thumbelina, Pumpkin Soup)

I’m still working on organizing a vocabulary list for the 5 main topics. The words are related to our daily life and home environment, so you will be able to finds them and ask your child(ren) at home. It is very helpful to have them practice at home especially during the long holidays. You can point to the objects and have them tell you what is it in Mandarin or ask them a simple questions in English, and have them answer you in Mandarin. I understand most of you don’t speak Mandarin, but it’s good for them to at least try to speak it. This will cause them to think about some Mandarin words, it is also a good way to encourage them to speak Mandarin outside of class. Willingness to speak is more important than speaking it right or wrong at their level.

To download a PDF of phrases, you can visit our: At-Home Resources Page. I will organize and update more resources to this page as they become available, so check back often.

I hope this will help you in assisting your child(ren) with their Mandarin learning.

Have a great weekend and take care in the cold season.