To continue last week’s good experience in using flash cards to teach Chinese words about some popular food and drink in both Chinese and American cultures, this week, I had children to learn more words about food in the categories of fruit, meat and vegetable with the help of visual tools like pictures and plastic food models. We made our fruit baskets and BBQ grill to celebrate this bi-week theme of food!

As I mentioned in the blog last week, children all did a good job in coloring some Chinese words of fruits with an appropriate color. To enforce the memory of those words, I found a picture of collection of fruits that covers those fruits we learned, and have children pick out the fruits they actually learned, cut them off from the collection, and glue each of them to the corresponding Chinese words. Children were enjoying creaking their own flash cards and collecting them in a “fruit basket”-a simple and handy one made of coffee filters. I like seeing them accomplishing things and taking “fruits” back home from my class. It was such a pleasure when one of the children told me he would like to keep it at home until his younger brother grow up and can also use his fruit basket to learn Mandarin! How sweet is that! ^_^

Learning Chinese words for meat and vegetable taker longer time and greater effort. Glad I was still able to find nice pictures of collection of meat and vegetable to assist children in learning those words as well as a checklist of those words with Pinyin. After practice reading those words, to make a collage of the words in a visual way, I had children pick out vegetable and meat they would like to grill in barbeque, cut them off the collection, and glue them onto a “griller” on the worksheet. Some students are very smart to also cut off the Chinese words with Pinyin on the checklist and glue them above the corresponding picture. This would for sure help them recall the Chinese words faster when they are “barbequing”. It inspired me as well~

We had two new students trying our Mandarin class the past Thursday. They had almost no prior knowledge of Mandarin. Though I was happy they found their place playing and learning in the class quickly. Those cute plastic fruits and vegetable models got them all excited and tried hard to recall words they learned. I even had two little teachers to help them do coloring of the fruits worksheet.

This is a second “fruitful”, “nutritious” and “delicious” week for our food lovers. I wish you all enjoy the spring break ahead of us and hopefully your children will pop out some Chinese words of food they are eating outside the class.

Keep an eye on our Flashcards online learning program. See you after the spring break!

Cheers!

 Greetings New Tradition Parents,

                I hope that everyone is enjoying the beginning of their spring break and staying dry! This week we continued expanding on our formal greetings and the children made several flashcards which they were able to take home for additional practice. As we continue with our curriculum, we will always reinforce our formal greetings and how to engage in a basic conversation. We have been singing the days of the week song that is very popular among all the children (domingo, lunes…martes, miercoles.. jueves, viernes, sabado…..domingo, lunes, martes, miercoles… jueves, viernes, sabado   to the “Clementine” tune) but have also refined our knowledge of the days of the week with several worksheets.  We will also continue to discuss the days of the week and the months of the year once we return from spring break.

                 In addition to greetings and the days of the week, we also started learning about how to identify members of our families (padre, madre, hermano, hermana, abuelo, abuela, tio, y tia). To reinforce this, the children drew a picture of their family (familia) and labeled the drawing accordingly. While we were busy drawing our families, we listened to the song “La Tia Monica” which the children thoroughly enjoyed! We also continued to talk about action words and started incorporating feelings (me siento enojado=mad, cansado=tired, triste=sad, feliz=happy, enfermo=sick, apenado=embarassed). The song “Vamos a Jugar” taught us all a very important lesson about how to overcome feelings such as being enojado, cansado, y apenado by putting on a sonriza (smile) and being feliz!  The song, “Una Jirafa Resfriada” was about a giraffe with a cold (resfriado) that had to have lots of rest in order to feel better. I couldn’t help but notice how well all of the children respond to music and because of this, I will continue to bring in much more music for us all to enjoy!

                 Furthermore, we had a few behavioral issues from select individuals last friday (a lot of this could be attributed to the poor weather, teacher conferences, and being couped up in the library) so we had to reinforce the school rules a few times and take a few timeouts.  However, this week, the class seemed to make a huge improvement and each student acted in a safe, respectful, and responsible manner. I reminded the class that in order to make the most of our time together, we need to respect each other so that we can learn as much as possible, and also have lots of fun doing so. When we return from spring break, we will continue on with the months of the year, the face/body, food, and common classroom and household objects. That is all for now, and I wish you all a safe and eventful spring break!

- Ms. Joanna

Hello parents,

This week we had fun celebrating Spring.We talked about the seasons and the type of weather we enjoy. On Monday we went outside to observe the arrival of spring, looking for flowers and other signs.

We also talked about bugs. We had several fun activities in which the kids learned names for creatures we see in the spring. We made our own flashcards and then played “Guess Who?” by taping them on our backs and walking around the classroom asking each other questions in order to get clues on which one it was that was sticking on to us. On Wednesday we used our recess to make bugs out of scrap materials. The outcome was awesome. We used them yesterday to talk some more. The kids pulled questions out of a bag that they answered in order to introduce the bugs to the rest of the class. We talked about bugs we had eaten and how some cultures eat lots of bugs.

Yesterday, we also talked about what we would do (or would like to do) during our break. The kids drew pictures in their notebooks and then wrote a sentence or two describing what they had drawn. I took some time to show the kids a few pictures of my time in Thailand, especially the ones in which we were  eating bugs. It gave us good material for conversation.

We read “Oh Happy day”, a very simple story of animals in the forest who are excited about the first flower growing in the snow and the arrival of spring. The book has pictures and a sentence (In English) on each page. Instead of having me translate the story, which is what I usually do, I had the kids read it to me. They were able to read the entire book with minimal help. It was super cool.

Enjoy your Spring break!, it looks like it’ll start nice and sunny.

Hello parents,

The topic for this week was “Las partes de la casa/ Parts of the house”. From Monday to Thursday we learned about the main areas of the house like:

Kitchen: Cocina

Living room: Sala

Bedroom: Dormitorio

Dinning room: Comedor

Garden: Jardin

Garage: Garaje

But we learned not just about spaces, but also about the sort of stuff that we use to have in that areas: like different furnitures names and supplies:

En la sala/ in the living room: silla (chair), sofa, mesa (table), lampara (lamp), tapete (rug), cuadro(picture).

En la cocina/in the kitchen: estufa (stove), refrigerador (fridge), olla (pans), mesas, estante (shelf), cuchara (spoon), plato (plate), tenedor (fork), cuchillo (knife), vaso (glass), horno (stove), lampara.

En el dormitorio/in the bedroom: cama (bed), armario (closet), cobija (blanket), almohada (pillow).

En el bano/in the bathroom: ducha (shower), cepillo de dientes (toothbrush), tina (bathtub), toalla (towel), crema de dientes (toothpaste), sanitario (toilet).

We studied this vocabulary through games like: inventing stories using flash cards, “la papa caliente”, memory games, bingo and different art activities.

On Tuesday we joined the Kindergarten students and saw a movie about Dora the explorer in Spanish and then we asked random questions to the kids. And today we had a little party with music  and we played “musical chairs”! that was so much fun!!…and at the end of the class I gave the rewards for the week.

I really encourage you parents to practice this vocabulary with your children  at home. Ask them questions like :

 What’s the nane of..? / como se llama..

How many/much___?: Cuantos, Cuantas…..

Where is/are___? Donde esta/estan….

What color is/are____? De que color es/son….

If you combine all these new vocabulary words with what we learned last week: parts of the body and the family, for sure you’ll have a lot of to talk about!

To finish two VERY important things:

1)  I have been very patient with some kids this two weeks, but beginning on our next class if I have to give three warnings for inappropriate behavior they’ll be given a TIME OUT  and have to go to Ms. Catalina, Ms Yang or Ms LeAnna’s class and stay there for a while in a separate table. The reason is that the attention level has been decreasing and some of the kids who usually follow instructions are imitating the ones who are disturbing the class.

2) Pleasedo not forget to bring the homework on Monday and the folders.  Just a couple kids have being completing the assignments on a regular basis.  So, please be sure your child has the homework  every Monday.

I hope all of you have a wonderful week off!

Johana.

Hello parents!

As you all know, this week the school held parent/teacher meetings so our regular classes had to be modified. Due to rain, space in the cafeteria and the library was tight and we shared it with the other classes. So, the week was dedicated more to fun games and crafts and less to new vocabulary.

We made two Saint Patrick’s Day crafts: a mobile and a streamer. The kids were very excited and enjoyed making something that came completely out of their own imagination. Their designs were colorful and great.

The kids loved the vocabulary games I brought. We played vocabulary Roshambo, vocabulary connect four, unscramble, and guess the characters by using their answers. These are all speaking games in which the objective is to collect the most cards, connect four squares, unscramble words and place them strategically on a board, and ask questions about someone by looking at a page with hobbies and yes and no answers. The kids played in pairs or groups and really enjoyed them. I will definitely be bringing them back to class.

We read Mr. Carey’s Garden, a story about a man with a garden infested by snails. He decides not to kill them because he loves looking at the silvers trails and the moon shining through the bite marks.

Enjoy your weekend!

Hello parents!

This week  we had a lot of fun: 

We played  “La papa caliente”  or “Hot Potato”we had a beans bag that kids had to pass around and the one to have it in their hands when the song ended, had to say a song or a sentence using the verb, object or flash card I pick up. they’re very good in this game and they enjoy it a lot…especially on Thursdays!…because this is the day when I bring some reward for them: today all of them got little animals because they did it very well.

Monday and Tuesday was a little bit difficult for them because of the weather, so we had to remain  indoors the entire time and that was VERY challenging for everyone…they were anxious and it was tough to keep them focused…but we did it! yeah!!

I would ask you dear parents to check in detail what your children did this week:

Monday March 14th:
- Game: “La papa caliente” (I already explained it…I decided to repeated many times because they really love it and actually is very good because they can practice using all the vocabulary they have learned in a funny way).

- Art project: “Un hermoso portarretrato/ A beautiful portrait”: using paper plates, colored paper, crayons and markers, we drew our family members and pets on the plate and decorated it with creative paper figures.

- Game: “El telefono roto/The Broken Telephone”:  I told them secretly some sentences and they tried to tell the message  to their classmates…at  almost every phrase was accurately communicate…great job kids!!

- We read the book: “El carnaval de Clifford”

Tuesday March 15th:

Game: children colored their own BINGO sheet to participate in the game. The theme was Body Parts.

Game: “Telefono roto” again.

Game: “Dimelo pintando” This game is similar to pictionary in reverse: I told each one a sentence and they had to draw what  they understood on the board. They really liked it!

- We read the book : “ El patito feo”

Wednesday March 16th:

- We started the class with a song and then we moved to the art activity: “Haciendo nuestra propia granja de animales/Making our own animal farm”. We used colored paper, markers, straws and much imagination!…the result: 11 happykids very engaged with the activity and they wanted to make something else: what about flowers for my mom? yes, we made them. Using paper and straws, children made a bouquet for mom.

Because they were very focused, cooperative and obedient, they receive a reward: a “You are a winner/Eres un ganador” card with their names.

Book that we read: “Un dia de nieve”.

Thursday, March 17th:

- Our art project today was “Una tarjeta para mis padres/ A card for my parents” : they used colored paper and  foam to make different cards. They decorated them as well with frost and crayons.

-  Then we played many rounds of  “La papa caliente/ the hot potato”. And I have to say that I was very happy because almost all the kids already can combine and artculate some verbs, animal names, adjetives  and places in the sentences. Of course their phrases are simple, but that show me that they’re getting the vocabulary and are showing basic grammatical improvements.

As you can see, this week was mainly for art and games  due to the circumstances you already know: we did not have classrooms to do our regular classes. So we had to be very creative to keep them  happy while learning.

I sent the homework today about The  Family Tree. Please help your children complete it and assist your children if they have any question (The sheet  combines English and Spanish).

Have a wonderful weekend!

This week, we are not able to use classrooms because of the parents-teacher meeting to deliver instruction in a comfortable environment. Though we still did our best to make the best of space in the library and cafeteria to have meaningful and fun class. This week is about food and drink. ^_^

We have a deck of flash cards of food and drink with colorful pictures of yummy food, Chinese characters and Pinyin on the front under the picture and English names on the back. This is a vivid way for the children to learn Chinese words of food and drink both visual and audio assistant at the same time. Each of them get a few chances to show the cards at hand, read them to the whole class and listen and learn from classmates. In order to implement those words into real-life usage, I divided those flash cards into categories of drink, courses and dessert, then developed a worksheet of a basic but handy conversation between a waiter/waitress and a customer set in a restaurant. Through this conversation, children are expected to get familiar with how to interact and communicate in the restaurant to order food/take orders. I am glad half of them already complete the worksheet with the flash cards under my instruction.

Besides, we did two fun coloring this week, one of them is for St. Patrick’s Day. Children are encouraged to draw pictures of green stuff they know, such as grass, leaves, apples and even green tea ice cream! Go Green~ The other coloring sheet is part of the topic of food. This sheet includes Chinese words of some popular fruits in large font size. Children are supposed to identify the fruits corresponding to the Chinese words and color the words in the color of that particular fruit. I am glad to see almost all the children are passionate in it and share crayons and color pens. They also do their best to write down the English names of the fruit, circle their favorite fruit(s) on the list and draw a little picture of the fruit. Guess what, we were offered apples and water melons after the class in the cafeteria by a school staff. Children 喜欢水果 (like fruits)！

I will enter the words and conversation we learned this week into the online Chinese learning program. I already got a positive feedback from one of the children and he likes it! I hope this would be helpful for our parents to stimulate their children to practice and review the Mandarin Chinese they learned in the week and maintain their interest in Chinese outside the classroom.

我们爱食物 We love food! 我们爱国语 We love Mandarin！

Xiexie~

03/14/11

To say the least, this week has been chaotic as we have been booted around like nomads from the cafeteria, to outside (if no rain), maybe to a classroom, and finally the library.  I think the kids did a wonderful job at being flexible and adjusting to the new spaces and schedule. As a whole, the McKinley MALIP teachers handled this week with grace and ease.

Monday was chaos but we managed to play games while in the cafeteria such as goldfish. We practiced the same vocabulary from last week, el cuerpo (the body) with emphasis on less known words such as el tobillo (ankle) y el talon (heel). After we got kicked out of the cafeteria, we went into the library and did drawings, along with review of weather terms and emotions with the felt board. We were able to have time to read The Little Red Hen in Spanish.

Tuesday we were in the cafeteria for an hour and then transfered into the library. In the cafeteria we did our Good morning song, played Luz roja, luz verde in silence (brillant idea). We played Simon dice and then migrated to the library. There we had space to do puppet time as we reviewed shapes and figures, as well as our new worksheet. This worksheet had a picture of the face and the child had to label the body part correctly. I was soooo happy to see them writing in and repeating the letters in Spanish (too cute).  I am very happy to see that development.

Wednesday there was little rain so we played outside for 30 minutes then went into the cafeteria. We sang our favorite chu chu wa song, then played a new game with shapes. I placed scarves around the space and the child had to put the shape on the correct scarf while they were blindfolded. It was an opportunity to practice dirrections. I would ask another child which dirrection they should go:

Cual dirreccion?
They would have to reply with a dirrecion:

adelante- forward
atras-         back
izquierda- left
derrecha- right
derrecho- straight
  
Then I would ask how many steps.
Cuanto pasos?
Each child had a turn to be blindfolded and lead. I hope to continue with this game.
We later went to the library where we did another worksheet on the leg, la pierna. They did a wonderful job following dirrections and writing in Spanish.

We had beautiful weather and were able to play outside for 30 mins before going into the cafeteria. There we sang our buenos dias song, our chu chu wa song, cabeza hombros rodillas y pies, which I am proud to say that many of the children our leading the songs! We then played a game where I passed out cards with letters of the alphabet. The children put them in order and we were able to practice the alphabet in Spanish- what a miracle! After recess, we proceeded to the library where we did our final worksheet on the body that featured the arm and hand.

ATTENTION PARENTS:

I sent home homework in their folders today. They are to bring it back on Monday. It is simple and it relates to the feelings. The translations for homework is a previous blog (under feelings).  Please have them bring their folders on Monday!

Thanks for reading!

Best regards,

LeAnna Sharp

Good afternoon New Tradition parents,

I’m so pleased to inform you that we have been making much progress as a class. This week we began to explore shapes, colors, and feelings, as well as a review of what we learned last week (numbers, alphabet, and action words). Along with reviewing numbers, we have also continued to integrate numbers into the activities we have done this week. I’ve noticed that the children really enjoy counting in Spanish and I encourage them to try and count as high as possible! Try asking your child to count to at least 20 (or higher) and see if they can at least tell you the multiples of each number thereafter (30, 40, 50, 100, etc); just for fun of course.

On Monday we began to explore basic shapes such as un circulo, quadrado, rectangulo, triangulo, estrella, and corazon ( circle, square, rectangle, triangle, star, and heart, respectively). Along with the basic shapes, we also started talking about colors. Many (but not all) of the children already knew the primary colors (azul=blue, rojo=red, amarillo=yellow) so we focused more attention towards learning the secondary colors (morado = purple, verde= green, and naranja= orange, rosa= pink) along with negro (black) and gris (gray).  Playing Simon dice (simon says) on the colored mat proved to be a great way to practice identifying colors combined with our action words (saltar en= jump en verde, brincar=hop en naranja, caminar=walk en morado, etc.) At the conclusion of the class, the children would draw a picture containing the specific number of shapes and in the specific color indicated (ie tres corazones en rojo y dos estrellas en amarillo).

On friday we will begin to elaborate on feelings and how to describe how we feel in a particular situation. We will try phrases such as me siento bien (I feel good), me siento mal (I feel bad), me siento enfermo(a) (I feel sick), me siento feliz (I feel happy), me siento enojado(a) (I feel mad), y me siento cansado(o) (I feel tired), tengo frio (I’m cold), and estoy caliente (I’m hot). Try asking your child about the colors of their surroundings (que color es eso), ask how many of a particular thing are present (quantos son), and also try and ask them what types of shapes are present ( eso es un circulo, es un triangulo, es una estrella, etc.). My basic goal for the next coming weeks is for the children to be able to describe their environment, expresss their feelings, and describe their actions. I hope you have a wonderful week and Happy St.Patrick’s Day!

-Ms. Joanna

Hello parents,

I would like to start this post by welcoming Amaya, a new student in our group now we have an even number of kids!

This week we finished the body theme and talking about doctors.On Monday and Tuesday we worked in TPR (total physical response games). We tossed bean bags with different parts of the body, something the kids got a laugh of. It was especially difficult to do it with our noses and ears. We also played a telephone game in which a message was passed down a line for the last one in the group to charade what the message was. We need to work on whispering, the kids got a bit excited and forgot that the message should be passed in a low voice. I think I’ll use this game again next week outside and have them do an obstacle course to pass the message.

We also played Spoken Memory in which the kids look for pairs (one word, one image, on body parts) by telling the group what they have and what they need. They also enjoyed the alphabet letter flyswatter game. At first they were hesitant since they thought a alphabet game was too childish. I really wanted them to practice letters because they tend to get some of them mixed up (e and i, for example, the name of one in English is the others’ name in Spanish). The kids were split into two groups, each of them with a swatter. I laid down the letters of the alphabet and told the kids they were flies. We talked about flies and decided that we don’t like them in our food. I then told them I would tell a story, every time they heard the name of an animal, clothes, food, or body parts, they would have to swat the corresponding fly (letter). They loved it! We did another reading/ spelling activity in groups in which the kids had to unscramble letters and then spell them on a board (similar to scrabble) in order to get points. They really got into this one.

On Wednesday and Thursday the kids had a substitute teacher who took over the class with fun games. They worked on physical descriptions with Adivina quién (Guess who, another version) and participated in full body dexterity team work games, in which they had to take a ball from one point to another with a certain part of the body, ie: lleven la pelota con las rodillas, take the ball with your knees. The kids had to then use their knees and their partner’s knees to take the ball without having it fall and/or using their hands. Another fun game they loved was animal bingo, in which they had to draw vocabulary words out of a bag and use them the context of a sentence in order to tell the rest of the group what vocabulary they needed to mark on their bingo boards.

The kids also had a chance to write a poem about senses and spring, which is right around the corner. They had to fill in five sentences with things they can feel, hear, smell, taste, and see during spring. Afterward, they had time to draw a picture to go with it and share them with the group.

Next week during the teacher/parent meetings we will be doing fun games summarizing what we’ve learned this semester so far. I have sent out an email letting you all know what our schedule will be if you need to pick up your child early. Feel free to email back with any questions.

Enjoy your weekend!