Singing singing

We began rehearsing as a first grade for the sing along assembly come the end of December. We'll be singing one Christmas song and one Chinese song.

In class, we worked with "I'm hungry" ---so ask your child to tell you this in Chinese--- and with coins.  We're working with the concept of equivalent values (i.e. five pennies= how many nickels)

Homework sent home today includes one book, accompanying vocabulary (it should match with the book this week) , and  math sheet. We'll be tracking who turns in their folders, so be sure to send the book and math back by Friday.

Last day of November

Words for the week:

饿  e (pronounced “uh”)  hungry

里面   li mian   inside

找  zhao find

给   gei  (pronounced “gay”) to give

还 hai (pronounced “hi”) still

 

Sentences:

Wo e le! 我饿了 (I’m hungry)

Gei wo yi ge 给我一个 (Give me one)

Hai you hen duo 还有很多 (There’s still a lot)

* no writing  on this week’s quiz

 

Hope all enjoyed the Thanksgiving break. As you can see, words this week have to do with food and eating. So ask you child how to say dinner foods, ask for things to eat, or say they want to eat certain things.

In math we'll be working a lot with money and subtraction.

Gan en jie kuai le!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Here's some important Thanksgiving words:

Happy Thanksgiving= Gan en jie  kuai le!

Turkey= huo ji

Eat= chi (pronounced chrrr)

full= chi bao le

gratitude= gan en

thank you= xie xie

And more SEP's

So good to meet with you all and set some goals for your children. If you think of anything after you go that you'd like us to work on, let us know.

We love having your children and are trying our very best to help them feel loved, safe, excited to learn, and start to develop some habits that will help them as they begin their journey as students.

Thank you for all you do!

SEP's

Reminder that SEP's are Monday and Tuesday. The schedule, based on those who returned the sign up sheet, will be sent home tomorrow. If you don't have a time yet or need to change your time, please call the office to schedule. 385-646-5020

Our school community

Our focus this week is on our school community and how we care about all the people at school. If you have time, talk to your child about the different people at school and how we show respect for them. Ask them what makes someone a good friend, and how they can be a good friend, classmate, and student.

学校 xue xiao School

老师 lao shi  teacher

关心 guan xin  care about

同学  tong xue  classmate

校长  xiao zhang  principal

很多 hen duo a lot, many

吗 ma? question particle. Placed at the end of a sentence to denote a question

The schedule for SEP conferences went home yesterday. They will be assigned on a first returned basis. Pleas list at least three times, and we'll try our best to get everyone schedules at a time that works best for them. 

The final schedule will be sent home Thursday.

"Spelling" test day

Improvement was made!

Everyone did much better with recognizing the characters. And the feedback I've heard so far is that sending home flash cards would be helpful. So I'll try and get those copied to send home Monday or Tuesday.

I am starting to notice how much more they're understanding and starting to speak. It is so exciting! What an amazing program to be  part of.

Remember the quiz!

Just a reminder to help your child review for the quiz tomorrow! And to help them remember to cover their mouths when they sneeze or cough:)

11/11

We worked more with the vocabulary words and stories today, and introduced some basic fruits.

Cao mei= strawberry

ping guo= apple

pu tao= grape

http://www.chinese4kids.net/34.php

Remember to help your child review the week's words. And on that note, I was wondering if the flashcards sent home were useful and if those are something you would like for the words every week. Comment/email me and let me know.

What do you want to drink?

Ni yao he shenme?

We talked about drinks and what we want to drink. So help your child practice saying what they want to and don't want to do. "Wo yao" and "Wo bu yao"

Another item of business I feel is pretty important is something I learned at a district meeting for dual immersion teachers recently. Until then, I had been under the impression that the kids were not even to know that I can speak English, as had many others. But at the conference we were told that notion is both incorrect and unnecessary.  The children can and should know I speak it, but that I won't speak it during instruction time because them learning Chinese is that important.

They can know I am bi-lingual and that's what they are becoming too.

So let your child know that if they have a real problem or need to talk to me about something, that is alright. I will still not be using any English in giving instruction. But if they need to talk to me after class or have an emergency, I am aloud to speak with them. And to speak with parents who come in to volunteer.

Also, here's a site with some songs, books, and leveled readers you can print out and keep at home if you want some extra practice.

http://www.chinese4kids.net/reading.php 

Wentis =Questions

      First, an answer to some questions.

      The readers that are going home... 

I’m sending two readers home each Monday, the Monday following the week we’ve been practicing those same readers in class all week. So your child should be able to read most of the characters they see and have an idea of what they mean. If, however, they need additional help, these books are recorded on the lingt website page by page for them to read along with (so you don’t have to worry about teaching them incorrect pronunciation). The vocabulary is from the readers we are currently working on in class that week. There will be some words recycled, but don’t worry if the words coming home seem to not match the readers at home. They don’t.  I’m staggering it this way so they will get lots of repetition of the same phrases. It should also help them to already feel comfortable with the readers coming home while at the same time be aware of the vocabulary most useful to them in understanding what we’re doing in class that week.

  Each book has a translation of the story in English on the front inside cover, as well as key definitions on the back. The back will define only new words, so words they have had in previous books may not be there. You may notice some small writing below a few characters. This will also only appear under new characters.   

Some have asked about buying this series of books. You do not need to buy them. I am not suggesting you need to. But if you want to, below is Susan's contact information.

Susan Gong
K-12 Linkage Coordinator
BYU Chinese Flagship Center
3067 JFSB
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
801.422.3968
susan_gong@byu.edu

Again, I strongly encourage you to look at our lingt classroom with your child. Don't feel like you need to teach them Chinese or read these books to them. It's all there. And it helps me so much to hear their recordings of them saying these words and phrases.

If there are any questions about this, please comment below. And thank you for your patience with everything. Being the pilot year of the program, we didn't have everything figured out right at the beginning.  We are learning as we go. As I get the materials, I'm implementing them. But I really honestly do value and need your feedback on what you like, what's working, and what is confusing/frustrating so I can change and improve.

Thanks so much!

La musica

There are many things quite obviously different when comparing eastern and western cultures. But similarities are there to be found. And were found. Today. As we compared one aspect of these two cultures: music.

After our character quiz (which will be modified for next week----it was a little too hard I think) we looked at  a few paintings with Mrs. Hirschi and talked about what the paintings can tell us about the artist, the people being painted, or the place and lifestyle being represented. 

We then looked at and listened to both a violin and an erhu (a chinese violin-esque instrument) and talked about what we saw and heard that was similar as well as any differences noticed.

After talking about how art, be it music or painting, can make us feel a certain way or help us remember something, each child got a piece of paper and represented in drawing and pasting shapes what the music made them feel. They came up with some incredible art!

Here are the words for next week. Please make flashcards, use the lingt website, or come up with your own way to try and help your child review these characters. There were some confused little faces today as they were asked to identify correct characters. 

要  yao       want

水  shui      water

早上 zao shang    morning

太阳 tai yang      sun

去 qu     go

天  tian    day

什么 shenme  what ？

I'll do a better job in the classroom this week helping the practice how the quiz will work and playing games where they have to recognize the characters, so hopefully this next weeks they will get the characters down.

Brush brush brush!

Today's topic: teeth+ subtraction = loosing teeth, a topic first graders are all too familiar with. We read a book today about little brother brushing his teeth and used the tooth loosing process as an opportunity to learn about subtraction.

Hence the mouths you saw come home with removable teeth.

The words for the week and both books are now up on the lingt website to practice.

Keep helping your child practice and review them.

Also one quick comment. There are a few definitions in the back of the book that are incorrect.

In There are people here, 个 does not mean "after". It is a classifier word, like "pair" of shoes or "loaf" of bread. Chinese has many many  classifiers, "ge" being the most generic and frequently used. It's what we use when talking about people. Ex. Yi ge ren =one person.

 人 means people/person, not also.

November begins!

You should have received a note and two readers today. Please look at the back side of the note, where you will find this week's vocabulary. As explained in the note, your child will be working with these words this week and have a quiz on them Friday.  Please help them review and recognize these characters, sounds, and meanings.

Also, encourage your child to read these books to you, their siblings, grandparents, or even stuffed animals or toys. The more opportunity they have to say these words and feel confidant doing so, the faster they will feel comfortable speaking and reading other phrases and moving around in the language as well. 

The back page of each reader has a list of the words used with English definitions. I will record each book on the link to language site so your child can read along and practice.

Here's a list of the words.

刷 牙 shua ya        brush teeth

起床 qi chuang      get up/out of bed

吃饭  chi fan          eat

以前   yi qian         before

数       shu             count

只有     zhi you       only

太       tai               too

朋友    pengyou     friend

And a copy of the not in case it didn't make it to you.

Dear Parents

          Great news! The leveled readers from the BYU Chinese Flagship program have arrived. These books have been specifically written to teach the Utah first grade core along with appropriately difficult and useful Chinese.  We have enough to let each child take these books home weekly. Please take good care of and use them as much as possible. Send them back to school every Friday with homework.

          From now on, our Chinese curriculum will be a combination of these books and the Better Chinese program (from which all students now have workbooks).

           Every Monday I will send home a list of the words we’ll be using in these stories. These words will also be recorded on the lingt website so you can hear and practice them. Every Friday we will have a quiz on these words. Except for the two on the list that are bold, it will be recognition only (they do not need to know how to write them all, but to be able to circle them or connect them to a matching picture) .  They will be asked to write only the two in bold.

           Please email or comment on the blog if you have any questions.

 Thanks!! (xie xie)

Mrs. Chipman