Baby, It's Cold Outside

So please send your children in enough clothing to make playing outside in the snow during recess a pleasant experience.

Today we learned how to say

Snow _______________ xue

It's snowing! ____________ xia xue le

Snow ball ______________ xue qiu

Snow man _______________ xue ren

I know that xue is close to meaningless to you as far as letting you know what sound to make. When you see an x, you make a sh sound. So the word xue is similar to a "Shhhh" smashed into the front of "weigh". We will keep practicing and hopefully your kids can just teach you how to say it correctly.

In math, we are working more with subtraction. Ask your child to tell you how to say "add", "minus" and "equals" in Chinese. We are also talking about tens and ones. So you can quiz your child by giving them a double digit number and asking how many tens and ones are in that number. We've been using blocks and drawing it, so asking them to draw a number using tens and ones would also be a great review.

Reminder that there is no school Friday.

Red Ribbon Week

There will be no homework to turn in this week. Reading slips and a schedule for what to wear each day for red ribbon week were sent home with my morning class.

It would be a great time to talk with your kids about why they would want to choose to be drug free and the importance of correct choices.

We'll be learning vocabulary for how to talk about the life cycle of a pumpkin as well as an introduction to the house and rooms of the house.

Please keep reviewing:

Month and season order

Money names and values

我爱我的家 I love my family

Loved seeing many of you at the carnival. Halloween doesn't get much better than being six years old.

Tomorrow I will be at a conference for Dual Immersion teachers. Mrs. Wu will be teaching, and they will be making a book about family members. We have been working on how to write the characters for different members of the family this week.

Below is a clip from Chinese4kids.net of a family tree using chinese characters, beginning with grandparents on either side. Father is on the left, mother on the right. The character at the top is "Jia" which can mean both family or home.

This coming week is a short week, with no school on Friday. We will be working on vocabulary for the rooms and things in our houses.

*Something cool: If you eat at Panda express Friday, Oct 22, 20% of the proceeds will go to our school.

Fun with shapes

Here are a few pictures from an activity we did with shapes. Review with your child how to say the names of different shapes in Chinese and English.

In Chinese they know:

• Circle yuan xing or yuan quan
• Square zheng fang xing
• Rectangle chang fang xing
• Triangle san jiao xing
• Star xing xing

In English they should also know:

rhombus, oval, trapezoid

It's that special time of year...

When the leaves are gorgeous, the temperatures ideal, and everyone's sharing germs. I've been sick all weekend and wasn't there today. I'm not sure how many of your kids have been sick yet, but we'll keep reminding them to wash and sanitize while they're at school. If you can also remind them about covering mouths when sneezing and coughing, and washing hands, hopefully we can keep those germs to ourselves. Also, please don't send your child to school sick. It's much better for everyone if they can stay home and recover fully and come back when they are healthy again.

My sub (my Chinese speaking aid Mrs. Wu) told me only my morning class was given the homework. So the rest will get it tomorrow.

Quick reminder about the completely optional and very fun PTA Halloween Carnival after school this Thursday, October 21st.

Picture Day tomorrow!

Just a reminder of the big day tomorrow. And since this week is short week, try to have the homework back by Wednesday. It shouldn't be too challenging of stuff, but good practice.

Many are still having a very hard time recognizing coins. Continue to review names and values with your kids when you get a chance.

We're working on "What's in the backpack?" this week, so vocabulary for school things.

You child should already know

pencil

backpack

white board

book

and we're working on

paper

notebook

eraser

pen

scissors

Months and Money

Please continue to review the months of the year and seasons with your child so they can be comfortable with the order. Also, naming the coins and knowing the value is something they could all use extra practice with. Ask your child to tell you how to say the months in Chinese or to sing the month song for you.

reminder: Picture day will be Tuesday, October 12. There will be no school Thursday, October 14, and Friday, October 15.

National Walk to School Day

Just a reminder about tomorrow, Wednesday, October 6th. Our school has been selected as the national elementary school for media coverage of the celebration. All students (for whom it is safe and reasonable) are encouraged to walk to school.

There will be bagels and prizes and visits from many important people.

ALSO: I know the instructions for the Chinese side of the homework got cut off. Sorry! I explained what to do to the kids, but have this strange feeling they may not entirely remember... They are supposed to write the English name for the month underneath the Chinese name for it.

October is upon us

This coming week we will be working with two books; The balloon flies away, which reviews colors, and What's in the backpack?, which teaches vocabulary for things we use at school. Most are already quite comfortable saying the colors, so this week the focus will be on recognizing the characters for the different colors. On Friday we will be making a book they can take home and read to you about the different colors.

In math we will continue work with graphing, money, and ordering months as well as addition strategies and practice. Distinguishing between a nickel and a quarter seems to be quite the challenge for many. Please help them see the ways to tell them apart, and practice quizing them on money names and values.

For science we will be learning about what things fly and why.