Let it snow. And snow.

Hope you all have a safe and snowy break! We're excited for the winter party tomorrow morning.

Just so you and your kids are aware, we're going to be working towards a no english at all classroom in January. They, of course, will not be in trouble if they speak English. But as a class, we will be setting a goal to speak only Chinese when we come through that door. This will help their brains really see a need for listening and trying to communicate with their new words, and help them progress even further with the language.

Winter Celebration

Calling all parents interested in being involved with the Winter Party Dec 22nd. Mrs. Cretsinger and I will both be keeping our home rooms for the day, so if your child is in her class in the morning, please contact her.

If you are unable to come in and help, any treats or little holiday prizes would be great to just send to school with your child to share with the class that day. We have 26 students.

Also, and more importantly, I'm happy to report your students are amazing. Quite literally amazing every day. They are doing so well with the language. They get along with each other, watch out for each other, work hard, and are learning so much every day. I am proud of them. And so happy to get to spend all day with them. Thank you for letting me.

Which country are you from?

We've been talking about various countries and what people from those countries are called in Chinese. It has become clear that the the geographical sense of six and seven year olds is quite varied, often limited, and always amusing.

"Other countries? Yeah, I've been to another country. I went to twin falls once. And you wanna know what's crazy? They just speak like us there. They speak English!"

"Is China almost as big as Taylorsville?"

"My cousins are from another country. They are from West Jordan."

etc. etc.

We've been looking at maps, globes, flags, and pictures from other countries, and learning how to ask what country someone's from, and how to answer that we live in America.

In math, we're working with telling time to the hour, number combinations to ten, using tens and ones to show a number, and adding or taking away a ten from a double digit number.

So apparently personal blogs like mine are not allowed in China. Hence no updates on the trip. I'll try and put some pictures up soon though, along with a summary of the trip.

This week we are talking about what we like to eat, starting with fruits. Ask your child to name a few. We know

apple ping guo

pear li

banana xiang jiao

strawberry tsao mei

grapes pu tao

watermelon xi gua

We're also working with counting like coins. So first recognizing the coin and it's value, then knowing how to count by fives and tens.