I am awesome!

Not me. That's the book we've been working with this week, as we continue to learn vocabulary about ourselves. We've been talking about how to be nice to others and how to make friends as well. So if you're looking for some dinner conversation, ask them what it means to be a good friend, what it means to be a good student, and why would want to be either.

We took our September math benchmark tests today, so I have a much better picture of where each student is and will start to differentiate more accordingly.

Thank you so much to the parents who have volunteered this week! Thanks in particular to Maddison Watt's lovely mother who is typing up the directory for us. We get that copied and sent home to you sometime next week.

This is a great group of kids, and they all seem to be getting along very well. We're having lots of fun and learning so much every day!

Also, this is a great website for parents interested in learning Chinese

http://chinesepod.com/

Who are you?

This first month has been/is focused on learning about ourself and each other.

So we're working with names this week. Asking what their names are, answering, counting letters in names, graphing them, and so on.

Also

"How old are you?". "Ni ji sui?"

"I am _____ years old." "Wo ____ sui."

"I am awesome!" "Wo hao bang!"

SEP's and volunteers

It was wonderful to meet so many of you! I'm so excited your children are part of this great program. It has been so fun so far, and they are soaking up the language.

Many mentioned interest in volunteering. I would love to get a directory put together, if there is anyone available to help with that, I can send home the forms I've collected and you can volunteer from home.

Also, I would love help Monday- Thursday 9:15-10:15 for my morning class and 12:35-1:45 for my afternoon class.

Please email me at bchipman@graniteschools.org if you are interested.

Post labor day labor

We're back! And this short week we are continuing to talk about our family, our names, love, and number concepts. Benchmark tests for reading took place last week and are finishing up this week, and math tests will be next week.

This week's homework was sent home with my morning class, and will be sent home with my afternoon class tomorrow (we had an assembly at the end of school today). See Mrs. Cretsinger's folder for new reading slips.

Math concepts this week are

being able to write numbers 1-10 correctly

associating number symbol with amounts

one more and one less

adding groups of objects together

counting out loud to 20

what an addition sentence looks like (symbols for add, equals, subtract)

story problems

ABB patterns

Math

Great week so far. We're starting to do some simple assessments for math so I know where everyone is. We are working with language to introduce ourselves and our family, such as "This is my father/mother/little sister etc." and "My name is".

I will teach all the math in chinese, but any English words that are necessary (such as months, money names, greater than/less than) will be reinforced by Mrs. Cretsinger.

Here is a website with some online practice for different math concepts that might be a fun way to review with your child at home throughout the year.

http://www.ixl.com/math/grade/first/

Links

Great to meet you all at back to school night! Here are a few links that we talked about.

Also, if you could send a small, store bought snack with your child every so often throughout the year (enough for 26), there would be many happy six year olds when snack time rolls around at 10:30.

Online resources

www.betterchinese.com is the site and company our Chinese literacy program comes from. They have some online stories and games in chinese for free, and you can see the little readers and workbooks we will be using.

http://www.archchinese.com/ is also a helpful site, for learning chracter strokes and pronunciation

http://chinasprout.com/ has some chinese books/movies cd's available

http://www.asianparent.com/ has some great products available for beginning chinese students

http://www.confucius.utah.edu/ confucius institute at the U of U

http://www.chinese4kids.net/ has some fun vocabulary lists, activities, and songs

Here is a link to the granite peaks class for adults beginning chinese:http://www.granitepeaks.org

Click on the lingt link to the right to try out this week's assignment!

Welcome!

A new year has begun!!

And I am so excited about the progress your children have already made! They are doing a fantastic job, and their hard work is paying off.

This week we have been reviewing things learned at Startalk ( numbers, colors, family members, greetings, basic commands) as well as working on how to be polite in Chinese. We will be using a series of readers from BetterChinese.com throughout the year, and have begun work on the first two.

Your child should know/be working on:

Hello!

How are you?

I am well!

Thank you

You're welcome

I'm sorry.

It's alright.

Awesome!

Come with me

Goodbye.

You're child might also be incredibly tired each day when they get home. Their brains have been working harder than most six year olds' :)

Ask your child to tell you what our classroom rules are (They are the same for both mine and Mrs. Cretsinger). And then give them a hug and tell them they are wonderful for trying so hard and doing so well with Chinese.