The Krause Early Elementary School
Chinese Your Kindergarten
A Forest of Family Trees
Dear parents, This Friday has only been the 19th day of school and I am amazed by how much progress the children have made in the Chinese classroom. Listening: An increasing number of routine languages is used. Some of the examples are Next, we are going to listen to a story., Next we are going to do a worksheet., First trace it, then write it yourself., Please x it (your handwriting)., Today xx is the little helper. Please pick a child to go to the ofce and help me get the mail., Do you understand?, Do you have any questions?, Is it right?, Please color the paper with crayon, etc. In addition to the routine languages, I start to use incidental Chinese whenever I can. By incidental, I mean non-routine Chinese children are able to understand with the
help of visual aids, body languages, and hand gestures. Speaking: We start this week by making a presentation of the completed homework of family tree. Thanks to the help of parents, most children have the opportunity to introduce their family members to the class. Each time, two children
Page 1
The Krause Early Elementary School
Chinese Your Kindergarten
pair up to present, one asking the question Who is this? and the other one answering This is (my) mother... It is really satisfying to see the little ones talk to each other in simple Chinese. The words of family members we learnt last week are reviewed and practiced. To practice saying This is ..., we made a book of Class Cartoons with childrens pictures. A new dialogue How old are you? I am ve/six years old. is taught as part of making selfintroduction. We also learn a new song called Looking for a Friend. Reading: On the basis of knowing the Chinese characters from 1-10, we learn to recognize Chinese characters from 11 to 20. At the same time, we learn directionality by telling the difference from 12 ( ) to 20 (). I also make a calendar of Little Helper with childrens names in Chinese. By immersing them in the written language, they will be able to recognize each others names without direct teaching. Writing: The last two basic strokes of Chinese characters, namely hook stroke and curvy stroke, are introduced this week (last week, we learnt rising stroke instead of hook stroke). My categorization of the eight basic strokes is slightly different from the traditional one in that the traditional one doesnt include the curvy stroke and the turning stroke is decomposed as vertical stroke and horizontal stroke. When children nish their snacks or worksheets earlier, they are encouraged to write Chinese characters on the white board and I am surprised to nd that some of them are
How old are you? I am five years old.
learning to write Chinese characters from 1 to 10 by themselves. Math: As you can imagine we learn to count from 31 to 40 this week and it turns out to
be easy for children. Some children already gure out the pattern of counting and we even try to count from 1 to 100 (I only help with 100 because it is different) and children are proud of their accomplishment. We also learn to say the days of week by learning a nursery rhyme. To nd video and audio materials of this week on our website, please click resources, websites, quizlet for sentence (dialogue #6) and nursery rhyme (#1) and click resources, songs for the song. Finally, I would like to say xie xie (thank you) to parents who lled out the volunteering forms. A calendar will be put together in October to suit your schedule.
Page 2
