Happy Birthday, Ding Ding!

We had a lot of fun throughout of the class. We learnt new words and phrases ‘sheng ri kuai le’ (happy birthday), ‘sheng ri dan gao’ (birthday cake) and ‘li wu’ (presents). Kayla, Kieran and Riley were very happy to repeat the three words on Ding Ding’s birthday. Oliver and Robert were younger than the others, but their eyes told me that they were carefully listening and absorbing. We also taught some animal names while playing with the animal puzzle, such as ‘zhu’ (pig) and ‘nai niu’ (cow). Girls, do you remember what you said? Yes, Riley said ‘tu zi’ (rabbit) and ‘ya zi’ (duck) and Kayla said ‘ma’ (horse).  Oh, Robert surprised me as he also said ‘ma’. Our little Oliver, thanks for your good sharing during the activity time.

Thanks to Ding Ding’s birthday, our class today seemed to be a ‘pai dui (party)’. We brought ‘sheng ri dan gao’ (birthday cake), ‘la zhu’ (candle) and ‘li wu’ (presents) to the class to better reinforce these words. I have to mention Madison although she was not in our Lion group. She tried to say long sentences today during snack time, such as ‘Ba ba ai chi pu tao, ma ma ai chi ju zi (daddy loves grape and mum loves mandarin)’. Later, Liye, Cartin, Marina and Kate were so influenced by the atmosphere today that they could not stop speaking out the words on flashcards. They were so good that I ran out of stickers right through the middle of the revision! We also learnt ‘diao yu (go fishing)’ and Marina took my turn to keep counting the numbers of her fish in Mandarin during the activity time. Liye said ‘shou si’ (sushi) when playing with the Japanese food toys. Kate, Cartin and Marina, thanks for understanding and accepting green and yellow paper for craft making after we ran out the pink ones!

Xie Xie, boys and girls!

Vicky

Saturday Craft Room Panda (Xiong Mao) Group session 1

Today we had Emily, Rohan and Sarah in our group. I think we had a wonderful class. The theme today was ‘birthday’. Although the words were new and some of them were long, the children all made their efforts to acquire them well. After the revision of the flash cards, I showed them the toy cake and asked ‘what is this’. Both Emily and Sarah answered ‘sheng ri dan gao’ perfectly. Good job! In the craft time we made birthday cards together. All of the children were very creative. They made lovely cards with various decorations.

Saturday Craft Room Panda (Xiong Mao) Group session 2

Natalie, Bella, Xiao Hui and Matthew joined our group today. What a lovely group we had!  We practiced the new words about birthday. Natalie and Matthew did a really good job by saying ‘li wu (present)’, ‘La zhu (candle)’ and ‘Sheng ri dan gao (birthday cake)’ correctly and clearly. Xiao Hui and Bella could also pronounce many of the new words. Excellent!  Children all found making birthday card very interesting. We even tried writing the characters ‘生日快乐（Sheng Ri Kuai Le, Happy birthday)’. Xiao hui especially enjoyed it a lot. With all the pictures and little stars, the cards we made were so nice and lovely.

Let’s all be Mandarin stars!

Xie Xie! See you next week!

AJ