Zachary, Jade, Katie and Adrian were in our Monkey group in the first session today. We learned about ‘birthday’ and had fun playing with Ding Ding’s ‘dan gao’ (cakes), ‘la zhu’ ‘candles’ and ‘li wu’ (presents). All the children could say the new words we taught today pretty well. Katie brought her birthday photos to the group so we had a chance to learn the new words while looking at the pictures. I showed the photos to the group and said: ‘Look, here’s Katie’s sheng ri dan gao (birthday cake)’ and Jade and Katie could repeat it after me. We made birthday cards during craft time, all the children drew on the cards and stuck stars on them. I told Zachary to say ‘lan se’ (blue) when he picked up a blue star and he copied it very clearly. When I was writing their names on the cards, Adrian showed me he could do it himself – he even followed me write the Chinese characters ‘生日快乐’ (sheng ri kuai le, happy birthday) on the card! Katie wrote her name and the characters, too. That was brilliant!

In the second session we had Jayden, Holly, Cassy, Tori and Cai in the Monkey group. I find all of them extremely motivated Mandarin Learners. Jayden sat beside me in the class, and I could see him listening to us carefully and hear that his pronounciation was very good with accurate tones. When we were reviewing the new words we learned today, the children in our group just couldn’t wait to say the words out loud and get their stickers! Cai, Cassy and Holly even remembered some of the words without me telling them. When Cai tried to count her stickers, I counted with her in Mandarin and she could say all the numbers correctly without any help. During the craft time, the children made birthday cards and drew on them. It was a great chance to reinforce the words of the colours, and the children could repeat most of the words after me. Speaking of colours, Tori walked to me during snack time, holding her plate and fork, and said ‘Look, I’ve got fen hong se (pink) plate and fen hong se fork!’
Awesome!

Xie xie and see you next week!

Monica

Week 9: Friday, Saturday Craft Room General Overview

It was the birthday of our lovely panda Ding Ding this week and we had a great ‘pai dui’ (party) for him! We brought to the class presents, hats, and cakes with candles. We first taught the children to say ‘Sheng ri kuai le’ (happy birthday) and words including ‘sheng rid an gao’ (birthday cake) and ‘la zhu’ (candles) etc, and then everybody put on their hats and celebrated Ding Ding’s birthday together. I heard Leah humming the song throughout the class, that was lovely!

We made birthday cards for craft this week. Everyone did great and exerted their imagination to decorate the cards with stars and beautiful drawings, well done!

See you next week!

Xie Xie!

Colleen