The Krause Early Elementary School

Chinese Your Kindergarten

Dear parents, The new year is coming! Another one? Yes, the Chinese New Year. The Chinese New Year is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. In China, it is known as "Spring Festival," and indicates the celebration of the coming spring season. Listening: Five stories with the theme of animal or body parts were told this week.

Speaking: We just started to say tomorrow and noon from this week, and most children still felt more comfortable to share things happened in the past. In order to create more opportunities for kids to communicate in Chinese, some kids who learnt faster were chosen to be the little teacher to lead the whole class when we read the Chinese Zodiac book. Also, the little helper of each day acted as the teacher to pick up children when they need to take turns to do something by saying: Those who wear blue (or other colors) clothes, please... Thanks to your help with our homework, we were able to read the book of The 12 Animal Signs. New words of body parts

were introduced this week. Surprisingly, I found the revised song of Head, shoulders, knees and toes was very helpful for kids to remember the words. With some input of these words in various forms in the past few months, children in fact were able to sing the song from the second day of learning it. Again, they taught me a good lesson. Inspired by their progress,

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The Krause Early Elementary School

Chinese Your Kindergarten

I started to say the lyrics with them so that they knew the pronunciations in oral language. Reading: We kept practicing reading the names of the twelve animal signs. In one activity, children looked at the words on the elmo and acted as the animals. In another game, one child performed the words he or she read and other children guessed it in Chinese. It turned out that I didnt help any child to put characters on the Chinese zodiac wheel we made and all of them did it 100% correctly either independently or with a little help from their classmates. What an achievement they made. Our center time also reected our new learnings. Math: We practiced the ABBA pattern this week. Chinese culture: On the basis of knowing the animal names, we practiced putting the twelve animal signs into order according to their places in the 12-year cycle. In addition, we learned about paper cutting, a traditional form of art that emerged from 6th BC. Although paper cutting is popular around the globe, only the Chinese paper cutting was listed in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists. We watched a video on some skillful paper cutters at work and the rich variety of paper cuttings, appreciated a delicate paper cut about Chinese zodiac I brought from China and nally decided to make our own. Materials: To nd words of body parts, please go to list #13 in the subject of word on quizlet.com. The
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sections of songs, books and nursery rhymes on our website have also been updated. Homework: As some of you may have noticed, children brought in their homework this Tuesday and Wednesday. Up till today, 80% of last weeks homework (AM & PM class) was completed and returned to me. As an encouragement, I promised children to give each of them a little present if they can achieve a 100% completion of homework. This weeks homework is to put the animal signs into order. Please refer to the instruction on the paper inclosed. Next weeks schedule: Monday is teachers in-service day, so no school for children. Thursday is a half day for PM kindergarteners. My PM class attends in the morning and will be dismissed around 12:06 p.m. Chinese New Year Party: Next Friday, we are going to have a Chinese New Year party. At the party, we will make and eat dumplings, the must-eat food on the New Years Eve. Please have your child wear red tops. It lasts from 9:30 to 11:00 for AM class and 2:00 to 3:15 for PM class. You are warmly welcomed to join us. All you have to do is to ll out the invitation letter and return it in you childs folder so that I can prepare chairs for you. Happy weekend and stay warm!