M is for miàn 面

We had a fun lesson today learning about noodle, which was first invented by Chinese. Who is the first inventor of noodle is debatable until National Geographic concluded when a 4,000-year-old bowl of noodles unearthed in China. Noodles are an important ingredient and staple in Chinese food. My family loves noodle. I showed them different types of noodle we eat in my family, rice noodle, wheat noodle, sweet potato noodle, etc.

 

An award-winning documentary, A Bite of China, came out this year on the history of food, eating and cooking in China. This documentary is very popular in China and has also been actively encouraged as a means of introducing Chinese culture to foreigners. I showed part of the documentary (from 24:00) about how noodle is made. Everyone was fascinated by how the noodle master turns a dough into noodles. They laughed out at how people use bamboo to press down the dough. 

Kids always enjoy food they make by themselves. So we made noodle from the stratch! I brought a noodle maker from China and you can find one here too. My mom helped me prepare some dough. We put some water into flour and make it a dough. Use the rolling pin to roll the dough into a rectangular shape. Then cut the rectangular into several smaller rectangulars ready for the noodle maker.

Kids took turn to put the rectangular dough sheets into the noodle maker to make them thinner. You can adjust how thin you want. Then they put the thin sheet into the cutter of the noodle maker. There are three sizes they can choose. They love the smallest size. Look at the noodle we made!

It's time to cook them! We boiled water first and then put noodle into the boiled water. When they are done, take the noodle into a big bowl and put flavours. We put sesame oil, soy sauce, salt, sugar, beef and small green onion. Easy, healthy and yummy! Everyone wanted more!

My birthplace - Fuzhou 福州

Today's class brings back a lot of my memory about the city where I spent four years in college. Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian Province, also the closest city to Taiwan in mainland China. Ben grew up in Fuzhou and joined his family in FL until he was two. He brought a lot of photos, where I had been to, like the temple by my college, garden, and even the city tree, banyan. But they think banyan tree is ugly with the roots growing from the branch.

 

We talked about the location, population, city flower, tree, and the food. None of them ever eat the fish ball before, which is the most population street food in Fuzhou. Fish ball can be found in Chinese grocery stores here. The main source of Chinese restaurant or grocery employees in the United States is actually a small town near Fuzhou. When I eat out in a Chinese restaurant, I can hear those familiar Fuzhou dialect. 

We made a banyan tree out of the paper lunch bag. I get the idea from here. It's not easy to twist the paper bag. But they did well and put on the green tissue paper.

I haven't been back to Fuzhou since I graduated from Fuzhou university 14 years ago. Looking at those pictures from Fuzhou, I can imagine the huge changes the city is going through. I wish I can go back this summer to visit my college friends and probably share with them about my wonderful kids from China.

L is for lóng 龙

My kids are familiar with the role of dragon in Chinese culture. But few know how the animal was created. I love this book called Legend of the Chinese Dragon, written in both English and Chinese. The book is illustrated with woodcuts executed in black and bright primary colors. Elegant calligraphy runs down the pages and seals of Chinese characters of different animal names are designed by the calligrapher. The story describes the role of the dragon as a symbol of peace and hope for an end to war, something quite different from the fire-breathing myth in western culture. Tired of seeing their land ravaged by war, the Chinese children decided to create an animal that would combine the attributes of many creatures and protect all the people, no matter what tribe. They called their creation, "which could fly in the air, swim in the ocean, and walk on land," a dragon, and it inspired their parents to make peace. There are many legends about how a dragon was created and I am not sure about the source of this one. But I love this one because chidren are heroes in this story.

We watched the short video about dragon. They all know two important festivals in China, when we celebrate with dragon dance and dragon boat racing. I showed them a performance of 2012 Asian dragon dance champion by a  highschool team from Taiwan. There were fasicnated by different tricks they did. They love the music of dragon dance by drums and cymbals. 

I love this week's craft. Two classes of kids traced their hands and cut them out to make a dragon! Their hands are small, so we made a lot of them to form a dragon. Look at these colorful hands! They are from my precious children of China!

K is for kǒng zǐ 孔子

I didn't expect a lesson about Confucius full of laughters and questions! I had thought it's hard for them to understand because it's the curriculum for midlle or high school kids. 

I started the class by asking if anyone heard of Confucius. Believe it or not, in China, not many kids know who he is and what Confucius teaches and his book Analects is not popular in China at all. Then one girl answered, "Is he one of the presidents of China?" OK, need to show them something. I took out a fortune cookie, cracked it and read a fortune. Then I told them most of these sayings are from Confucius, who is a great thinker, politician and teacher from 2,500 years ago. Then I was bombarded with questions with shocked look.

"You mean a person from 2,500 years ago actually wrote these fortune?"

"So these sentences are actually truth instead of our luck?"

"How can a person from centuries ago know what would happen to us?" 

"Is he as nice as Mrs. XX?"

I showed them this short video and read some of Confucius' sayings. Another animation of Life of Confucius really helps them to know more about his life, from when he was born to his death. 

Then I asked them to give others good advice, just like what Confucius did and they came up with many good ones.

 "Do not give up. Work at your best."

"Be happy everyday. Play everyday!"

"Never be selfish to others. If you do, someone does that back to you."

"Be nice to dogs."

"Think good."

I have brilliant kids! These advice are so helpful, even for adults, aren't they?
We then made some paper fortune cookies and put Confucius' saying into it.

What a fun class we had today! Confucius would probably laugh out loud to find that snippets of his wisdom are stuffed into fortune cookies, which were invented in America and have never been popular in China.

What I learned today? No matter how hard the concept might look, as long as we can find something in life that kids can relate to, it can be an informative and fun lesson!

Book 1: I love my family 我爱我的家

We started the first book of Betterchinese: I love my family. I love this book because it is very repetitive. Kids learn how to say I love mom, dad, elder brother & sister, younger brother & sister in Chinese. I use gesture to teach each word. Hope kids can go home and show parents these gestures and learn together! I played this song and let them find out some words you might understand. It's a hard song, but it repeats I love my family a lot. 

We did a craft. I did this with my students before on Mother's day. Here is the my son's prototype of the craft:

We cut out a heart shape with Chinese character Mom in the middle. Then put sequins on the character. Last, we put the heart on another piece of paper, which says I love my mom on the top. 

But the craft wasn't a success. Those pieces keep sticking to the fingers and are hard for most of them to put on. I kept thinking that night after the class how my kids did it before. Then oops! I did it with Q-tip and liquid glue, instead of glue stick and fingers. My fault!
Lesson I learned on the first day of Chinese language class:

Little one probably need to do different crafts.
I need to explain everything well, otherwise it's too overwhelming.

Try to stay with target language as possible as I can. Use a lot of gestures and comprehensible input.

BetterChinese Mandarin-immersion class!

I am so excited I started Better Chinese language class, thanks to the parents who see the benefits of learning a second language at young age and are willing to commit time. I believe learning a second language helps increasing listening ability, memory, creativity and critical thinking. Cultural awareness and appreciation prepare kids to understand how to work with a diverse work force in the future. For heritage speakers, like most of my students, learning one's heritage languages fosters a sense of self-concept and pride.
My vision for a second language class is by immersion. My Mandarin-immersion class will be an engaging and dynamic experience for young learners. Using a full immersion model, Mandarin Chinese and culture is taught through Chinese songs, rhymes, finger play, puppetry, games, movement and crafts.

Curriculum

Better Chinese

My First Chinese Words series is for PK3-Grade 2 students with no prior exposure to Chinese. This set of 36 size-appropriate storybooks is designed with the idea that young children learn best when the information given is relevant to their everyday lives, which makes learning fun and exciting.

Additional resources

The online learning of Better Chinese is also available by subscription.

My other recommendation is the DVD series called Muzzy. It is great for all ages and includes supplementary materials to reinforce what is taught in the DVD.

Ipad Apps

There are also quite a few iPad Apps developed for learning Chinese. We will try some in class.

Do your homework

Classroom rules

Sit properly

Quiet hand or Wo Lai (means I'll try)

Classroom mascot 
Meet our classroom mascot Panda Pangpang (means chubby in Chinese). Pangpang speaks only Chinese in class! After we learn a book, children can sit on a super reader Pangpang chair to read out loud the story book in Chinese! Later Pangpang will travel with children to their homes.

Classwork & Homework

My First Chinese Words Workbook 
Activity and writing sheet
Listening to the CD and read out loud the book every day!

J is for jiā 家 (2)

This week, I am thinking of a craft kids can put on the Christmas tree or send to friends and it also shows how much they love their family. I decided to do some easy weaving with kids. But it turned out not so easy. I cut out some white cardboard paper into round shape and small cuts along the circle. Show them the pattern of weaving and the order. They all started quite right, but got lost in the middle when strings started to overlap. Weaving takes patience. We put a family photo on one side and wrote Chinese character Jia on the other.

The other class did a pop-up Christmas tree card. These kids are creative. I cut out some colorful dots and used them to decorate the card. But they decided to put those on top of the tree and they decorated the tree with stars. We put family photo on the card and wrote Jia Ren (家人), which means people in the family.

Chinese song: Thank you!

Time to learn a Chinese song saying thank you to parents and friends! We sing this song with Chinese sign language.

xiè       xiè      nǐ

谢       谢       你

zài       kāi      xīn    shí     nǐ      qīn    qīn    wǒ ，

在       开       心       时       你       亲       亲       我，

(When I'm happy, you kiss me.)
zài       shāng            xīn     shí     nǐ       hǒng  hǒng             wǒ ，

在       伤                   心       时       你       哄       哄       我，

(When I'm sad, you comfort me.)
zài       shēng            qì      shí     nǐ      shuō shuō   wǒ  ，

在       生       气       时       你       说       说       我 ，

(When I'm mad, you talk to me.)
zài       hài     pà      shí      nǐ      bào     bào     wǒ 。

在       害       怕       时       你       抱       抱       我。

(When I'm scared, you hug me.)
xiè       xiè      nǐ ， bà      bà      mā      mā  。

谢       谢       你， 爸         爸       妈       妈 。

(Thank you, dad and mom.)
xiè       xiè      nǐ       de       ài 。

谢       谢       你       的       爱。

(Thank you for your love.)

xiè       xiè       nǐ        péng yǒu ，

谢       谢       你 ，朋         友，

(Thank you, friends.)
xiè       xiè       nǐ       de      guān huái 。
谢       谢       你       的       关       怀。

                                               (Thank you for your caring.)

J is for jiā 家

It's good timing to talk about family value, which is an impartant part of Chinese culture. Although western culture is incorporated into Chinese lifestyles everyday, while some of core traditional Chinese beliefs are still maintained. Family value is one of them. 

When I told my kids in many Chinese families, especially in the rural area, grandparents live with their children and grandchildren, they thought that is a good idea. I told them my mom just came to visit us from China and would stay with us for six months. One boy exclaimed, "That is half of a year?" They thought it is way too long! :)

I actualy felt hesitated before I decided to tell them about one-child policy. When I asked my husband the other day if I need to talk about this. He said, "Why not? You can't just talk about everything good, but ignore those which are true but controversial." So I told them the policy, polulation of China compared to the States and showed them photos of residential apartment buildings in cities. Then I asked them, "Why do you think China has one-child policy?" Several hands were up and one girl said, "That's because there are just too many people in China." I felt kind of relieved that no one asked what happened if you have two children. I think some day they will ask. Then I told them many women choose to go to Hongkong to have a second baby and more questions came up, "Where is Hongkong?" "Why you can go there to have babies since Hongkong is part of China?" We probably will talk about Hongkong more some day.

When I showed kids photoes of houses in cities and rural area in China and asked them where they prefer to live, most of them chose rural area because people live in apartment buildings in cities and people live in multi-story single houses in rural area. 

 

My parents' house in city

 

 Farmers' single houses 

We watched the video of how the character Family developed from script on the tortoise's shell to bronzeware, bamboo sheet and now. When they saw the ancient character of family has a pig in it, they thought it very funny. We practiced how to write family on the sheet. Allie drew her house.

 

Looking at Allie's lovely picture of home and my sweet kids, I feel very cozy in my heart. Several years ago, these American families were blessed with precious children from China. God bless these children with a permanent home at the other side of the earth. And now I am so blessed to teach them about my culture. I pray that God bless these amazing American families and also their Chinese families who gave life to them.