First Day of School

Time to remember what we have learned! Wow! It was a really great day seeing all the keiki again! Students rolled into school ready to learn, learn, and learn some more!

2nd graders started with practicing tones, numbers and remembering polite responses.

4th graders impressed me with their Chinese character writing and telling me stories about all the Chinese things they did this summer! Mara went to Chinese immersion school in San Francisco, Nanea built a Chinese bamboo flute in woodshop class, Jillian made panda cupcakes, and Laoshi ate a lot of dim sum!

Here are a few words to jog your memory. Practicing writing them before our next class:

山

兰

不

狗

Practice what you know!

A Very Nice Summer

Looks like another lovely Hawaii summer is coming to an end. Our classrooms are shiny and ready for the students, our grade books are ready for A's, and the lunchroom is waiting for little eaters! Today the children and parents came to visit all the teachers. How lovely it was to see all the returning students and met new ones.

So long to a beautiful summer and hello to a fantastic year of leaning and growing!

Learn More Do More

The verdict is in...I am the luckiest teacher in the world! Look where I visited! Boston! I attended a Scratch workshop for teachers. http://scratch.mit.edu/ Check out our Summer School 2011 class Scratch MIT projects at http://scratch.mit.edu/users/vschina2003. After my workshop I visited the Harvard University East Asian Civilizations and Languages Department and took a tour of the library. Beautiful! Then I had a snack in the Harvard yard and made friends with a hungry little squirrel! So cute!

2011 Summer of Knitting

你好朋友！ 很想你们！

Know what I did this summer? I got to teach a knitting class at LJA. WOW big fun! Some kids were newbies to the world of knitting and some kids were returning learners. These kids learned so, so much I was blown away! Some kids learned cabling, some kids learned purling, some kids even made leis and scrunchies. Don't know what cabling and purling is? No problem. Next summer sign up for my Keiki Knitting class and I will teach you the beautiful and relaxing art of knitting! Check out these fun pics.

Learn more do more!

好久不见

好久不见！Long time no see!

This summer I decided to take a little break from our classroom blog to focus on learning a little more technology. And WOW have I learned a lot. And WOW what fun it has been. Isn't it fun to learn things?

Keiki Chinese have been having loads of laughs learning to write Chinese on the computer with MIT's Scratch 1.4 program. Check out their website http://scratch.mit.edu/ to view our projects. Go to vschina2003 Keiki Chinese. Our keiki learners even started building Scratch 1.4 animation at home and on the weekends! Smart, smart students!

We also had loads of laughs writing Chinese on Photoshop CS5 manipulated images. Keiki learners got a chance to write in Chinese on banners and help each other learn this sometimes tricky program.

What have you been doing this summer? I certainly miss each and every one of you! Write in and tell me all about your summer.

See you soon!

Are You Listening?

Super Star Student, Liam, wants to know if you are visiting podbean.com keikichinese to brush up on your Chinese? Grades 1-3 have been working hard to create fun and often time hilarious radio talk shows. Lessons include:

How to answer the phone in Chinese.

What is your name?

Are you Busy?

So run, don't walk, to Podbean.com and look for keikichinese for lot's of great Chinese lessons in an ongoing radio talk show podcast!

See you there! Podbean.com keikichinese (yes, it is one word)

Practice what you know...

Podbean.com Podcast Lessons

Have you been practicing your Chinese with our live podcasts and puppet shows posted on Podbean.com? If not you better click, click, click now!

Go to Podbean.com and type in Keikichinese in the search window. Then get ready for some really cool Mandarin Chinese learning taught by our very own bulldog students!

See you at Podbean.com keikichinese!