3rd Graders & Lucky Bamboo

Third graders had a lovely surprise yesterday! Mrs. LarRieu generously donated her time and materials for students to celebrate Mid Autum Festival with moon cakes and creating their very own lucky bamboo plants. After munching moon cakes and creating miniture bamboo trees students set up a display outside show casing their little trees and authentic Chinese lanterns graciously donated by Stephan and Zachary Zagorski. WOW! What super students we have at LJA! Way to go Han Yu Learners! You are really thinking about Chinese culture outside the classroom!

Requests for lucky bamboo started rolling in from the LJA Ohana. Maintenance, Extended Day, and even the HR Department commented on the possibility of receiving one of these cheerful plants!

Mid Autum Festival also known as Moon Cake Festival is the celebration of the fall harvest and the coming of winter time! Chinese families get together to celebrate with a lovely feast and (of course) moon cake for desert!

Chinese Moon Festival

Chinese people all over the world enjoy eating moon cake and spending time with family during this time of year. 1st graders tasted moon cakes this morning. We also read the story of Chang Er the Moon Goddess.

Chinese moon cake is traditionally eaten during Moon Festival. Much like we eat pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. Hey, why not try something new and taste a Chinese moon cake this year!

Chinese Moon Festival

Chinese Moon Festival

Ni Hao Chinese Learners! Chinese Moon Festival is right around the corner. Our class will be celebrating during the week of September 20. Click on the link above to see some highlight photos of how people in China and around the globe celebrate this lovely holiday!

Second and Third Graders are invited to create their own shadow puppet show using vocabulary...with a little English mixed in. Student shadow puppet shows must be no more than 2 or 3 minutes long.





I noticed the children really love the shadow puppets and wanted to do their own shows. That is when I decided one group (two children per group) could do a puppet show every other class period. So far the children have built their own shadow puppets and have invented immaginative and funny themes for their show.





Performances will begin tomorrow with the debut of Dragon and Dog Make Friends. All shows must be preapproved and prescheduled with laoshi. No show will be approved for performance on the same day. Students must schedule in advance.

First graders are having fun learning good bye, come back, and thank you. Students really enjoy the good bye come back game! What a fun way to learn new vocabulary.

Remember... practice what you know outside the classroom!

倪好学生! Parents have been asking me what they can do to help their little ones learn Chinese. My recommendation? Try visiting Chinatown to taste some new food and take your new vocbulary for a test drive. Drop in to a Chinese video store to rent a Chinese cartoon or comedy designed for children. Read The Monkey King with the entire family. Turn on Ni Hao Kailan. You might even want to pop into your local bookstore to browse their Chinese language section (just make sure you get a book with audio). My blog also has a list of online bookstores that have lots and lots of music, movies, learning material especially designed for little Chinese learners. Go for it! If it looks interesting...try it out!

Write Chinese Characters! Right On!

Have you ever wanted to write in Chinese? Don't you think Chinese writing is lovely? I certainly do!!

2nd graders have started the basics of Chinese character writing. And as always, I am amazed how smart these little bulldogs are! Students will be learning to write using traditional Chinese children's notebooks. You can see a sample of what a traditional children's notebook looks like in the picture above.

Did you know that Chinese writing is an artform? That's right! It is called calligraphy and some artists spend their entire life mastering this lovely art. A family trip to the Honolulu Academy of Arts will unveil the most lovely Chinese calligraphy Hawaii has to offer!

怎么样 What's Up

School is back in full swing! I am the happiesr teacher in the entire world! My students are certainly learning, learning, learning! Wow!

Here is what the 2nd graders have been doing:

1. Learning Chinese stroke order in their new notebooks especially designed for Chinese

learners.

2. Character writing numbers 一 二 三 四 五 六 八 九 十

3。 New vocabulary： 汉字， 毛笔， 笔