Summer Mah Jongg Fun

Did you know playing Mah Jongg is a great way to learn Chinese! Rather than using an American style MJ set try using a traditional Chinese set with characters only. As you learn the game better and better you can also slowly begin to add in the Chinese word for circle (quan1 圈） or bamboo （zhu2 竹）。 You could even start reading and counting out loud the numbers 1 - 10.

Why not start now? Trying copying these numbers and words for your next Mah Jongg family night!
竹 Bamboo
一 One
二 Two
三 Three
四 Four
五 Five
六 Six
七 Seven
八 Eight
九 Nine
十 Ten

Need a little help getting started in Mah Jongg? If you are a computer buff you might enjoy the computer game Four Winds Mah Jong Version 2.0. It is easy to download from their website or you can simply order a CD-ROM. You must purchase a license to download the game. The customer service is excellent and the on-line game tour is so easy you will start playing the very same day! http://www.4windsmj.com/ Lao Hu and I have been practicing a few games of Mah Jongg every day before school starts. It's a good way to get up to speed on this ancient Chinese game!

Special Guest Visitor!

LJA had a very special guest today! Mr. Phillip Wong, Director General of Taiwan, visited LJA Chinese students! Mr. Wong and Mr. Allen had a lovely time touring the campus, chatting with Keiki Chinese students, and visiting with high schoolers. Mr. Wong brought Chinese textbooks for our keiki, music, lanterns, and more. The keiki had fun building lanterns and reading the browsing around our new books.

Today Laoshi started asking our LJA ohana members to write in with recipes. If you have any recipes to share over the summer please don't hesitate to leave a comment or send a note to vadams@lejardinacademy.com

Keiki are excited about learning Chinese board games. It was wonderful to watch the students working together to learn these games they had never seen. Especially since all the words are in Hanzi (characters). The keiki have taken to the games like little ducks take to water. Now I have little learners visiting in the mornings between early care and the start of school to play a round of Mah Jong, Dou Shou Qi (Jungle Chess), and even Chinese Chess. I will download Mah Jong onto my computer because we all know how keiki love to play games on the computer!

Yesterday our Kinder Keiki Chinese did a performance in the Wang for LJA ohana members. The sang and danced a Chinese song in celebration of summer. Laoshi was unable to attend in order to teach the "big kids". I hear from the coconut vine that it was a darling performance! One of the Kinder Keiki asked me "will you be in China with the big kids". His question simply made my day!

2nd graders are doing great leaning numbers with the Chinese abacus! WOW! Today kids were able to read Chinese numbers written on the board and then register the number on the abacus. As usual, learners were more challenged when the number was only said and not written. Numbers said 1-99 were easier while numbers spoken with three digits got much harder. What a fun time we had registering larger and larger numbers on the abacus! Good job 2nd grade!

I thought you might like this picture of Chinese students and a teacher learning with an abacus. Isn't it nice? I like their clothes and the scene outside the round window!

Keiki Chinese

Second graders had fun this week with abacus races. Students easily register numbers on the abacus when written on the board. To kick the game up a knotch students take turns saying the words only in Chinese! No numbers written on the board! The Chinese abacus certainly is a wonderful way to learn larger numbers in Chinese.

First graders have added new food words to their vocabulary menu. Hamburger, rice, veggies, candy, and chicken soup. The kids have a hot competition going to see who can correctly call out the Chinese word from a Animoto video Laoshi put together. Fun game for the kids and a wonderful way to learn and practice new words.

Kindergarten is learning more about performances and how performances can show up in different styles. This week we enjoyed stories about the popular children's hero The Monkey King. We listended to a story, took in some music from a popular symphony playing The Monkey King theme song, viewed a clip from The Monkey King Beijing Opera, and even watched a bit of The Monkey King cartoon from 1964! WOW!

Come one and all to learn Mah Jong. Lisa Wong Jacobs has been doing a lovely job teaching us to play this fun and challening Chinese game. Lao hu and Liz joined us on Thursday for a round. Wai Jun is an enthusiastic player and teacher. Wai Jun has been teaching her classmate step by step how to play. What a fun way to learn a little more about the Chinese culture!

No more Keiki Chinese until Summer Fun. Stand by for the next Keiki Chinese date. Laoshi must focus her attention on high school exams now.

Wow, long post today! Happy weekend!

Red Dragon Society

Red Dragon Society end of the year part Thursday, May 13 at 8:00. Come and bring a treat to eat while we play a friendly game of mah jong. Hope to see you there!

Another abacus is built! Students will have a grand time learning to count higher and higher using these tools. We will start on Monday now that three have been built.

1st graders enjoyed the movie game including vocabulary words chicken soup, candy, and vegetables. Some of the keiki even got all the answers right!

Kindergarten is working on a performance titled "Looking for my Friend". Keiki this age certainly love to sing and the ukulele really adds to this sweet Chinese song. They were also enchanted by the Youtube video of Lisa Wong dancing and speed painting.

Thought you would like this picture Han Bao Bao and Shui Wa Wa created!

The Monkey King

2nd Graders got a special treat today! Mrs. Lar Rieu visited our classroom today. She read a story from the Monkey King. The kids were enchanted by the pictures in the book. The story was a little scary (you know how they like that). Mrs. Lar Rieu brought us a piece of mango gummy candy from her trip to Hong Kong. We munched our candy and listened to the story. What a lucky day in Chinese class.

1st graders enjoyed the candy and chicken soup video. We made up a new game. Students said aloud in Chinese what each picture was. Friday we will add the word "vegetables" to our game. Stand by and I will post the video for you all to view.

Red Dragon Society tomorrow morning 8:00-8:45. All parents and big people in the LJA ohana are welcome to join us for coffee, treats, friendship, Chinese language and culture chat, and a lot of laughs!

Keiki Chinese Oragami

What fun we had in Keiki Chinese today! Ashley Laoshi was our guest artist teaching fox fairy puppet oragami. The children (grades K - 2) had a grand time folding and folding until a darling fox popped out of the paper. A few moms even tried their hand at the design while a few toddlers played happily on the carpet. Ashley Laoshi certainly is a wonderful and gifted oragami teacher! Thank you very much Ms. Ashley for coming to Keiki Chinese Club! You ROCK!

Stay tuned for the next Mah Jong game date. Monday we had a nice group of moms and keiki to play a friendly round of this fun and easy Chinese game.