中秋节!Mid Autumn Festival

Mid Autumn Festival (Or the Moon Festival) is on the 8th Sept this year.  Who better than Groovi Pauli to give us a great song and video to learn all about traditions for this festival.  You can purchase his ‘Celebrations in Chinese 4 Kids’ that this song comes from on album on iTunes.

Here are the lyrics:

月亮月亮圆圆圆 yuè liang yuè liang yuán yuán yuán
(moon, moon, round round round)

月饼月饼香香香 yuè bing yuè bing xiāng xiāng xiāng
(moon cakes, moon cakes, fragrant fragrant fragrant)

嫦娥嫦娥飞飞飞 cháng é cháng é fēi fēi fēi
(Chang-E Chang-E fly fly fly) Chang E is the name of the moon fairy!

中秋中秋中秋节 zhōng qiū zhōng qiū zhōng qiū jié
(Mid-Autumn, Mid-Autumn, Mid-Autumn Festival)

跳在沙发上!Jumping on the Sofa!

Is Everyone Ready for Fun?

chicken sofa1

This is a great book by Jan Thomas, as children just have this innate desire to jump on the sofa, and so relate to the cows’ inability to control themselves, their regret as they are reminded they shouldn’t do it, and how they get around promising not to do it again!  As the reader, I weave myself as a parent sharing the chicken’s frustration, so the children are really drawn into this in the classroom.  It’s also really a great book to use repetitive and meaningful Chinese to the children.  It reinforces lots of phrases we use in the classroom regularly, and connects with our ‘Up Down’ lessons. (See Going Up Going Down, London Bridge, Up and Down Characters, Three Jellyfish, Exploring 上下

You can download a lovely finger puppet activity to act this story out on the author’s website Jan Thomas Books.

Here are some of the words the children hear when sharing this book in Chinese:

小鸡           xiǎo jī                            Little chicken
小牛           xiǎo niú                         Little cow
沙发           shā fā                             sofa

准备好了吗?              zhǔn bèi hǎo le ma?                       Are you ready?
准备好了!                 zhǔn bèi hǎo le!                            Ready!
跳上跳下                      tiào shàng  tiào xià                          Jump up and down
跳舞                              tiào wǔ                                              Dance
扭来扭去                      niǔ lái niǔ qù                                   Wiggle around
在沙发上                      zài shā fā shàng                               on the sofa

别!                              biè!                                                   Don’t!
别跳!                          biè tiào!                                           Don’t jump!
别跳舞!                      biè tiào wǔ!                                     Don’t dance!

土豆歌 – Potato Song!

While we 醒来 (wake up) all our body parts, we are enjoying this video, and it certainly does 醒来 us all up into a cool sing along dance!

Apart from its fun value, it has numbers, measure words, body parts, and a fast tongue twisting chorus to wrap our tongues around those Mandarin syllables!

Note, there is a mistake in the song…the line where they sing that the 2 potatoes have ‘4 hands’, the subtitle in the video is correct and says 4 (有四只手), but they actually sing 有两只手…2 hands!!!! But the mistake doesn’t spoil the fun factor, and when we act this out in class with Mr Potato Heads we will correct it!

Here are the lyrics。 To get pronunciation of the fast chorus line, don’t forget you can copy and paste the characters into Google Translate and press the speaker, or check out the apps that have the pinyin syllable charts and pronunciation in this post.

一个土豆, 长两只眼睛, 长一个鼻子, 和一张嘴

一个土豆, 有两只手, 有两条腿, 和一顶帽子

一个土豆。。。谁想跳舞

两个土豆, 长四只眼睛, 长两个鼻子, 和两张嘴

两个土豆, 有四只手, 有四条腿, 和两顶帽子

两个土豆。。。谁想跳舞

三个土豆 。。。谁想跳舞

Yígè tǔdòu, Zhǎng liǎng zhī yǎnjīng, zhǎng  Yígè bízi, hé yī zhāngzuǐ
yígè  tǔdòu, yǒu liǎng zhī shǒu, yǒu liǎng tiáo tuǐ, hé yī dǐng màozi
Yígè  tǔdòu… Sheí xiǎng tiàowǔ
liǎng gè tǔdòu, zhǎng sì zhī yǎnjīng, Zhǎng liǎng gè bízi, hé liǎng zhāngzuǐ
liǎng gè tǔdòu, yǒu sì zhī shǒu, yǒu sìtiáo tuǐ, hé liǎng dǐng màozi
liǎng gè tǔdòu… Sheí xiǎng tiàowǔ
sān gè tǔdòu… Sheí xiǎng tiàowǔ