Head to Toe and One finger and Thumb :-)

We will read Eric Carle’s ‘Head to Toe’ at our Mandarin Motion Song and Story Time this week, and clap our hands, wiggle our toes, shake our hips, bend our necks, raise our shoulders and more!

Then we might do some more body movements and sing the Wiggle’s version of ‘One finger one thumb’ in Mandarin 🙂

Well the kids have grown a bit, but we did used to love the old Wiggles 🙂 So we translated the Wiggles’ version of ‘One Finger One Thumb Keep Moving’ for our Mandarin Motion Song and Story Time, which we had fun singing today 🙂

Here is the Wiggles’ English version to help you sing the Chinese version.  Just replace our Mandarin lyrics below.  My kids plan to make a Mandarin version video for you soon 🙂

手指大拇指 动动动

我们都很高兴 (repeat after each verse)

手指大拇指 胳膊 动动动

手指大拇指 胳膊 动动动

手指 大拇指 胳膊 点着的头动动动

手指 大拇指 胳膊 点着的头 站起来 坐下来动动动

手指 大拇指 胳膊 点着的头站起来 转个圈 坐下来 动动动

shǒu zhǐ dà mǔ zhì dòng dòng dòng

wǒmen dōu hěn gāo xìng (repeat after each verse)

shǒu zhǐ dà mǔ zhì gēbo dòng dòng dòng

shǒu zhǐ dà mǔ zhì gēbo tuǐ dòng dòng dòng

shǒu zhǐ dà mǔ zhì gēbo tuǐ diǎn zhe de tóu dòng dòng dòng

shǒu zhǐ dà mǔ zhì gēbo tuǐ diǎn zhe de tóu zhànqilai zuòxialai dòng dòng dòng

shǒu zhǐ dà mǔ zhì gēbo tuǐ diǎn zhe de tóu zhànqilai zhuàn ge quān zuòxialai dòng dòng dòng

One finger One Thumb keep moving
We’ll all be happy and bright.
One finger, One Thumb, One Arm, keep moving
One finger, One Thumb, One Arm, One Leg, keep moving
One finger, One Thumb, One Arm, One Leg, One nod of the head, keep moving
One finger, One Thumb, One Arm, One Leg, One nod of the head, Stand Up, Sit Down, keep moving
One finger, One Thumb, One Arm, One Leg, One nod of the head, Stand Up, Turn around, Sit Down, keep moving

拟声词!Onomatopoeia story and songs

We will read this book this week: 听, 是谁在唱歌? (tīng, shì shéi zài chàng gē ?)  ‘Listen, who is singing?’

It is full of Onomatopoeia, or words that make a sound like the sound they are trying to describe.  They are called  拟声词 (nǐ shēng cí) in Chinese, or literally ‘imitating sound word’.  These are great for young learners of Chinese, because just like in first language acquisition, these words can allow children to explore the ‘sounds’ of a language.  You will notice that most of the characters in the table below for these ‘sound’ words, have the 口 radical on the left side of the character, which is the ‘mouth’ radical…often giving a clue it is an onomatopoeia word!

The children will have to try and guess which animal is making the singing noise!

Below is a table that has a list of the animals in the book, and the animal sounds that the children will enjoy, but till Story Time enjoy this song! The words to the song are far too long to post here, but this link will take you to them 🙂 You will note some of the animal sounds in the song are a little different to some of the animals in the book…like the Rooster goes ‘ wowo’ in the book and ‘o o’ in the song…but just like animal noises in English…there is no law!

here are the animals in the book:

Cow niú Moo 哞哞 mōu mōu
Duck 鸭子 yā zi Quack 嘎嘎 gā gā
Dog gǒu Wuff 汪汪 wāng wāng
Cat māo Meow 喵喵 miāo miāo
Lion 狮子 shī zi Roar 嗷呜 áo wū
Sheep yáng Baa miē
Rooster 公鸡 gong jī Crow 喔喔 wōwo
Horse Neigh 嘶嘶 sī sī
Pig zhū Oink 哼哼 hēng hēng
Frog 青蛙 qīng wā Croak 呱呱 guā guā

Here is another more familiar song to help us make those animal sounds!  The first sound in the song is a chicken, which is not in our book (we have a rooster in our book crowing ‘wōwō!’. The chicken says 叽叽 ‘jījī’, more like the ‘cheep cheep’ sound of a baby chicken.  Lyrics to the song are under the video. Old MacDonald in Chinese is 老王先生 lǎo wáng xiānsheng, the ‘lǎo’ is a polite address of a senior, the ‘wáng’ is his surname, and ‘xiānsheng’ is the word for ‘Mr.’ In Chinese we say ‘Wang Mr’, not ‘Mr Wang’ 🙂  Enjoy!

wáng lǎo xiān shēng yǒu kuài dì yī yā yī yā yōu

地,

tā zài tián lǐ yǎng xiǎo yī yā yī yā yōu

zhè lǐ jī jī jī nà lǐ jī jī jī

叽叽叽 叽叽叽

zhè lǐ nà lǐ dào chù dōu zài jī jī

叽叽

wáng lǎo xiān shēng yǒu kuài dì yī yā yīyā yōu

地,

Literal English Translation:

Farmer Wang had a plot of land, yiya yiya yo

On his land he raised little chicks yiya yiya yo

With a cheep cheep here, and a cheep cheep there,

Here a cheep, there a cheep, everywhere a cheep cheep

Farmer Wang had a plot of land, yiya yiya yo

Whose bottom? and Handkerchief Game!

We love stories and songs about bottoms 🙂 So we will read 谁的屁股? (shéi de pìgu) ‘Whose Bottom?’ this week, Wednesday 10am in our Mandarin Song and Story Time. For more posts on bottoms check out our wiping bottoms page, who did the poo page, tones and poo page, and poos and water page!

We will also play the traditional Chinese game ‘Hide the Hanky’ as long as it is not raining!  There is a version of the song that accompanies the game below, together with the lyrics for you.

hide-hanky2

 

丢手巾丢手巾,轻轻地放在,小朋友的后面,大家不要告诉他,快点快点捉住他,快点快点捉住他

diū shǒu jīn diū shǒu jīn , qīng qīng de fàng zài , xiǎo péng yǒu de hòu mian , dà jiā bù yào gào su tā , kuài diǎn kuài diǎn zhuō zhù tā , kuài diǎn kuài diǎn zhuō zhù tā

Drop the hanky, drop the hanky, lightly put the hanky behind a friend, everybody don’t tell him/her, quickly quickly catch him/her, quickly quickly catch him/her.

Chinese teachers wishing to get their students to explain how to play the game in Chinese could show this video:

The simplified script is :

不知道小朋友有没有玩过丢手巾?那是一种小朋友玩的游戏。游戏的方式很容易。只要几位小朋友围成一个圈。另一个小朋友拿着手巾放在他们后面。谁拿到手巾就要追回放手巾的那位小朋友。

hide-hanky

See you Wednesday 🙂