A little sneak peak of our little kids’ story time this week….
我知道老婆婆吞下了苍蝇… (wǒ zhī dào lǎo pó pó tūn xià le cāng ying…) ‘I know an old lady who swallowed a fly…’ Come along and help us finish this song and give this old lady a little heartburn!
See you tomorrow!
Older students will be introduced to a play/musical this week that we will learn the first half of this year…we may keep the play a secret so that we can perform for the little kids when we are ready!
Little kids it’s the deep ocean for this story time!
We will read 大海里我最大 (dà hǎi lǐ wǒ zuì dà) ‘I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean’
This is a great story for hearing how to use comparatives and superlatives in Mandarin, in a really funny story!
We will sing our 3 Jelly Fish song again (click on link for words, same tune as English version) this will get us singing our important 上 and 下 (Up and Down/On and Off etc) words!
And also sing this new lovely song ‘Time to Swim’ while we do an under the sea dance! We don’t have a link to this song anywhere, but Aurora played it on the keyboard and sang along so that we could upload for you to sing along to at home! Sorry, we didn’t have the tools to make a great sound recording! But better than nothing! We might record our dance of it this week to upload! Lyrics below:
海狮海豚海马水母 海狮海豚海马水母 游啊游，游啊游，多么逍遥， 游啊游， 游啊游，乐悠悠
hǎi shī hǎi tún hǎi mǎ shuǐ mǔ， hǎi shī hǎi tún hǎi mǎ shuǐ mǔ，yóu a yóu ， yóu a yóu ， duō me xiāo yáo ， yóu a yóu ， yóu a yóu ， lè yōu yōu
Sea Lion Dolphin Seahorse Jelly Fish, Sea Lion Dolphin Seahorse Jelly Fish, Swimming, Swimming, how free, swimming, swimming, happy and unhurried.
Look forward to seeing you Wednesday!!!!
We had a lovely song and story time this week to celebrate Chinese New Year! Learning about the Chinese Zodiac, and Chinese New Year Traditions through song. (click here for song video)
We had out own ‘Dotting of the Eye’ ceremony so that our Lion could ‘see’ for our dance.
Ended up with a Lion Dance and lots of noise to scare all the bad things away for the year.
祝贺大家新年快乐！ Have a happy Chinese New Year!
Kids have been busy making our new Dancing Lion 舞狮 (wǔ shī) for all the kids to participate in a Lion Dance at our Song and Story Time this week!
It does not have eyes yet…its eyes are closed at the moment! On Wednesday at our special Chinese New Year story time, we will have a special ceremony called 开光 (kāi guāng) which means ‘opening light’. We will use a calligraphy brush to dot eyes on our lion, sometimes called ‘Dotting the eye’, which means our lion will then be able to ‘see’ and be ready for us to make a noise and have a dance together, to scare away any bad things for the New Year!
Here is a pik of a 开光 (kāi guāng) ceremony.
Kids can easily make their own dancing lion head, just grab a cardboard box, paint it (red and gold are good Chinese colours, but there are dancing lions of all colours!!). Make a cut similar to the one in our piks, so that the mouth drops down, making an authentic looking Dancing Lion mouth, and also makes a hole for children holding the head to see out of! Then search for some piks of Dancing Lions, and decorate with anything shiny, sparkly, feathery or furry! Don’t forget to dot his eyes before he dances!!!! Use a piece of material for other children to get under behind the lion head….usually only 2 people for head and tail…but of course we will have a long parade of children under our really long Lion!!!!
Here is a song I wrote that children can sing to while dancing with their Lion, don’t forget to bang drums and bash cymbals to make a noise too! Wooden spoons and pans work really well!!! Sing the song to the tune of ‘London Bridge’. (For details of some of the other things we will do this story time visit our Chinese New Year Story Time page
看看舞狮跳舞跳 跳舞跳 跳舞跳
看看舞狮跳舞跳
新年快乐
kàn kan wǔ shī tiào wǔ tiào tiào wǔ tiào tiào wǔ tiào
kàn kan wǔ shī tiào wǔ tiào
xīn nián kuài lè
Look at the Dancing Lion dancing and jumping, dancing and jumping, dancing and jumping
Look at the Dancing Lion dancing and jumping,
Happy New Year!
Then replace the bold with 尾巴摇 (wěi ba yáo) ‘shaking tail’, and 转个圈 (zhuǎn gè quān) ‘turn around’.
Happy Dancing! Get ready to dance and make some noise on Wednesday 🙂
Special Chinese New Year Song and Story Time!
We will read this book and learn all about the Jade Emperor’s way to develop a system of time, one such legend of the Chinese zodiac:
We will learn this New Year song from Groovi Pauli
Here are the lyrics :
穿新衣服 (chuān xīn yī fu) wear new clothes
吃年夜饭 (chī nián yè fàn) eat the new year’s feast
拿个红包 (ná ge hóng bāo) get a red envelope
说恭喜恭喜 (shuō gōng xǐ gōng xǐ) say “congratulations”
恭喜恭喜恭喜你 (gōng xǐ gōng xǐ gōng xǐ nǐ) “congratulations, congratulations, congratulations to you”
恭喜恭喜恭喜你 (gōng xǐ gōng xǐ gōng xǐ nǐ) “congratulations, congratulations, congratulations to you”
舞龙舞狮 (wǔ lóng wǔ shī) Dragon dance, lion dance
去拜年 (qù bài nián) Give new year’s wishes
听到鞭炮 (tīng dào biān pào) hear firecrackers
说恭喜恭喜 (shuō gōng xǐ gōng xǐ) say “congratulations”
恭喜恭喜恭喜你 (gōng xǐ gōng xǐ gōng xǐ nǐ) “congratulations, congratulations, congratulations to you”
恭喜恭喜恭喜你 (gōng xǐ gōng xǐ gōng xǐ nǐ) “congratulations, congratulations, congratulations to you”
Don’t forget our new year song from last week too, click on link to watch it again. If you want to learn about how Chinese New Year is responsible for the world’s biggest human migration every year click on this old blog post ‘a time to connect’.
Little kids and mums also learned why the Chinese character 福 (fú) is hung everywhere in China, and why you often see it hung upside down. Below Lucas is holding it the right way, Aurora is holding it upside down. Can the older students find out why before they come to class??? See if you can and let me know on Wednesday!!!!
A story all in English this week, but a lovely story to open up conversations with your little ones about the experiences of many children in China. Often one or both parents of children in rural China must travel to the big cities for work. Because this is usually a very long journey, parents will only get to see their kids once a year, when the whole migrant working community of China returns home for Chinese New Year celebrations! It is common for children to be raised by grand parents while their parents work away.
Here is the link to the Chinese New Year song we have been learning:
新年好呀 新年好呀 祝贺大家新年好 我们唱歌 我们跳舞 祝贺大家新年好
xīn nián hǎo ya xīn nián hǎo ya zhù hè dà jiā xīn nián hǎo wǒ men chàng gē wǒ men tiào wǔ zhù hè dà jiā xīn nián hǎo
Happy New Year, Happy New Year Wish everybody a happy new year lets sing lets dance Wish everybody a happy new year
See you Wednesday!
Ok, I am not a rote dictating vocabulary list kinda Chinese teacher…but there is some kinda buzz in ‘seeing’ your ‘Chinese character’ progress!!!!
两千汉字的目标 (liǎng qiān hàn zì de mù biāo) ‘Two Thousand Character Goal!’
When you can recognize the most common 2000 Chinese characters, you can read about 97% of a newspaper！ That doesn’t mean you can understand it all, because you still have to learn the compound word variations that those 2000 (and 50,000 rarer characters!) can make. But being able to recognize these 2000 characters when reading, makes looking up new compound words so much easier and faster…making reading Chinese websites, story books and literature much more enjoyable and satisfying.
A visual on the wall, that shows you ‘the bigger picture’ of your character learning, can be a great motivator!!! We got these posters of the first 1000, and second 1000 Chinese characters a couple years ago. The kids can already recognize most of the first thousand from reading lots of Chinese story books over the years. But they have been going through a new program from a different developmental perspective to the other reading programs they have done in the past. Now we have a new dedicated learning space, we thought it was an ideal time to hang them up again and start circling those characters as they are consolidating them in their new program.
We purchased our posters from Mandarin Poster. Cool for the Mandarin Nerd, or to give kids a little competitive edge 🙂 Why should our kids learn how to read Mandarin? Click on the link, there are a lot more reasons than just ‘reading Chinese’!
三条水母! (sān tiáo shuǐ mǔ!) Three Jelly Fish sitting on a rock set up in our garden for tomorrow!
Again, this is another song children have no problem understanding in Chinese, as it is exactly the same as the English version tune and translation.
We can use any animal that likes jumping from a rock into the water for this song, 青蛙 (qīngwā) ‘frogs’, 鳄鱼 (èyú) ‘crocodiles’ etc. (not that I have ever seen a Jelly Fish jump from a rock 🙂
It is a great song for exploring counting forwards and backwards, the concept of ‘none’ 没有 (méi yǒu)，measure words, position, 上 and 下 (as in jumping on and off ) and onomatopoeia 扑通 (pūtōng) ‘splash’. Lyrics are at the bottom of post.
We have been singing lots of songs that have 上 (shàng) ‘up/above/over etc.’ and 下 (xià) ‘down/below/under etc.’ in them. In the Jelly Fish song these are also used for ‘on’ and ‘off’ (jumping up ON, and jumping OFF down). Children soon start to make the connections! Because these are simple characters too, children can try and make them with their bodies like this:
A good song and video to keep watching for ‘Up/Down’ is the Groovi Pauli ‘Going Up Going Down’ song, which you can watch by clicking on the song name! And don’t forget our ‘Where is the teacher?’ song that has ‘Up there’ and ‘Down there’ in it. We move our shoulders ‘Up and down’ in our Clap hands song. Our ‘London Bridge’ activity too has ‘falling DOWN’ in there. Here is a video I forgot I had of my kids a couple of friends singing this a few years back! You can watch it here but click on the London Bridge link for more details and lyrics of the song.
If you want to have fun at home, make some Jelly Fish, a rock and a bowl of water, or an indoor set up like this one below, and you can act out the song with your little one. Talk about making the jellyfish out of waterproof materials so that they don’t go soggy and rip! We used plastic bowls and cut up plastic shopping bags for tentacles. You could also talk about the correct disposal of plastic bags so that we don’t hurt our Jelly Fish in the sea too!
3 Jelly Fish rock and sea you can use indoors
Here are the lyrics to the ‘Three Jelly Fish’ song – Just sing to the English tune (We will make a video soon!)
三条水母，三条水母，三条水母，坐在岩石上, 一条跳下
两条水母，两条水母，两条水母，坐在岩石上, 一条跳下
一条水母，一条水母，一条水母，坐在岩石上, 一条跳下
没有水母，没有水母，没有水母，坐在岩石上, 一条跳上
一条水母，一条水母，一条水母，坐在岩石上, 一条跳上
两条水母，两条水母，两条水母，坐在岩石上, 一条跳上
三条水母，三条水母，三条水母，坐在岩石上
sān tiáo shuǐ mǔ, sān tiáo shuǐ mǔ , sān tiáo shuǐ mǔ zuò zài yán shí shàng, yì tiáo tiào xià
liǎng tiáo shuǐ mǔ liǎng tiáo shuǐ mǔ, liǎng tiáo shuǐ mǔ , zuò zài yán shí shàng, yì tiáo tiào xià
yì tiáo shuǐ mǔ, yì tiáo shuǐ mǔ, yì tiáo shuǐ mǔ, zuò zài yán shí shàng, yì tiáo tiào xià
méiyǒu shuǐ mǔ, méiyǒu shuǐ mǔ, méiyǒu shuǐ mǔ, zuò zài yán shí shàng, yì tiáo tiào shàng
yì tiáo shuǐ mǔ, yì tiáo shuǐ mǔ, yì tiáo shuǐ mǔ, zuò zài yán shí shàng, yì tiáo tiào shàng
liǎng tiáo shuǐ mǔ liǎng tiáo shuǐ mǔ, liǎng tiáo shuǐ mǔ , zuò zài yán shí shàng, yì tiáo tiào shàng
sān tiáo shuǐ mǔ, sān tiáo shuǐ mǔ , sān tiáo shuǐ mǔ, zuò zài yán shí shàng
This song is for parents, but kids normally enjoy too! The lyrics are a typical conversation you would have when you are spotted as a foreigner in China! So the language is very useful indeed! If you listen to the song many times, the words will stick in your head, and you are on your way to a basic conversation in China!
The skit at the beginning has no subtitles, but highlights the problems of not using the correct tone in Chinese! The English man asks for shuìjiào (睡觉）which means ‘sleep’. The vendor is confused and asks if he is tired! He really means to ask for shuǐjiǎo (水饺) ‘boiled dumplings’. A simple tone of voice can change meaning, and was obviously a challenging and funny part of this band’s ‘Transition’ language learning in Taiwan! Enjoy the song!
Not only can a teacher use this song for great introductory conversation skills, the song can be used as a springboard for all sorts of grammar. I like to use it to highlight a use of 了 (le). When they sing 我的中文进步了 (wǒ de zhōngwén jìnbù le) ‘my Chinese has improved’, the 了 is used to indicate a change. The sentence is saying that there was a time his Chinese was not very good, so there has been a change. As you will notice, the band really delay and emphasize the 了 in the song, so students copy the same emphasis when they sing! I feel the band, who are singing about their own experiences of learning Chinese in Taiwan, have probably emphasized the 了 to make a little joke! Students of Chinese find this 了really confusing, as it has lots of other meanings too, and beginner students are always unsure for quite a while in their Mandarin learning journey whether a sentence needs 了 on the end or not! You will often hear students say 了 as a delayed afterthought as grammar thought processes go through their head, just like the delay in the song!
This amusing take in 了 can make beginner students feel ok in this confusion, and we can use the opportunity to compare where we have heard 了 in any of the oodles of other songs that we know, and the meaning it is trying to convey…the penny then starts to drop!
But till you get to that stage, just enjoy these 3 English gentlemen singing this catchy song!
Here are the lyrics, pinyin only for space reasons, as Chinese characters and English are on the video subtitles. (Note Chinese characters on video are traditional)
Chorus:
duìbuqǐ wǒde zhōngwén bù hǎo
duìbuqǐ, duìbuqǐ, wǒ bù zhīdào nǐ shuō shénme
duìbuqǐ wǒde zhōngwén bù hǎo
duìbuqǐ duìbuqǐ wǒ zhǐ xiǎng gēn nǐ dāng péngyou
Hello nǐhǎo ma ? nǐde yīngwén hǎohǎotīng
nǐ shì Měiguǒrén ma? bìng búshì Měiguǒrén
wǒ shì yī wèi Yīngguó shēnshì
rúguǒ nǐ zhuānxīn tīng nǐ huì liǎojiě wǒ
duìbuqǐ wǒde zhōngwén bù hǎo
Chorus
huānyíngguānglín lǐmiàn zuò
xiānshēng nǐ yào chī shénme
wǒ yào shuìjiào. nǐ hěn léi shìbúshì?
wǒ bù lěi wǒ dùzi hěn è
wǒ xiǎngyào chī shuǐ jiǎo qǐng nǐ kuài diǎn zuò
Chorus
(huānyíngguānglín duì yā huānyíng lái Běijí xióng de jiā)
Oh! I am so sorry. Oh!
méiguànxì wǒde zhōngwén jìnbù le
méiguànxì, méiguànxì, wǒ hái yào gēn nǐ dāng péngyou
repeat new chorus 2 times
Let’s count our fingers this week! We can count our fingers to the same tune as the Ten Little Friends song. Just replace 朋友 (péng you) ‘friend’ with 手指 (shǒu zhǐ ) ‘finger’. We will use Henre Tullet’s ’10 times 10′ book to count with. Older kids can practice this to gain more fluency with counting and measure words. Technically for the word ‘finger’ you can use either the measure word 个 (ge) or 只 (zhī). We will stick with ‘ge’.
We will learn Groovi Pauli’s Christmas song in class over the next few weeks so that you can sing it as a family over Xmas Dinner! Don’t forget you can buy Groovi Pauli’s albums on iTunes, he has a whole album of celebration festival songs and are great to listen to in the car!
Below the video are the pinyin lyrics and literal translation, but you can find the Chinese characters on the attached santa claus coming to town images for song that I created. We will learn some actions with the cards so that it is easier for you to remember!
Xiǎopéngyǒu, nǐ bùyào kū
wǒmen lái yīqǐ, hāhā dà xiào
shèngdàn lǎorén jìn chéng lái liao
tā zhīdào nǐ shuìjiàole, tā zhīdào nǐ méi shuì
tā zhīdào nǐ guāi bù guāi, suǒyǐ nǐ yào guāi
literal translation:
little children, no need to cry
lets get together and be happy
santa Claus is coming to town
he knows if you are asleep, he knows if you’re not asleep
he knows if you are good or not good, so you need to be good