This week we will read 画了一匹蓝马的画家 ( huà le yī pǐ lán mǎ de huà jiā) ‘The artist who painted a horse’ by Eric Carle. The children can guess what crazy colours Eric Carle has painted his drawings 🙂
We can also sing a new balloon song. Here are the words, you can sing to the tune of ‘My darling Clementine’.
Hóngsè qìqiú huángsè qìqiú
红色气球，黄色气球，
wǒde qìqiú zhēn piàoliàng
我的气球真漂亮。
lǜsè qìqiú báisè qìqiú
绿色气球，白色气球，
bié rang qìqiú fēi tiān shàng
别 让气球飞天上。
Literal English Translation:
Red balloon, yellow balloon, My balloon very beautiful,
Green balloon white balloon, don’t let the balloon fly to the sky.
Song originally sourced from ‘Better Chinese’, lyrics changed to reflect better environmental practice 🙂
We will read all about family over next few weeks. We might start with this one for our next story time 袋鼠也有妈妈吗? (dài shǔ yě yǒu mā ma ma?) ‘Does a Kangaroo have a mother too? ‘ by Eric Carle. Some vocab from the book is at the bottom of this blog post.
Here is a video Aurora made for our ‘I love my family song’ that we sometimes sing in class. We have included this song for many years in our story times, the kids learned it when they were little from the ‘Better Chinese: My first Chinese Words’ series. Hope you like Aurora’s production of it:
Here are the words to the song:
wǒ ài wǒ de bà ba
我爱我的爸爸
wǒ ài wǒ de mā ma
我爱我的妈妈
wǒ ài wǒ de gē ge
我爱我的哥哥
wǒ ài wǒ de jiě jie
我爱我的姐姐
wǒ ài wǒ de jiā
我爱我的家
Translation:
I love my Dad, I love my Mum, I love my older brother, I love my older sister, I love my family.
The second time around the words 哥哥 (gē ge) big brother’ 姐姐 (jiě jie) big sister’ are replaced with 弟弟 (dì di) little brother’ and 妹妹 (mèi mei) little sister’.
Here is a little bit of the Kangaroo book for reference of vocab:
dàishǔ yě yǒu māma ma? yǒu！ dàishǔ yǒu māma
jiù xiàng wǒ yǒu nǐ yě yǒu.
袋鼠也有妈妈吗？有！袋鼠有妈妈，
就像我有你也有。
Literal translation: Does a kangaroo also have a mother? Yes (has), a kangaroo has a mother, just like I have and you have too.
This is the same each page, just replace kangaroo (red highlighted) with following animals: 狮子 shīzi lion 长颈鹿 chángjǐnglù giraffe 企鹅 qǐ’é penguin 天鹅 tiān’é swan 狐狸 húli fox 海豚 hǎitún dolphin 绵羊 miányáng sheep 熊 xióng bear 大象 dàxiàng elephant 猴子 hóuzi monkey
下雨了！(xià yǔ le) It’s Raining! Well it has been a rainy few days, so it’s a good time to sing the Incy Wincy Spider song!Kids recorded the song and made an animation to go with the Chinese translation for you, so that you can enjoy on rainy days at home too 🙂 Enjoy and we will see you at our Mandarin Song and Story time to sing it together…it is forecast to be still raining 🙂
Here are the lyrics:
一只两只蜘蛛爬呀爬出来，
雨水落下来帮它洗洗澡，
太阳出来了照着它身体呀
一只两只蜘蛛又爬呀爬出来
Yī zhǐ liǎng zhī zhīzhū pá ya pá chūlái
Yǔshuǐ luòxià lái bāng tā xǐ xǐzǎo,
Tàiyáng chūláile zhàozhe tā shēntǐ ya
Yī zhǐ liǎng zhī zhīzhū yòu pá ya pá chūlái.
Literal English Translation:
One spider, two spiders crawl and climb out,
The rain falls and helps them take a bath
The sun comes out, it shines on their bodies,
One spider, two spiders crawl and climb out again.
We will read Rod Campbell’s 我不会咬你！(wǒ bù huì yǎo nǐ) ‘I won’t bite you’ at our Mandarin Motion Song and Story Time this week. We might have a few crocodile rock songs to sing too!
Here are the animals, adjectives, and body parts in the book.
We will read ‘The story of the little mole who knew it was none of his business’ this Mandarin Song and Story Time as requested by one of our students (It’s not just me that picks books about poo 🙂 We didn’t have a Mandarin version of the book, so I have made my own simple and repetitive Mandarin translation for us to read this week. Here is a page:
It is a great story for repetitive input of the location marker 在 (zài), and for hearing how to say that ‘something looks like something’ 像…一样 (xiàng…yī yang).
（ duì xiǎo shān yáng wèn ） nǐ là dà biàn biàn zài wǒ de tóu shàng ma ？ wǒ ？ bú shi wǒ de. wǒ de biàn biàn kàn qǐ lái jiù xiàng zhè yàng … tā lā biàn biàn xiàng qiǎo kè lì qiú yī yàng
(Mole asks the goat) Have you done a poo on my head? (Goat) Me? That’s not mine. My poos look like this… (The goat does a poo that looks like chocolate balls).
We will have a treat after the story time, a bowl of goat poos to share 🙂 (NB there will be nuts in these goat poos)
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 🙂
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
We will read ‘The Pet Dragon’ by Christoph Niemann this week, as requested from one of our students 🙂 It is a lovely book to introduce Chinese characters through clever illustrations.
We might see if we can be just as clever and make some of these characters with our bodies, on our own or as a team 🙂 Here is the illustration for 上下 in our book.
And here are our kids making them with their bodies:
We sing lots of songs that have 上 (shàng) ‘up/above/over etc.’ and 下 (xià) ‘down/below/under etc.’ in them. 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. And our Jelly Fish song has Up/Down in it! 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. There are no excuses for getting our 上 and 下 mixed up 🙂
So come along for some kinesthetic character learning fun!
For our Mandarin Song and Story Time this week we will read 谁拉的便便？(shéi lā de biàn biàn?) or ‘Who did the poo?’, a perfect follow on from all that food the hungry caterpillar ate last week 🙂
Kids will get to guess ‘who did it’ and we will also add a few words about what happens before a poo…(eating!) and what we do after our poo (this language is great to hear over and over in the wiping bottom song)!
Here is the transcript to the book:
谁拉的便便？ 我拉的。shéi lā de biàn biàn？ wǒ lā de. Who did the poo? I did! (Guessing whose poo belongs to which character).
怎么没有人？ zěn me méi yǒu rén. What, no one is there?
我正在冲便便呢！wǒ zhèng zài chōng biàn biàn ne. I was just flushing!
拉完了便便还应该做什么呢？ lā wán le biàn biàn hái yīng gāi zuò shén me ne ？When you’ve done your poo what should you do?
擦屁股，穿裤子，冲马桶，洗洗手 cā pì gu，chuān kù zi ，chōng mǎ tǒng ，xǐ xǐ shǒu. Wipe bottom, pull up pants, flush, wash hands.
我们每天都要吃东西。wǒ men měi tiān dōu yāo chī dōng xi 。We eat stuff everyday.
我们每天都要上厕所。wǒ men měi tiān dōu yāo shàng cè suǒ 。We go to the toilet everyday.
I think our story ending might be a good springboard to learn about being hungry and eating things….so we will enjoy Groovi Pauli’s song ‘I’m Hungry!’ And do the Fruit Conga again 🙂
Lyrics to song:
What sound is that? 什么声音? shén me shēng yīn?
Are you hungry? 你饿吗? nǐ è ma?
I’m hungry 我饿了wǒ è le
I want to eat something 想吃东西 xiǎng chī dōng xī
So hungry.
Ah-ya. I’m so hungry. 哎呀。我好饿。āi yā wǒ hǎo è
My stomach is rumbling. 我肚子咕噜咕噜叫。wǒ dù zi gū lū gū lū jiào
I want to eat eat eat eat something. 我要吃吃吃吃东西。wǒ yào chī chī chī chī dōng xī
I want to eat til I’m full. 我要吃到饱。wǒ yào chī dào bǎo
I’m hungry 我饿了wǒ è le
I want to eat something 想吃东西 xiǎng chī dōng xī
So hungry.
This week at our Mandarin Motion Song and Story Time we will read 好饿的毛毛虫 (hǎo è de máo mao chóng) ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. We have all the food ready to feed our very hungry caterpillar!
This book is great for kids to make so many connections in Mandarin! It has days of the week, counting, and lots of different measure words to hear!
We can also sing along to these two cool Groovi Pauli songs , salsa to the fruit song, and listen to our bellies 咕噜咕噜叫 (gū lu gū lu jiào) ‘rumble’!
What sound is that? 什么声音 shén me shēng yīn
Are you hungry? 你饿吗 nǐ è ma
I’m hungry 我饿了wǒ è le
I want to eat something 想吃东西 xiǎng chī dōng xī
So hungry.
Ah-ya. I’m so hungry. 哎呀。我好饿。āi yā wǒ hǎo è
My stomach is rumbling. 我肚子咕噜咕噜叫。wǒ dù zi gū lū gū lū jiào
I want to eat eat eat eat something. 我要吃吃吃吃东西。wǒ yào chī chī chī chī dōng xī
I want to eat til I’m full. 我要吃到饱。wǒ yào chī dào bǎo
I’m hungry 我饿了wǒ è le
I want to eat something 想吃东西 xiǎng chī dōng xī
So hungry.
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!
Lucas has also been busy this week playing with iMotion, and has made a little video to go to our 开门关门 song. We have been singing this song for years in our story time, I wrote it when my kids were little and used to enjoy ‘Open Shut Them’ at regular library story time, and I wanted to try and write a similar action song in Mandarin to the same tune. So here it is to enjoy at home 🙂 Well done Lucas 🙂 The words to the song are underneath the video.
English translation is : Open the door, shut the door, open the door, shut the door, give a little clap, Open the door, shut the door, open the door, shut the door, touch your toes, stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, give a little clap, stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, touch your head. Children put hands in prayer position and open and shut them to imitate a door opening and shutting for the first verse. Children respond immediately as they know the tune so well.
We often, as with other songs, choose to sing this one 快 kuài /fast or 慢 màn /slow. Kids love doing movement songs in speed and skow motion, and the slow version allows them to listen to and sing the song with very clear drawn out syllables.
