Three cheeky cows jumping on chicken’s sofa again this week!

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!   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, apologising, and reinforces ‘Up Down’.  It will help the students talk about the location of things by using the location marker 在 (zài). Eg.

牛在哪里？ niú zài nǎ lǐ？ literally ‘Cow is located where?’

you can then answer with exactly where they are:

牛在沙发上。 niú zài shāfā shàng. literally ‘Cow is located sofa on’

To get this location marker stuck in your head, don’t forget our teacher song!

You can download a lovely finger puppet activity to act this story out at home, 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           shāfā                             sofa

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

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

Here is the song the older students were introduced to last week to understand the really common usage of 上下 (shàng xià) or ‘Up / Down’ in Chinese.  Another cool song by Groovi Pauli!  Little kids will like singing the main part of this song! Lyrics are below.

shàng shàng shàng going up up up,
xià xià xià going down down below

上上上going up up up, 下下下going down down below.

Activity

In the up down song we sing in class, a few examples of shàng and xià are explored.  Use these around the house /community.  Let Groovi Pauli help you pronounce these by watching the video lots of times!

shàng chuáng – Getting in bed
shàng chē – Getting in the car
shàng lóu – Going up the stairs
shàng kè – starting class

xià chuáng – getting out of bed
xià chē – getting out of the car
xià lóu – going down the stairs
xià kè – finishing class

We will be reading ‘One More Tickle’ this week at our Mandarin Motion Song and Story Time.

你的脚怕痒吗？看看吧。停停停！nǐ de jiǎo pà yǎng ma ？ kàn kan ba 。 tíng tíng tíng ！Are your feet ticklish? Let’s see. Stop Stop Stop!

Tickle in Chinese is 挠痒痒 (náo yǎng yang). ‘Ticklish’ is 怕痒 (pà yang) literally ‘scared of being tickled’ 🙂

In this book ‘Little Nutbrown Hare’ 小栗色兔子 (xiǎo lì sè tù zi) gets tickled on many parts of his body!  So watch some of those songs with body parts in before you come to class!  Here are a few:

Happy Tickling!  See you Wednesday or Thursday 🙂

This week in our Wednesday and Thursday Song and Story Time class, we will read this book:

我的袜子在哪里？(wǒ de wàzi zài nǎlǐ ？) Where are my socks?

我的袜子在哪里？ 我的条纹短裤在哪里？ 我的蓝背心在哪里？ 我的黄袜子在哪里？ 我的牛仔裤在哪里？ 我的红毛衣在哪里？ 我的斑点鞋子在哪里？ 我的绿夹克在哪里？ 现在，我们一起出去玩吧！

Key words we will repeat are    我的  (wǒde) ‘my’  在哪里  (zài nǎ lǐ) ‘where’ and of course clothes: 袜子 (wà zi)  ‘socks’  背心   (bèi xīn) ‘vest’    短裤   (duǎn kù)  ‘shorts or undies’   牛仔裤  (niú zǎi kù) ‘jeans’    毛衣  (máo yī)  ‘jumper’    鞋子( xié zi) ‘shoes’.

Children will also starting from this week each take turns taking Dawei or Lili the Teddy Bear home each week！ They are visiting Brisbane from China, and need a family to look after them every week, to help them get dressed each morning, and undressed each night！ Children will also take Dawei’s or Lili’s ‘diary’ home with them, to enter a drawing or photograph of them helping Dawei or Lili get dressed, and sticking a sentence to accompany the drawing! For parents wanting more vocab, or if any other Chinese teachers are wanting to do a similar activity with their students, you can click on the following PDF : Dawei’s diary cover page This cover page will be already inserted into the diary when your child takes it home.

Here is a song I wrote (to the tune of the Addams Family), to help you remember clothes vocab! My wonderful kids made a video to it so that you can watch to sing along to. Lyrics are below.  They recorded and edited themselves and are becoming my best little teaching assistants 🙂

Chorus : chuānshàng yīfu (clap clap) chuānshàng yīfu (pāi pāi)

穿上衣服 （拍 拍）穿上衣服 （拍 拍）

chuānshàng yīfu chuānshàng yīfu chuānshàng yīfu (pāi pāi)

穿上衣服 穿上衣服, 穿上衣服 （拍 拍）

wǒ chuānshàng wǒ de Chènshān,   wǒ chuānshàng wǒ de duǎnkù,

我穿上我的衬衫,   我穿上我的短裤,

wǒ chuānshàng wǒ de wàzi, wǒ kànshàngqù hěn kù.

我穿上我的袜子, 我看上去很酷

(repeat chorus)

wǒ chuānshàng wǒ de jiākè, wǒ chuānshàng wǒ de xiězì,

我穿上我的夹克,  我穿上我的鞋子

wǒ daishàng wǒ de màozi,  ,wǒ kànshàngqù hěn kù.

我带上我的帽子, , 我看上去很酷
(repeat chorus)

 Translation: Chorus: Getting Dressed (clap clap), Getting Dressed (clap clap), Getting Dressed, Getting Dressed, Getting Dressed (clap clap), I put on my shirt, I put on my shorts, I put on my socks, I look very cool, I put on my jacket, I put on my shoes, I put on my hat, I look very cool. Adults can click fingers, children can clap, or they might like to just imitate you clicking fingers. Replace shorts with skirt using ‘qúnzi’ 裙子 if you want to!  More vocab is on the PDF above.

See you Wednesday or Thursday 🙂

Our older students are going to save our planet this week, by learning a song to help us save electricity! In doing so we will also get to learn lots of useful vocab of things we use everyday in the house.  Remembering to turn things off to save electricity can be hard…but if we actually have to think harder to say ‘Turn it off’ in Chinese, and by making signs in Chinese next to some of our switches…it might help us to not only learn some Chinese…but help us to remember to TURN IT OFF!

Here is the Groovi Pauli song that we will learn.

I made a ‘Turn it off Powerpoint’ with the lyrics of the song on, with images to help students with the meaning of each line.  Singing this song with kinaesthetic gesture in class will also help reinforce the meaning. Click here to download the lyric and image Powerpoint Slide Show turn it off pp

This video, Groovi Pauli helps you to understand the song:

Here are some piks of signs that my kids made to stick next to some powerpoints in our home to help us remember to ‘Turn it off’.