Here are the essentials if you are off on an adventure to China during winter!

 

Here is a little rhyme we will sing in class, watch it at home and do the actions while you sing together 🙂 Lyrics to one verse are below.  Just repeat the same verse each time and replace the bold with any face or body part, or anything for that matter!

小手拍拍,小手拍拍,
手指伸出来,手指伸出来,
眼睛在哪里,眼睛在这里,
用手指出来,用手指出来.

xiǎo shǒu pāi pāi , xiǎo shǒu pāi pāi ,
shǒu zhǐ shēn chū lái , shǒu zhǐ shēn chū lái ,
yǎn jing zài nǎ lǐ , yǎn jing zài zhè lǐ ,
yòng shǒu zhǐ chū lái , yòng shǒu zhǐ chū lái。

Clap your hands, clap your hands
Extend your finger, extend your finger
Where are your eyes? Your eyes are here.
Point with your finger, point with your finger.

 

Here is the Groovi Pauli Christmas song we sing in class. 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

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 腿 动动动

手指 大拇指 胳膊 腿 点着的头动动动

手指 大拇指 胳膊 腿 点着的头 站起来 坐下来动动动

手指 大拇指 胳膊 腿 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

OK, words like ‘me, yours, their, ourselves, we, them’….really simple words and we all know how to use them because it’s just common sense right? We don’t need to know where these words sit in a system of grammar right?

But often as a teacher I see older beginner learners of Chinese getting confused, not with their Chinese, but with their English! They might see ‘他’ in a sentence, and shout out random guesses of  ‘he, his, him, himself’… or see 我们 and again wonder if it means ‘we, us, our, ours, ourselves’, with a very confused look on which word to pick!

All of these small simple words we take for ‘common sense’ in our first language are called ‘Pronouns’.  I personally am not a teacher who thinks grammar is important to ‘teach’.  I find it all falls into place as we explore a new language.  BUT, sometimes, just being able to visualise how our first language grammar works, can really help us when we are at those first stages of learning a second language. Instead of randomly guessing which pronoun we are looking for when translating from Chinese to English, a simple map or table might make comparing the two languages together make that ‘common sense’ we are looking for in our new language.

Below is a mind map I made to help you visualize these ‘pronouns’.  Don’t worry about the terms, they can give you grammar anxiety 🙂 Just see how those everyday little simple words are organized.

 

Now here are the groups in table form.  Use these tables in conjunction with the mind map above, to understand how the English system of pronouns fits with the equivalent Chinese.  Notice they are much simpler in Chinese, we often need to find the English equivalent from the context of the sentence.  Remember it’s just common sense in our first language!

 

Subject Pronouns
I	我	wǒ
You (Singular)	你	nǐ
He	他	tā
She	她	tā
It	它	tā
We	我们	wǒ men
You (Plural)	你们	nǐ men
They (Men)	他们	tā men
They (Women)	她们	tā men
They (Animals etc)	它们	tā men

 

Object Pronouns
me	我	wǒ
you (Singular)	你	nǐ
him	他	tā
her	她	tā
It	它	tā
us	我们	wǒ men
you (Plural)	你们	nǐ men
them (Men)	他们	tā men
them (Women)	她们	tā men
them (Animals etc)	它们	tā men

 

Possessive Adjectives
my	我的	wǒde
your (Singular)	你的	nǐde
his	他的	tāde
her	她的	tāde
its	它的	tāde
our	我们的	wǒmen de
your (Plural)	你们的	nǐmen de
their (Men)	他们的	tāmen de
their (Women)	她们的	tāmen de
their (Animals etc)	它们的	tāmen de

Possessive Pronouns
mine	我的	wǒde
yours (Singular)	你的	nǐde
his	他的	tāde
hers	她的	tāde
its	它的	tāde
ours	我们的	wǒmen de
yours (Plural)	你们的	nǐmen de
theirs (Men)	他们的	tāmen de
theirs (Women)	她们的	tāmen de
theirs (Animals etc)	它们的	tāmen de

Reflexive Pronouns
myself	我自己	wǒ zìjǐ
yourself (singular)	你自己	nǐ zìjǐ
himself	他自己	tā zìjǐ
herself	她自己	tā zìjǐ
itself	它自己	tā zìjǐ
ourselves	我们自己	wǒmen zìjǐ
yourselves (Plural)	你们自己	nǐmen zìjǐ
themselves (Men)	他们自己	tāmen zìjǐ
themselves (Women)	她们自己	tāmen zìjǐ
themselves (Animals etc)	它们自己	tāmen zìjǐ

Some examples.  Lets look at Subject and Object Pronouns first.  In the sentence ‘I love him’.  ‘I’ is the subject of the sentence, the thing ‘doing’ the action, ‘him’ is the OBJECT of the sentence, the thing that the action is being done to.  I don’t say ‘I love he’, or ‘Me love him’ …I have to use the appropriate form as the SUBJECT or OBJECT of the sentence.  So how would we translate:

我喜欢她。  (wǒ xǐhuan tā)

It can be tricky because both SUBJECT and OBJECT pronouns in Chinese are the same!  It actually makes it easier!!! But because 我 can mean ‘I’ and ‘me’ in Chinese, and 她 cab mean both ‘She’ and ‘her’, we have to think which one is it???? Once we start reading more and more Chinese it gets easier, and we can realise that in this sentence it means ‘I like her’, because ‘I like she’ just doesn’t make sense in English.

Possessive Pronouns and Possessive Adjectives are not that hard in Chinese, we just add 的！But again not understanding how we use these in English makes it tricky for beginners to pick the right one when translating from Chinese to English.  So….

我的汽车。  (wǒde qìchē)  ‘My car’.

We know it is ‘My’ car, because the 的 on the end has changed the 我 from ‘I’ to 我的 ‘My’. Just to make it challenging though, 我的 in Chinese can also mean ‘mine’, it just depends where it is in the sentence…so

那辆汽车是我的。  (nà liàng qìchē shì wǒde) ‘That car is mine‘.

And Reflexive Pronouns? Well in Chinese we just add 自己 zìjǐ to the personal pronoun. So 我自己 changes from ‘I’ to ‘myself’.

我自己去。 (wǒ zìjǐ qù) ‘I’m going myself’. (Literally ‘I self go’).

Sounds confusing…but we know the English inside out, and the Chinese is really simple…when we can see the English mapped out for us though, it can make this seemingly difficult task quite obvious 🙂

Make your own mind map of English pronouns, it will really help you with your Chinese, and will help you appreciate how much more difficult it is for Chinese speakers to learn English 🙂

 

做巧克力樱桃慕丝 (zuò qiǎokèlì yīngtáo mùsī) ‘Making Chocolate Cherry Mousse’ 

My kids have been making Chocolate Cherry Mousse, inspired by Jamie Oliver’s 5 Ingredient recipes.  You can click on the link if you would like to make it too!  But first, here is a mind map of the experience.  Below that is a table to let you know how to pronounce each word.  Seeing these words on a mind map might make it easier to say these words in Mandarin as you make this yummy dessert!

Here are the words in the Mind Map in table form:

方法动词	fāng fǎ dòng cí	Method Verbs
搅拌	jiǎo bàn	To mix
磨碎	mò suì	To grate
搅打	jiǎo dǎ	To whisk
收浓	shōu nóng	To reduce

 

配料	pèi liào	Ingredients
鸡蛋	jī dàn	Egg
巧克力	qiǎo kè lì	Chocolate
糖	táng	Sugar
奶油	nǎi yóu	Cream
樱桃	yīng táo	Cherries

 

厨具	chú jù	Utensils
打蛋器	dǎ dàn qì	Whisk
搅拌碗	jiǎo bàn wǎn	Mixing bowl
煎锅	jiān guō	Fry Pan
磨碎器	mò suì qì	Grater

 

味道	wèi dao	Taste
柔滑	róu huá	Smooth
甜的	tián de	Sweet
酸的	suān de	Sour
美味的	měi wèi de	Delicious

 

情感	qíng gǎn	Feelings
满意	mǎn yì	Satisfied
快乐	kuài lè	Happy

Have fun making this yummy dessert while learning some Mandarin in the bargain!

 

万圣节快乐！ (wàn shèng jié kuài lè)  ‘Happy Halloween! ‘  This spider caught a couple of kids 🙂

If you celebrate Halloween here are a couple of Groovi Pauli songs to sing along to, and learn some Chinese in the bargain 🙂

The lyrics are as follows:
万圣节来了。 (wàn shèng jié lái le) Halloween is here
割南瓜。 (gē nán guā) Carve pumpkin(s)
吃糖果。 (chī táng guǒ) Eat candy
吃巧克力。 (chī qiǎo kè lì) Eat chocolate

万圣节来了。 (wàn shèng jié lái le) Halloween is here
你怕不怕？(nǐ pà bú pà) Are you afraid?
我怕鬼。(wǒ pà guǐ) I’m afraid of ghosts.
我不怕黑。(wǒ bú pà hēi) I’m not afraid of the dark.

万圣节来了。 (wàn shèng jié lái le) Halloween is here
你当什么？ (nǐ dāng shén me) What will you be?
我当恐龙。(wǒ dāng kǒng lóng) I’ll be a dinosaur.
你当巫婆。(nǐ dāng wū pó) You’ll be a witch.

“Scary Halloween” 可怕的万圣节 (kě pà de wàn shèng jié)

The lyrics：
Halloween 万圣节 (wàn shèng jié)
Love to dress up 爱打扮 (ài dá bàn)
Eat candy 吃糖果 (chī táng guǒ)
It’s so fun 很好玩 (hěn hǎo wán)

We will read this book this week ‘123学数字’ (123 xué shùzì).  ‘Counting’. A cute flap book that we can guess animals and numbers along the way.

Don’t forget the number rap to practice numbers! Click on the link for a video to rap along to!

Want to practice counting things and using measure words?  Watch the Ten Little Friends video the kids made for you.

Or be really clever and try counting backwards in Chinese 🙂

The book has elephants and hippos in it, so we may sing What Animal? song this week too. Click on the link for a video and the lyrics.

There are lots of other number and counting songs on this website, just have a browse 🙂

See you Wednesday 🙂

 

突发奇想 (tū fā qí xiǎng) is an idiom in Chinese that means ‘to have an inspirational idea’.  And when given the opportunity, our children no matter where they are in the world, have lots of inspirational ideas!

Children have interests and passions, and when left to explore these themselves, they learn all the things that we really want them to learn (like language, science, maths etc).

Children are also intrinsically compassionate, and naturally want to help others, which unfortunately isn’t a specific ‘outcome’ to be developed in children in most curriculums.  So unless we allow children time and space to do their own thing, this important ingredient of ‘compassion’ and ’empathy’ that itself gives an intrinsic motivation for our children to deeply learn, can be forgotten about.

My little girl Aurora has with her love of chickens, drawing, and her involvement in the Parkrun community, had an ‘inspirational idea’ to design unique designs for Parkrunners’ Barcode cards, to raise money to give ex-battery hens a better life.  By doing this she is managing a project that is self-led and that she is passionate about, and learning ‘curriculum outcomes’ without even realising…whilst also making partnerships in the community and feeding her compassion to grow…which in turn leads to even deeper learning of those ‘curriculum outcomes’. You can follow her project on her Happy Hens blog. 

Often when children are allowed to explore their interests and passions, that will be enough to spark a self-led project.  There are lots of ways to spark ideas, but exploring the UN’s Global Goals can often spark initiative in children to use their super powers and passions to do something really good.  The link ‘Heroes for Change’  also has videos about the Global Goals in Mandarin for those integrating Mandarin into projects.

That is why, whilst learning her Chinese, Aurora was really interested in a news story about the above 3 children in China, the same age as her, who wrote, illustrated and published bilingual books to raise money to build a soccer field for students at a poor rural school.  They took their passions of dinosaurs, learning English, and soccer and combined them to help others. Their passion and compassion was their motivation, and had to manage and learn so much, but did it because they wanted to. You can read their story here (in Chinese),  the headline reads:

上海学生众筹出版中英双语小说，为贫困地区小学援建足球场

(shàng hǎi xué sheng zhòng chóu chū bǎn zhōng yīng shuāng yǔ xiǎo shuō ， wèi pín kùn dì qū xiǎo xué yuán jiàn zú qiú chǎng)

‘Shanghai students crowdfund to publish bilingual storybook, in order to raise funds to build a soccer field for an impoverished primary school’

We made an image of a few of the key words we found in this news article that we resonated with 🙂

The words in the image, taken from the article, are below, followed by a few quotes from the article.

突发奇想        tū fā qí xiǎng                           to have an inspirational idea
超级恐龙迷    chāo jí kǒng lóng mí                to be mad about dinosaurs
结合                jié hé                                        combine
兴趣爱好        xìng qù ài hào                          interests and hobbies
爱心                ài xīn                                       compassion
触动                chù dòng                                 to be touched by something
权利                quán lì                                     rights
决心                jué xīn                                     determination
筹集                chóu jí                                     raise funds

张洲晨从小就是个超级恐龙迷 

zhāng zhōu chén cóng xiǎo jiù shì gè chāo jí kǒng lóng mí

‘From as far as he can remember Zhang Zhouchen was a dinosaur fanatic’

他的兴趣爱好和英文学习结合起来

 tā de xìng qù ài hào hé yīng wén xué xí jié hé qǐ lai

‘He started to combine his interests and English study’

因为非常喜欢恐龙，就突发奇想写一本关于恐龙的书，所以后来用英文写了一部关于恐龙的科普书

yīn wèi fēi cháng xǐ huan kǒng lóng ， jiù tū fā qí xiǎng xiě yī běn guān yú kǒng lóng de shū ， suǒ yǐ hòu lái yòng yīng wén xiě le yī bù guān yú kǒng lóng de kē pǔ shū

‘Because of his love of dinosaurs, he had this inspirational idea to write a story about dinosaurs’

张洲晨非常喜欢踢足球，每天都用一两个小时去踢球。他觉得每个人都应该有权利去享受这么一个简单的东西。

zhāng zhōu chén fēi cháng xǐ huan tī zú qiú ， měi tiān dōu yòng yī liǎng gè xiǎo shí qù tī qiú 。 tā jué de měi ge rén dōu yīng gāi yǒu quán lì qù xiǎng shòu zhè me yī gè jiǎn dān de dōng xi 。

‘Zhang Zhouchen really liked soccer, every day he played for 2 hours.  He felt that everybody should have the right to enjoy such a simple thing in life’.

I hope this inspires students and teachers to let passions guide you for learning 🙂