Week 8 (Saturday) 我有。。。我没有。。。I have...I do not have

We learnt to ask question to find out what our classmates have and do not have. Students work in pair to enquire what their partner has in their school bag. Here are some sentence pattern:

你有书吗？Do you have a book?
你有笔吗？Do you have a pencil?
你有本子吗？Do you have a writing book?
我没有本子 I do not have a writing book
你有纸吗？Do you have paper?
我没有纸 I do not have paper

Building on these sentences, students are then encouraged to expand with words that they have learnt, such as 你有妹妹吗？Do you have a sister? 你有哥哥吗？Do you have a brother?

You can practice the phrases here.

Week 7 (Saturday) 这是我的。。。（Zhè shì wǒ de）This is my。。。

We continue to work on identifying our belongings with the sentence focus on 这是我的。。。(This is my...).

Here are some examples we learnt:

这是我的书包 Zhè shì wǒ de shūbāo This is my school bag

这是我的书 zhè shì wǒ de shū This is my book

这是我的笔 zhè shì wǒ de bǐ This is my pencil

这是我的帽子 zhè shì wǒ de màozi This is my hat

这是我的杯子 zhè shì wǒ de bēizi This is my cup

You can practice further here

We made some amazing kites today. there are the mighty dragon and the beautiful butterfly. I hope the children enjoy playing with them. The kite is widely recognised as having originated in China. there were severals legends on the history of kites. One of the more fascinating one was that it was used as an emergency warning device, when the kite was flown in order to appeal for help when the city-state of Nanjing was under siege by Hou Jing. Whatever it may be, kites have long been the favourite of kids due to its colourful nature.

Term 2 Week 4 (Saturday) 我有电脑 Wǒ yǒu diànnǎo - I have a computer

What a wet Saturday it was. Glad to see all the students in class today despite the gloomy wet weather!

This week as focus on a few simple tasks on what we have either at school or at home. Here are the sentences we practice:

我有一台电脑 (Wǒ yǒuyī tái diànnǎo) I have a computer

你有电脑吗？ (Nǐ yǒu diànnǎo ma?) Do you have a computer?

我没有电脑 (Wǒ méiyǒu diànnǎo) I don't have a computer

We practiced these sentences with the words we learnt previously. You can have a revision HERE.

We also learnt paper cutting art 剪纸艺 (Jiǎnzhǐ yì) today. We planned and cut out the character double happiness.

Term 2 Week 3 (Saturday) 母亲节 Mǔqīn jié Mothers Day

This week we are celebrating 母亲节 Mǔqīn jié Mothers Day. We talked about love 爱 Ài and sang a beautiful song about mum. Here is the lyrics:

美丽的美丽的天空里

Měilì dì měilì dì tiānkōng lǐ

In the beautiful sky

出来了光亮的小星星

chūlái le guāngliàng de xiǎo xīngxīng

Bright littles starts emerge

好像是我妈妈慈爱的眼睛

hǎoxiàng shì wǒ māmā cí'ài de yǎnjīng

Just like mum's kind beautiful eyes

妈妈的眼睛我最喜爱

māmā de yǎnjīng wǒ zuì xǐ'ài

mum's eyes are my favourite

常常的希望我做个好小孩

chángcháng de xīwàng wǒ zuò gè hǎo xiǎohái

Always wants me to be my best

妈妈的眼睛我最喜爱

māmā de yǎnjīng wǒ zuì xǐ'ài

Mum's eyes are my favourite

Happy Mothers Day! 母亲节快乐!

Term 2 Week 2 (Saturday) 我有什么 (Wǒ yǒu shé me) ? What Do I have?

Welcome back after a long weekend. We continue to look at the measure words and the items we have in our day to day life.

Please practice all the words here.

As well as learning measure words, we also revisited numbers. Please go through the number + measure words + items in the text book page 14, you can read along HERE.

The focus this week is 我有...(Wǒ yǒu) I have...

For example,  我有两个书包 (Wǒ yǒu liǎng gè shūbāo) I have two schoolbags.

Please also practice our song 妈妈的眼睛.

Have a lovely week ahead!

Week 7 (Saturday) 我有什么? (Wǒ yǒu shé me?) What Do I have?

The term has certainly whizzed by quickly. After learning about getting ready to school we have now moved on to looking at measure words (量词) on Lesson 2. The key words for this lesson are 

"个”、“张”、“本”、“支” 和 “台” (all measure words) as well as 张、本、支、台、笔、白、纸、问、题、回、答、里、杯、 电、脑. You can find out how to read them HERE.

We also get to know the items in our school bags, such as 本子, 书，尺子，橡皮，铅笔 (exercise book, book, ruler, rubber, pencil etc). The sentence structure is 我有...(I have...)，我没有...(I do not have...). Examples are 我有书 I have book, 我没有尺 I do not have ruler. 

The task of the week is to practice the passage on page 15. Here is the audio file for reading.

Have a lovely weekend!

Week 6 (Saturday Class) Learning Grammar

Now that we now all the key words that are associated with going to school, we started to look at the grammar in our lesson. We learnt how to expand our sentence in the following example:

帽子 (màozi) - a hat (a noun)

我戴帽子 (Wǒ dài màozi) - I wear a hat (stating a fact)

我要戴帽子 (Wǒ yào dài màozi) - I want to wear a hat (express desire to wear a hat)

我在戴帽子 (Wǒ zài dài màozi) - I am wearing a hat (in progress)

我戴上帽子去上学 (Wǒ dài shàng màozi qù shàngxué) - I put on my hat and go to school (action completed and is usually follow by another action to complete the sentence.

Notice each of the sentence look similar but they have completely different meaning. More information on page 4 in text book.

We also learn to use question, here is an example:

你看見我的書包了嗎?
 Nǐ kànjiàn wǒde  shūbāo le ma? (Have you seen my school bag?)

The answer is usually 我看見你的書包了 or 我没有看見你的書包. 了(le) is usually added to the end of sentence meaning the action is over.

There are a couple of tasks for the children this week, a word search as well as writing task on page 5 of the work book.

Chinese idiom of the week is 守株待兔 (Shŏu zhū dài tù) Trust to chance and luck in one's actions; hope for gains without pains. Here is how the story goes:

There was a farmer in the Song Kingdom in ancient China. He worked in his field day after day. In good harvest years, he could only have enough food to eat and enough clothing to wear. If the field failed to produce enough crops, he had to go hungry. This farmer wanted to improve his life. But he was too lazy and too cowardly. He always dreamed of having unexpected fortune.

A miracle took place at last. One day, when he worked in the field, some people were hunting nearby. They shouted loudly one after another. Some little animals were running desperately. Suddenly, a hare dashed itself headlong against the stump of a dead tree in his field and died. That day, he had a good meal.

From that day on, he no longer worked in his field. From morning till night, he stayed by that miraculous stump, waiting for another hare. Will the miracle happen again?
People often use the set phrase “staying by a stump waiting for more hares to come and dash themselves against it" to refer to persons dreaming to reap without sowing.

Week 5 (Saturday Class) Going to School 我去上学 (Wǒ qù shàngxué) Cont.

Hello! Another busy week for our students in Saturday class. We practiced the passage on page 3 this week. You can read along here.

They are now able to read it out even without the pinyin, I'm so proud of them! This week we learnt the different between 穿 (wear, dressed in), 戴 (to put on), and 拿 (to take). Feel free to quiz them and see if they could all appropriately use the term! We had a lot of fun practicing in class. You can also practice the characters with them with the study set.

This week's homework - Please have a go on the writing on page 5 of work book and matching the picture with appropriate words on page 6. I know we are still a few books short and they will arrive next week so please bear with us. 

Our Chinese idiom of the week is Blind man and the Elephant 盲人摸象 (máng rén mō xiàng). Here is the story:

Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "Hey, there is an elephant in the village today." They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, "Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway." All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.

  

"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg. 

"Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail. 

"Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant. 

"It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant. 

"It is like a big bed," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant. 

"It is like a carrot," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant. 

They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, "What is the matter?" They said, "We cannot agree to what the elephant is like." Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said."

Have a good week ahead!

Week 4 (Saturday Class) Going to School 我去上学 (Wǒ qù shàngxué)

After the hustle and bustle of Chinese New Year fun in the last two week, we finally open our text book and explore new lessons. Today's class we talked about what to bring or wear going to school. The key words are 穿 Chuān (wear, dressed in), 戴 Dài (wear, put on), 拿 Ná (take), and what they can be used with. We had fun playing word matching and word search, I was really quite impressed how quickly the children manage to recognise the words.

As well as learning about everyday items such as hat, school bag, shoes and socks (page 2 in text book), we also practice reading the passage on page 3 as well as learning about the 4 tones in Chinese Pinyin.

You can find the flashcard for Lesson 1 HERE.
The word search games worksheet is HERE

We also revisited numbers this week as some of our new students have not been introduced to it. 

1 一 yī
2 二 èr
3 三 sān
4 四 sì
5 五 wǔ
6 六 liù
7 七 qī
8 八 bā
9 九 jiǔ
10 十 shí

You can read along counting to 10 here 

This week we have also started our story segment. I have introduced a Chinese idiom 成語 (Chengyu) stories series. Chéngyǔ (Traditional Chinese: 成語; Simplified Chinese: 成语, literally "to become (part of) the language") or Four-character idioms are widely used in Classical Chinese, a literary form used in the Chinese written language from antiquity until 1919, and are still commonly used in Vernacular writing today.The first story today is 

半途而废 (bàn tú ér fèi) meaning do things by halves, give up halfway. Here is how the story goes:

During the Warring States Period (475-221BC), there was a man called Yue Yangzi in State Yue. Yue Yangzi felt that he should go out and visit scholars to enrich his knowledge. So he set off.  A year later, he came back home suddenly."Why have you returned?" asked his wife in surprise, "You've only spent one year studying with scholars.""I come back because I missed you very much."
Without saying anything, his wife took a pair of scissors and went to the loom at which she had worked. Pointing at the half done brocade, she proclaimed : "This brocade is woven from the finest silk. I wove one strand after another to produce the brocade. Now if I cut it, all my previous work will be wasted. It's the same with your studies. You can acquire knowledge only through diligence. Now, you've stopped halfway. Isn't it the same as cutting the brocade on the loom?"　　 
Yue Yangzi was moved by what she said. He again left home to visit scholars. Several years later he became a learned man.

Have a lovely weekend!