Class Review 2/21

At the start of class, we sang the friendship song we learned last time. Then, as usual, we began class with review to refresh the students' memories. Students were very attentive when we reviewed the flashcards and performed much better on the quiz than they had in previous weeks. Keep up the good work!

This lesson we learned five new characters: 北, 里, 出, 的, 家. We discussed the origins of a few characters to help students better remember those characters. A couple of brave students went up in front of the class to demonstrate how they believe the characters are written. Students were able to learn from each other's mistakes.

We opened the textbook to read lesson 16. This lesson talks about the people's hometowns. Students took turns sharing where they were born; some were born in other countries and states, while others were born right here in Sacramento or Davis!

After reading through the lesson several times, we learned a song to go with the reading. 

Class Review 2/14

We began class by reviewing our flashcards. For the most part, students were very good at recognizing the characters. Next, we tested the students on their ability to write characters from memory. The characters we chose were challenging, but some students still managed to correctly write a couple or even most of them! Afterwards, we posted the tested characters on the board and asked students to copy down the ones they missed. 

Next, students learned new characters:  写, 业,  足, 球. They practiced writing the strokes in the correct order and forming words with these characters. 

The lesson the students read from the book was about playing with a rubber ball. The teacher brought out a mini beach ball and asked the students if they could find any other balls in the room. Students were very creative with their finds--they found paper balls in the recycling bin, spherical objects, and even an orange!

As it was Valentine's day, we celebrated by learning a new song about friendship. After practicing several times, students went up in groups to perform in front of their peers. Wonderful job students!

Class Review 2/7

Congrats to the students for such a successful performance last week! After a few weeks of preparing for the New Year's performance, we returned to our curriculum. We began class by reviewing flashcards. Afterwards, we asked the students to write a couple of characters (shown below) that they learned last semester. Some students did very well while others struggled. We found that overall students are very good at recognizing (reading) characters, but not as strong at coming up with the characters themselves. It is highly recommended that students take time to practice writing characters at home!

(These are the 8 character students were asked to write)

Next we learned five new characters: 了, 女, 她, 来, 学. We played several rounds of "Beat the Teacher" and asked students to form words using the new characters. As always, we were impressed with the students' creativity!

We then opened the textbook to look at lesson 14. We read in a circle so students took turns reading different lines of the passage. The story mentions the country Australia so we took some time to examine a world map. Students helped to locate where Australia, China, and the United States were.

To end our discussion, the teacher told a story about Chinese New Years and passed out red envelopes to the students.

We wish everyone a happy and healthy new year!