21 Feb 2019

Mandarin Monthly Update #6

Year 1 – Children in 1W enjoyed learning the songs and stories about the Chinese New Year Festival. They are beginning to understand the cultural significance of these celebrations. Their next unit will be “My body”.

Year 2 – Students in Year Two have started to learn 小学生。 They have been reading and writing the following Chinese characters 学生，我，是，爱，老师，同，文和校. Students will also learn how to use these words and phrases in sentences, e.g., 我是小学生. 我爱中文学校.

Year 3 – Students in Year Three will start to learn the different places in school in 我的学校。At the end of this unit, they should be able to name these places and talk about the activities that usually take place there, e.g., 我要去图书馆借书.

Year 4 – Students in Year Four will learn 左手右手，前面一只小老鼠 and 我的同学. At the end of this unit, students should be able to give a detailed description of a person’s physical appearance.

Year 5 – Students in Year Five have completed the unit of “Transport”. In the next few weeks, they will be able to make links to the UOI “Big Business” during Mandarin lessons by applying their knowledge of Mandarin in the inquiry process.

Year 6 – Students in Year Six have completed the unit “Food and Drinks”. The current unit is “Transport”. They will also start to revise topics that they have learnt in the past to prepare for the ESF Y6-Y7 Chinese Benchmark Test which will take place in the weeks beginning March 11 and March 18. The test will include three parts – listening comprehension, reading comprehension and writing. Students are encouraged to continue with the revisions at home by reading the textbook in the Mandarin google classroom and visiting the Mandarin Matrix website.

Y1 – They have been learning about colours. The children should be able to recognise some colour characters like 红，黄，蓝，etc, and sing a colour song in Mandarin. They have also been learning a lot about Chinese New year traditions through songs, stories and role plays.

Y2 – As a part of CNY celebrations, students in Year 2 have been learning a lot about Chinese New year traditions: customs, stories, songs and CNY related characters and good wish expressions.

Y3- We have finished the topic 你是哪国人？ Now we are working on the body parts as our following topic.

Y4- We are working on the topic of Stationery 文具。

Y5- We started 中文4 chapter eight 司马光和华盛顿的故事。

Y6- We started 中文6 chapter eight 望远镜和显微镜下的故事。

Y1 – They have started learning about body parts. The children should be able to recognise characters like眼睛，耳朵，鼻子，口etc, and sing a body parts song in Mandarin.

Y2- Students in Year 2 have been learning about 衣服 clothes。 They should be able to talk about simple clothes they wear in Mandarin. They also practise Chinese character recognition and strokes for writing.

Y3- Students in Year 3 have learned the texts of “有礼貌”，“加横歌”，“买东西”（中文2 第四，五课）。They have also been learning a lot about Chinese pictographs..

Y4- Students in Year 4 have learned the texts of “龟兔赛跑”，“龟兔第二次赛跑”，“小猫钓鱼”，“小白猫和小黑猫”（中文3第十，十一课）。They have also been trying different ways to share stories in Mandarin.

Y5- Students in Year 5 have learned the texts of “新年到”，“小猫钓鱼”，“谁不专心”（小学华文2A 第三课，第八课）。They will move to the links to the UOI “Big Business” during Mandarin lessons by applying their knowledge of Mandarin for various stages in the inquiry process.

Y6- Students in Year 6 have reviewed the topics of “做菜”。They have also been practising composition writing.

Getting organised for Mandarin lessons

If your child has been given a Mandarin folder (including textbooks, activity books and exercise books), she/he needs to bring it to every Mandarin lesson.

Home Learning

All children are encouraged to take a reading book home on the days when they have Mandarin lessons.
Home learning is now given out in the year group weekly update under the heading Home Learning. It is the responsibility of the students to check the weekly update and make sure that they finish their home learning before the due date.
The amount of home learning varies from class to class. It usually includes reading aloud, copying Chinese characters, writing sentences, reading storybooks, writing book reports etc. Some classes will have weekly written tasks while other classes may be given oral practice only.
Please let your teacher know if you have trouble completing your home learning on time.

Taking Care of Books

The replacement costs for books lost are as follows: