Kids were having a great time in the classroom before I left for my next class. There was an end of the year class party going on. After I finished the last class I quickly walked back to the second grade classroom. I saw John, one of the students, sobbing. John was standing next to Mrs. Watanabe. Red teary eyes. Tears. Now, he was crying. Crying so hard. Mrs. Watanabe was hugging him and trying to calm
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Jane is the head coach for Science Olympia. She has an extensive engineer background and she wants to recruit parents to be coaches for the weekly after-school practice. These elementary school students who are sitting in the cafeteria for the first team meeting are excited. They are more interested in what they are going to do and what they are going to build than all the logistics parents are talking about. Tammy’s son is in the team.
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Piano teacher. “What’s your piano teacher’s name?” I asked. One of the kids answered, “I don’t know.” They all shrugged their shoulders. Then, another one whispered to me, “We don’t like her.” The poor piano teacher. I had one, too. He was my poor piano teacher years ago. He always said I was not ready for the recital. My friend, Yu did. He was so good at playing piano. He practiced playing the piano every day. His
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Connecting Cultures. Home culture connects with community culture. Classroom cultures connect with home culture. School cultures connect with community culture. It is like a circle. This connection expands. The first year I had the dumpling-making event at school. The teachers were supportive and the kids were excited. Then, a teacher came to me and told me that the cafeteria might not work with the hours we needed for the event. I went to see the cafeteria manager
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Play peekaboo with a young child is a lot of fun. The giggles, laughter, and excitement are the sound of joy. I had a baby blanket between my baby girl and me. “Mèimei zài nǎlǐ？” I asked. The baby blanket was between us. Mèimei zài nǎlǐ？(pinyin) Where is the little sister? (English translation) 妹妹在哪裡? (traditional Chinese) 妹妹在哪里? (simplified Chinese) There was silence. “Mèimei zài nǎlǐ？” I asked again. In a few seconds, I dropped the blanket. Almost
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Finding time for the things you want to do, you want to learn, and you want to try. Time that every one has every day. Twenty four hours exactly for you and me yesterday. Today, also, twenty-four hours. It was a great GWATFL conference. I was very happy to see hundreds of educators atteneded this professional development event for foreign language educators. It was not on a work day. It was on the weekend. Why were they
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Read a classic Chinese poem with kids in the National Poetry Month. Young kids enjoy singing, rhyming, and poems. As children sing songs, recite rhymes, and listen to the reading of poems, they hear sounds, rhymes, and language patterns. They are all great ways for literacy building. Classic Chinese poems are short with limited word count. The 5-word poems have twenty Chinese characters. Here we are looking at Quiet Night Thought written by one of the most
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The best story is the one that your child wants you to tell again and again. One of my best stories is about a close encounter with a wildlife llama. That few seconds were almost like a Jurrasic Park experience. Not with dinosaurs. But with a curious llama. All the people in the car didn’t think this cute creature would keep following us and getting closer and closer to the car. I am sure you also have
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Counting jellybeans is a lot of fun for Jay. He first sort out the colors. Then he talks about the favors. He likes fruit so he keeps all the fruit flavored jellybeans on one side. When his brother joins him Jay starts counting： one jellybean 一個糖豆 yí gè táng dòu 一个糖豆, two jellybeans 兩個糖豆 liǎng gè táng dòu… His little brother corrects him: two is 二 èr. Jay repeats, two jellybeans 兩個糖豆 liǎng gè táng dòu, and
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Time to say good night! Good night 晚安 wǎn ān！ Maria sings Dear Sweetheart lullaby to her daughter every night. Her little girl was hiding behind her and smiling. Dear Sweetheart is a song I wrote for my daughter when she was just a tiny new born baby. When we went home with her this song became a bed time routine. Bed time routine is a good way to wrap up the day with the little ones.
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