Newsletter #3

Dear parents, We have made it through our first full weeks of school! The children are setting into routines and are doing a good job 🙂 Now that we are getting much more used to listening and saying/repeating what things are in Mandarin, we are working very intentionally to start looking at characters when we say them too! We are working to recognize characters that we have seen a lot since school starts – which include numbers and our own name. We will work more intentionally on listening, repeating/saying, and reading Mandarin words!

Last week, we have a new friend that visited us for a couple of days. We found out that he will be joining our class officially starting this coming week! Please join me in welcoming Kennin, and his mom Wanda to our class and ZCS. They are new to ZCS and Michigan!

What did we learn and What will we learn?

Mandarin: We continue to learn our basic strokes and this week. As we learn more basic strokes, your children will become more familiar with the strokes that makes up the Mandarin Characters. We are also working to get the children to recognize their Mandarin names. We had the chance to explore some Mandarin characters/vocabularies through Mandarin Centers.

If you have some time this weekend, I would encourage you to pull out the page that had the children’s Mandarin name, and help children to be more familiar with how their Mandarin names look like!

	pie	down stroke to the left (written from top right to bottom left)	as in the character ba (eight)
	na	down stroke to the right (written from top left to bottom right)	as in the character ru (to enter)
	dian	dot (written from top to bottom right or left)	as in the character liu (six)
	ti	upward stroke (written from bottom left to top right)	as in the character ba (to grasp)

	shugou	vertical stroke with a hook	as in the character xiao (small)
	wangou	bending stroke with a hook	as in the character gou (dog)

Writing: We continue to practice telling stories and sharing quick news in the morning – we learned that a story has a beginning, middle and end. We learned that when we tell stories, we are going to start from telling them, then drawing them, then writing them.

Science: We are constantly learning and practicing our basic body parts and we continue to review five senses. We started exploring things with our five senses through books and using things in the classroom. We then focus on using the sense of sight and it helped us classifying different shapes according to colors, shapes as well as sizes. We will continue to explore the world with our senses.

Math: We continue to practice and get familiar with our numbers especially 1-10. This week we also intentionally work on recognizing our numbers in Mandarin (and the characters). This week, We had a couple times of math stations where we practice our number sense through counting pictures, math games with the teacher, and counting our fingers. We started learning how to write Mandarin numbers 1-3. We will practice writing numbers 1-4 at school and at home this coming week and we will continue to practice our number sense.

Bible: We reviewed our creation story, had a discussion about humans falling into sins, and talked about Noah and the Ark. We talk about how humans fall in to sin but god promised us that He will send a savior. We also introduced our Bible Memory Verse (Genesis 8:22) – I sent home a visual page that can help explain what the verse means for the children a couple days ago, and introduced the Fruit of the Spirit: Love. You can find the verses at our Bible Memory Resource Page. We are learning how to sing Jesus Loves Me in Mandarin! We will be talking about the story of Babel and Abraham this coming week.

Play: We are enjoying our play time and our different friends’ companies during play time! We learn what the different “play materials” are called, and we are developing problem solving skills, learning how to share and take turns. I have been having a lot of fun playing and seeing children with their imagination and creativity 🙂

Things to Note:

Math Flashcards Resources: In your Red Alert Folder, you will find Math numbers flashcard (with visual chips they can count), as well as Mandarin Numbers Flashcard. I strongly encourage you to cut these flashcards and practice with the children – we are working on making connections of our numbers (and not always depend on counting in Mandarin from 1-10 to find that 五 is 5).

End of Day Bus Dismissal Time Change:  These times reflect a 5 minute earlier dismissal due to a change from Zeeland Public Transportation. Elementary: 3:20 ready bell, 3:25 bus dismissal bell. Parents can start picking up children at 3:25. *elementary walkers are dismissed after busses have left the drive*

Incentive Jar: We started the Incentive Jar this week. Each time a child produce a Mandarin Phrase, or participate really well in class, I add a spiral pasta to our Incentive Jar. The children are aware that when the Jar is all filled up they will get to celebrate it with something special 🙂 I can tell that it is really motivating them to produce Mandarin phrases. Please continue to encourage your child to learn and speak Mandarin – teaching you new phrases that they learn 🙂

Parent Driver Information: Due to new insurance requirements, new documentation is required of all parents before they are allowed to drive for ZCS field trips, sports, after school activities, etc.

1.  Every driver must turn in a copy of their driver’s license and valid proof of insurance to the ZCS Main Office. These will be kept on file for the duration of the school year. Parents are responsible for checking to make sure the copies on file are valid and not expired.

2.  Each time a parent drives, he or she will need to sign the “Driver Guidelines” agreement indicating they will abide by the safety standards laid out in the agreement. They will also confirm that the license and proof of insurance on file in the office is up to date.

We are grateful for all of our parent drivers. So, we want to make these new requirements as easy to meet as possible. Please feel free to send copies of your license and proof of insurance to school with your student and have them drop them off in the main office. Or, stop by with the documents and we will gladly make copies for you.

Photos: I have added a page that has photos/snippets of our classroom life! Feel free to check the page and there will be new photos added from time to time!

Mandarin and English Homework: This coming week will be the first week of you seeing both Mandarin and English Homework in the Red Alert Folder. Mandarin Homework consist a writing practice sheet (collected on Fridays) and Flashcard that you keep at home and practice with the children. I will check their Mandarin Homework. English Homework is optional, but feel free to send it back to school if that helps keep your children accountable! I do not check their English homework and do not teach them Handwriting Without Tears at school.

 What’s coming up?

Specials: Monday – Spanish, Art, Tuesday – Music, Spanish, Wednesday – Library, Thursday – Spanish, PE.

Mandarin Homework: I will be sending our first Mandarin Homework this coming Monday. It is going to be on numbers practice. Please watch and guide your child through their Mandarin Homework by helping them follow the stroke order (you will be able to see it on the paper, and it starts left to right most of the time) Let me know if you have any questions about this! Please also help your child to follow the characters proportion (which part of the characters in in which box, which stroke is longer/shorter, where the characters should be written). Both stroke orders and characters proportions are essentials in Mandarin Characters writing, and it’s important to create good habits early in the year!

Mandarin Homework is send home on Mondays, and collected on Fridays. Please make sure your child’s name is on the homework (English name is fine at this point) since I will be checking it.

Flashcard: Flashcard will also be coming home and it is going to be on Family Members. Please make sure that you keep the flashcards that I send home each week so children can keep practicing! The goal is for the children to recognize the characters!

Degraff Nature Center Field Trip: September 30th, Friday.

Picture Day: October 4, Tuesday. I am sending home forms in red alert folders this coming Tuesday.

Book It: Starting in October! You will be getting information and a sheet that children can fill in to earn their free pizzas!

Prayer Requests:

New Friend: Please pray for the new family/friend joining us as he transitions into our class, please pray for the children as they develop friendships – please pray for the children to learn to take our school theme to heart and learn to be selfless.

Our class: Please continue to pray for our class! As we dive more into Mandarin, it is certainly not easy for your child to learn how to “do school” and learning it in another language at the same time.

If you have prayer requests that you are willing and comfortable to share with our class, I would be more than happy to include them as well – just let me know!

 谢谢！

－ 黎老师