To take the idea further, fish-shaped "Go Fish" cards can be made from printable fish cutouts online. They could be used for much more than colors...any vocabulary set could be used. Simply laminate them before using in class and you now have a whimsical way to have your students learn and practice vocabulary!
I have started teaching my students colors, and am always looking for new ways to make it more fun. I happened to have these Dr.Seuss fish cutouts seen above from "Read Across America" week celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday, and decided to use them with my 3 year old students. I started with just having them holding up a color when I call it, but then decided to try playing "Go Fish" with the fish!
To take the idea further, fish-shaped "Go Fish" cards can be made from printable fish cutouts online. They could be used for much more than colors...any vocabulary set could be used. Simply laminate them before using in class and you now have a whimsical way to have your students learn and practice vocabulary!
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Word clouds DO work in Chinese! Well...sort of. I tried making a word cloud on Tagxedo and discovered the following: You cannot directly input the characters into the online app. You CAN, however, create a document and then copy it into the input space where you load in the words. The characters get all scrambled up, but the Pinyin works OK as long as you don't put spaces between the words. You can choose all sorts of shapes, so I thought the airplane was fun to do for a travel theme vocabulary set...
Have fun creating! I discovered a couple different websites that are really cool! You can input words, stories, phrases in to the online applications, and then it formats the words in artistic ways. My Critical Thinking themed Wordle is at the left (www.wordle.net). Above, is my word "cloud" which is from tagxedo.com. There are a huge number of choices, formats, colors, and it actually took me a bit of time just to figure out how to input a handful of words. However, you can see my final tagxedo result, which I'm rather pleased with. I haven't tried it using Chinese, whether with characters, but Pinyin should work. I'll have to try and see if character inputs work in these online applications. I could assign my students to create a Wordle or Word Cloud (or a different shape) based on vocabulary, sentences, and phrases that they have learned. This is something fun and different you can do with vocabulary words! Today is Pi Day. Pi, being the mathematical number that is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, and is 3.14 followed by infinite string of numbers. Thus, math students and others all over the world celebrate Pi day on March 14, or 3.14. Many celebrate Pi day by eating...PIE! Our 5th and 6th graders are celebrating with several activities, including eating pie!
I have to share a funny and very sweet story about something that happened this morning related to Pi day. We had a parent come in breathless bringing two neckties to school today. He was concerned that the students might not know how to tie a necktie. We asked him about needing the ties, and he responded, "But it's TIE Day, right?" After we explained the mistake of the misplaced consonant (T for P), he commented "I HATE cell phones!" Gotta give that parent credit for making such a valiant effort! So...Happy PI Day, everyone! At our school, we offer 2 languages at the Pre-K and Elementary grades (Chinese, Spanish) and 3 languages at the Middle/High School grades (Chinese, Spanish, & Latin). These past two years, all of our Pre-K and Elementary students have been taught one semester of Chinese and one semester of Spanish each year. (We teach one class at each grade level one semester, and then switch classes for the next semester).
Anyhow, today I passed by one of the Pre-K4 (4 year old) classes as they were walking to another classroom. I am teaching this group of students this semester (they were taught Spanish last semester). In my classes, I begin with a greeting, usually "Ni Hao" (你好) --Hello-- and their name, and they are taught to reply "Ni Hao Lao Shi" (你好老師)--Hello, Teacher. Anyhow, as the students passed me in the hallway this morning, they said: "Hola Lao shi!" I so love that! They are multilingual! Using Spanish and Chinese in the same sentence is SO COOL! Or perhaps, they know to call me "Lao shi" (老師)regardless of what language they are speaking. Either way, I love the combination of both languages in one short sentence! I had to share, because that just gave me a big smile. I hope it gives you a smile too! :-) We are celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday all week at our school. Each day is has a special theme. Yesterday, we all wore green, as it was "Green Eggs and Ham" day. In past years, I have read the Cat in the Hat to my students in Chinese. it is fun for them to read a line in English, and I (or my student assistant from China) would read the lines in Chinese. This year, I chose to focus my lessons on Green Eggs and Ham to celebrate this special week. It's great that Dr. Seuss books are available in Chinese (bilingual editions--Chinese and English--can be found at ChinaSprout). Green Eggs and Ham is found at this link: Green Eggs and Ham is found at this link: http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSU002 One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish is found at this link: http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSC053 In addition to the Chinese editions of the Dr. Seuss books, I decided this year that it would be fun to have the reading be more interactive. I found some great Dr. Seuss book apps that I used this year! Oceanhouse Media (http://www.oceanhousemedia.com/products/seuss/) has a huge selection of Dr. Seuss book apps (in English) for both the i-devices as well as Android devices. They are still on sale this week in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday, so I was able to purchase Green Eggs and Ham, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish for only $1.99 each for my iPad. These apps are very well done, with several different presentation options, contains some animation (panning in and out of illustrations), and sound effects!
In addition, instead of having the students hear me read (a passive activity), or having them read in English (they end up not learning any Chinese that way), I thought I would try to teach them a few simple sentences, and then have them read the sentences in Chinese in each appropriate spot in the story. Green Eggs and Ham is ideal because there is quite a bit of repetition in the text, giving students a chance to hear and repetitively practice a few of the same lines. I opted to keep it simple, and just teach "I like" (我喜歡, wo3 xi3huan1), "I don't like" (我不喜歡 wo3 bu4 xi3huan1), and "Do you like?" (你喜不喜歡? ni3 xi3 bu4 xi3huan1?). Then, I would go around the class and each student would have to say one of those three sentences as appropriate (for example, for "I would not, could not, in a boat" the student would say "我不喜歡" (wo3 bu4 xi3huan1) and I would fill in the last part of the sentence about the boat. (在船裡 zai4 chuan2 li3). If I had more time with the students, I would give them vocabulary sheets and then they could fill in rest of the sentence they learned with the appropriate words themselves. As it is, I will be happy if they simply remember how to say "I like" (我喜歡, wo3 xi3huan1),and "I don't like" (我不喜歡 wo3 bu4 xi3huan1). Finally, a fun FREE app that I downloaded allows you to insert photos into Cat in the Hat backdrops and is called the "Cat Cam". http://www.oceanhousemedia.com/products/catcam/. (Did I forget to mention that I have spent today as "Thing Two" at school? Well, here's a photo of me using CatCam...) Oh, and that's not my usual hairstyle. ;-) I have discovered some really cool storytelling apps on the iPad that I use to tell stories related to Chinese myths and traditions. I have several I have used for Chinese New Year (The Story of Nian) as well as the Lantern Festival. I recommend them below:
I have the following three stories about the Story of Nian on my iPad (each one is currently available for purchase at $0.99 each in the App Store). The Tale of Nian from Hongen Education and Technology https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-tale-of-nian/id464210134?mt=8 This one is in Chinese, with Chinese character subtitles. It is an interactive application with clickable pictures on each page. Nian is Coming, from 5Q Channel (Lu Feng Technology) https://itunes.apple.com/app/id412372054 This one is only in Chinese, but there are some different presentation options--from playing it straight through as an animation, or reading with subtitles, either simplified characters, or simplified characters with pinyin. I personally like the animation option the best, though. The Beast Nian, by RyeBooks https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ryebooks-beast-nian-by-rye/id396384621?mt=8 This app has a language selection option, for subtitles and narration, with the choices English, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, or Spanish. For the Lantern Festival, I use a different app from 5Q Channel, called "The Legend of the Lantern Festival." The animation is very well-done so I stop it between scenes and have the students describe to me what they think is going on. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chinese-reading-legend-lantern/id413196096?mt=8 I was a little late getting these app recommendations posted for you, as Chinese New Year celebrations are now over, but I hope they are still helpful! |
About MeChristina has been a Chinese language teacher for the last 5 years and now teaches "Think Tank," a Critical Thinking class to elementary students. She is also mom to two amazing girls, wife to a wonderful husband, violinist, and Christian (not necessarily in that order). Archives
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