Baltimore International Academy

Chinese Your First Grade

Dear parents, I am so excited to spend the rst week of school with your child (I know some parents are worried because it is the rst year of Chinese for their child. Relax, they will catch up). We had a good start! At the beginning of this week, we did some activities to know each other and build up the learning community. Each student wrote down their names in English and we compared the number of letters in all students. Then we did a selfportrait with a little introduction of our names and ages. Kids enjoyed looking at each others drawing. I was amused when two boys drew their fathers instead of themselves. We also practiced self instruction by nger puppets. They just loved it. Later this week, we spent a lot
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of time on introducing and practicing rules and procedures in our classroom because they are the basis of a well-managed classroom. Students practiced raising their hands to talk, keeping their hands and feet to themselves, putting a listening ear when someone is talking, and having their eyes on me when I am talking. At the same time, they are learning to follow procedures when carrying out activities in classroom. These

Baltimore International Academy

Chinese Your First Grade

procedures included using the bathroom, cleaning up, lining up, walking in the hallway, washing hands, etc. They tried to adapt to a higher grade level at school and a new teacher and I am very proud of the progress they have made so far. Apart from learning to follow classroom rules and procedures, we reviewed what students learnt last year. Honestly, I didnt have high expectations for their retaining of Chinese after the summer, though some of them attended summer camp. However, what they know in Chinese indeed surprised me. They read over 20 little books of BetterChinese, without any help from me. Guess what, they even read a new book I brought to the classroom and said they liked it. They were able to apply their knowledge to new materials. I was totally amazed! We covered topics such as family member, color, action verbs, stationary, animals, weather, etc. At the same time, we reviewed counting from 1 to 100 and doing addition and subtraction within 10. We had so much fun making cup towers, competing in teams, counting while select students stood on one foot, etc. The kids also enjoyed singing a Pulling out a Carrot song with my assistant teacher Yang Laoshi. She was fantastic pretending to pull out the children (fake carrots) from the ground. I apologize for not giving you our special class schedule earlier. Here it is: Mon: P.E. Tue: Computer Wed: Art Thu: Music Fri: P.E. Please make sure your child wear gym clothes on Mondays and Fridays. Two things need to be returned to me next Tuesday: The free lunch registration form, student information sheet and parent signature page in the big white envelop (package from Baltimore City Public Schools). PLEASE help your child to win a pizza party with our principal by returning the free lunch
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registration form by Tuesday! 100% forms need to be collected. A white index-sized card with parent contact information. Next week, we are going to reinforce the rules and procedures in our classroom and gradually increase the content of our curriculum. The rst unit of inquiry is Who We Are. Central idea: Families and communities reect cultures Lines of inquiry:

Multicultural contributions to communities Family life in different cultures Is it important to continue traditions and family

values If you could talk with your child about related topics, it would be very helpful for them to make connections in Chinese. A big thank you to those parents who brought school supplies to us. It really helped with our learning. I look forward to an enjoyable and rewarding school year with your child!