復活節 fù huó jiē Easter

I hope children were sharing those chocolates eggs they hunted.  They enjoyed the egg hunt where most of them have no problem follow their clues without realize I was giving them a mini test!!

Before we have some fun, we work them hard!  We made the cute little box and we learned how to write Easter in Chinese - 復活節 fù huó jiē!

中文四子棋 zhōng wén sì zǐ qí Chinese Connect 4

I am very proud to invent this game and children wants to play it over and over again!! You have to know every word to win!

團隊玩賓果遊戲 team bingo game

Children love games naturally and that's why we always plan games and activities to make learning fun and engaging.
This team bingo games are ready for the young learners age 4 and 5 at Hedley Park school tomorrow!!

Conversation cubes

Children love the story cubes and I was inspired by it so I invented these conversation cubes.
Great games for the classroom circle time!!

幸運餅乾 xingyun bingan (fortune cookies)

To celebrate the end of Chinese new year.
Children were given a fortune cookie.
One asked: where was fortune cookies came from?
I said: from Lidl!!
Then asked: why it's called fortune cookie?

Out of blue, I must admit I haven't a clue but I said: Chinese people like to go to the fortune teller to seek references for their futures. And I guess that's why fortunes cookies was invented.

Now that I looked up the wonderful Google.

I am so wrong! 

If you remember the character Mandarin in Iron Man 3, he said: true story about fortune cookies. They look Chinese, they sound Chinese, but they are actually an American invention. Which is why they are hollow, full of lies and leave bad taste in the mouth. 

He also said: fortune cookies aren't even Chinese, they are made by American, based on a Japanese recipe.

Here's the piece about fortune cookie. :-)

元宵節 yuán xiāo jié （Lantern Festival)

Yap, Chinese New Year celebration last for 16 days from New Year's eve till Lantern festival althought people would have gone back to work yesterday (Lunar 5th Jan).
If you are interested in the story, please look up the post from 2013.


I love recycling and I always keep boxes, cardboards, toilet paper rolls etc for the arts workshop.  This week, we have a tiny paper cutting work for kids made from the recycled spring couplets (春聯 chūn lián）. Younger childre did the simple lantern and older children made these!

造句 zao4 ju4 make sentence

Learning through games and competitions are our ethos as its great fun for children.
We use word cards with no picture so they have to read both character and pinyin to make out what the words are.
I told them they're allow to look at books and copy the sentences but they were surprisingly creative!!

馬到成功 ma3 dao4 chen2 gong1

Many Chinese characters came from pictures. The word of horse 馬 ma3 is a classic example. We did a combinations of Chinese painting and calligraphy workshop to mark the year of horse.  I am very proud of their work. Hope your like it too!!
恭喜發財! Gong xi fa cai!!

捏麵人 niē miàn rén （Dough figurine)

Dough figurine is a traditional art that originally made of glutinous flour and plain flour which is edible.

I cheated! I use ready roll icing with colouring which I think is called fondant and it's edible too.

紅包 hóng bāo (red envelop) and 壓歲錢 yā suì qián (suppress age money)

These gold and red envelops were packed of lucky euro inside and ready to go to children's home under their pillows!

The money giving to children in New Year's eve is called 壓歲錢 （yā suì qián).

The story was related to a usual monster that frighten children and parents want to keep monster away so they wrap money inside the red paper.  Children then put this beside the pillow on the new years eve.

You probably remember previously that we said Money in red envelops 紅包 hóng bāo is not only givien at the Chinese New Year but also commonly used for those happy family occasions too like for the new born baby and at the wedding etc.

Just like the term "brown envelops" here in Ireland, red envelop can be used in exactly the same terminology!

火鍋 Huo Guo. Fire pot. (Hot pot)

Hot pot dinner is a very typical dinner on the night of Chinese new year's eve.
Over here in Ireland, we enjoy it as often as we want during these winter months.
火鍋 Huo Guo literary means fire pot as traditionally the pot would have been sitting on fire when cooking. I have a electric pot that heat up instantly which is handy.  I love it when the hot steam warms up the room and foggy up the windows.
Looking forward to welcoming the year of horse and thinking hat is on again for the CNY arts and crafts!!

我們祝你聖誕快樂 wǒ men zhù nǐ shèng dàn kuài lè

我們祝你聖誕快樂 wǒ men zhù nǐ shèng dàn kuài lè
We wish you Christmas happy! :-)

We would like to wish you and family a very happy Christmas and a fantastic year 2014!
I hope children enjoyed the paper cutting craft we prepared for them this year and they will remember all the words we learn from their paper cutting pictures.

聖誕節快來了!

We are so excited about Christmas (聖誕) as always!
Every year we try different arts and craft project, song and play.
We are learning "we wish you a merry Christmas" in Chinese.
We are working on a funny short play called "Xmas'eve wish".
We are also making Christmas cards (聖誕卡) and origami Christmas tree (聖誕樹) this year.
Don't forget we also have Xmas exam next week and Xmas party the week after!!!
Zhu ni men sheng dan jie kuai le.

書中自有黃金屋 shū zhōng zì yǒu huángjīn wū (The book holds a golden house)

書中自有黃金屋 shū zhōng zì yǒu huángjīn wū (The book holds a golden house)

This Chinese wisdom means if you study hard and read a lot of books, you will be successful and able to afford a golden house. :-)

I like to read the stories behind the Chinese wisdom/proverbs to my own children as they're really interesting.
To encourage the reading.....our school have set up a tiny library and stocked up over 200 books (as well as CDs/DVDs) for children to take home and read/listen each week. Thanks to the free App Codex that I can set up the library system easily!!!

Halloween paper cutting craft

Paper cutting is one of the traditional craft and we use the last few minutes of our very last class before midterm to cut out some decoration. We did pumpkin, spider web and ghost. This is created by one of the students. Cute, very cute!!

National day 2013

We had a brand new talk about National day this year and learning about our flags and meanings behind those shapes and colours. Of course we were reviewing our words for shapes and colours again.
After the talk, we had a flag design competition which was a great success!!

Dublin School of Mandarin Chinese enrolment 2013/2014

Nihao!
We hope you had a brilliant summer either away or at home! Only if I can wish that we have this kind of fabulous summer every year!

Here’re the classes:
Monday 1530-1730: 1st year’s children (Living Mandarin 1)
Tuesday 1530-1730: 2nd year’s children (Living Mandarin 2)
Wednesday 1530-1730: 3rd+ years’ children (Living Mandarin 3)
Thursday 1600-1730: Older children (Speak Mandarin in 1000 words)

Online registration by Mon 9th Sept

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/11uA0L870cQKLN1dN1HTMGv2XqeC-ZgvYM-PVegH6FM4/viewform

Text book:
Living Mandarin
http://www.skymandarin.org/living-mandarin.htm
Speak Mandarin in 1000 words
http://media.huayuworld.org/lang/medium/ch_1000/index.htm

Ah let the fun begin.....

Photos from our first week of summer camp.
More available from our Facebook page and please like our Facebook page too while you are there!
Summer camp photos (1st week)
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151855142377437.1073741828.191107337436&type=1
Summer camp photos (2nd week)
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151875090327437.1073741829.191107337436&type=1

Summer Camp 2013 programmes 夏令營的節目表

We are working on the exciting speech and drama project so watch this space!!

Prizes!! 獎品 jiang3 pin3

Look at the prizes we prepared for Tuesday's class at singing competition this week!!

More pictures to follow for other classes.

The older children loved oriental stuff and I have stock up my supply soon!!