Mandarin Question-Word Cube

Question words. They are a common hangup in our weekly Mandarin lessons, causing the girls confusion and frustration as they mix up the meanings of the words. 
For example, last week we were deep in the middle of story creation when I asked the question, "为什么?" (Wèishénme? Why?) The blank expression on their faces informed me that they didn't understand the question. 
"Okay," I took a step back, "What does 'wèishénme?' mean?"
"Who?" "What?"  They guessed. 
We run into this problem more often than not when we encounter a question word. To help with this problem, I thought that we needed a visual: a question-word cube. 

Our question-word cube after being sat on

What's a question-word cube? Glad you asked! A question word cube is a cube (haha!) with Mandarin question words and translations written on each face of the cube. It can be manipulated when the girls need a quick memory jog and used to help generate new stories and sentences (more on that later). 

How to make your very own Mandarin question-word cube: 
1. Brainstorm a list of Mandarin question words that you use in lessons OR copy some words from this list. Yes, there are more than six question words in Mandarin so maybe pick the words that need the most practice or make two cubes with different words on each.

2. Print out a die template. Download a free template from First Palette or another website. There are lots of options out there! Print out your template (card stock works best) and write a Mandarin question word/pinyin/translation on each face of the cube. If you're new to writing Chinese characters, you can look up characters and view animated stroke order at Yellow Bridge.
Easy Peasy! 
Now, how will we use this cube in our Mandarin lessons? More on that later...


What tools do you use to learn new Mandarin words? 

Spring Book Review: A Nest in Springtime

Spring is finally upon us, and I could not be more excited to see the tips of daffodils and tulips poking through the dirt in my garden.  To celebrate spring's arrival and the conclusion of our number study in my beginning Mandarin class, I shared the bilingual children's book, A Nest in Springtime: A Bilingual Book of Numbers by Belle Yang (Candlewick Press, 2012). Although written for a younger audience, my 1st-3rd graders enjoyed hearing me read the endearing story, first in Mandarin and then translating to English words they had not studied yet. They participated by reading all the numbers in the story (in Mandarin, or course=).  

A great book for beginning Mandarin students and their families: It's not easy to find a Mandarin language children's book that beginning language students can read. 

• A Nest in Springtime is great for kids who are learning to read Chinese characters, especially those who are familiar with the characters for numbers 1-8. They will be able to read 3-4 pages of the book!
• The story is simple with a limited vocab (it's a board book). English translations are shared on opposite pages, and pinyin pronunciation for the Chinese characters in the story is provided on the last page. This option is great for people like me who aren't super at reading traditional characters (繁體字) or who are new to learning Chinese.  
• Beautiful jewel-toned illustrations. These make story a joy to read!

To learn how to count from 1-10 in Mandarin, check out this great video put together by Daily Noodles: 

To practice writing your numbers 1-10 in Chinese characters, check out my post: Back-to-school Printable: How to write Numbers 1-10 in Chinese characters. 

 How will you be celebrating the arrival of spring? 

Mandarin Adjective Match It

The big kids have started a new unit on adjectives. We're moving beyond dà (大, big) and xiǎo (小, small), to words like thick and thin (hòu, 厚; báo, 薄), short and tall (Ǎi, 矮; gāo, 高), heavy and light (zhòng, 重; qīng, 轻). 
To help the girls learn this new vocab, I found a game called Adjective Match It on Busyteacher.org. It's designed for the ESL classroom, but I thought it would be great for helping the girls become more familiar with our new set of Mandarin adjectives. 

A bit like Gin Rummy, the goal of Mandarin Adjective Match It is to collect four adjective cards that best describe the selected picture card.

Prep:

• Make a set of flashcards for the adjectives you'll be introducing. I printed out some fabulous images of Mandarin adjectives from Mandarin Chinese from Scratch (here, here, here, and here).

These images are shared under a post about antonyms so not all are adjectives. They print out in pairs so I cut each card down the center to make smallish rectangular cards. I also made some adjective cards of my own to supplement. 

• Cut out from magazines or print from internet 4-5 pictures that can be described using a variety of the adjective cards. You can use anything really. I looked for pictures that included more than one person, animal or object. 
• Shuffle the adjective card deck and deal four cards to each player. Don't forget to count in Mandarin!
• Place the remainder of the adjective card deck face down in the center of the table.
• Choose a card from the image pile and place it face up on the table.

How to play:

1. Player 1 discards one adjective card from her hand, the one that least describes the chosen image card, and draws a new adjective card from the deck. 
2. Player 2 does the same. 
3. Play continues until one of the players has four adjective cards that describe the image card and declares "Wǒ yíngle" (我赢了, I won!)
4. Play 1 round or 20!

The Challenge:

Once your Mandarin students become familiar with the new adjective vocab, add another level of difficulty by requiring them to "make a case" for each of their winning adjectives.

For example, one of the girls won a round by using the adjectives "heavy" "wet" "tall" and "thick" to describe this picture    ----->
She said, "Shítou hěn yìng, yě hòu. Kōngqì hěn shī. Nánrén gāo." (石头很重，也厚。空气 很湿。 男人高." The rock is very hard and thick. The air is wet. The man is tall.) 
As long as they tried to explain their "win" (perfect grammar not necessary!), I let them keep the win: they held on to the picture card. 

How do you use games to practice new vocab?

Year of the Monkey Roundup

I hope you all have had a wonderful Chinese New Years. We welcomed in the year of the Monkey last week (along with Valentines Day and the beginning of Lent--busy week!) with family dinners, performances in our community, making banners with friends, and wrapping jiǎozi with classmates. It's a wonderful time of year to share our love of Chinese language and culture with others. 
Here are some great ideas and resources I've stumbled across, perfect if you are still celebrating the New Years (you have until Lantern Festival: February 22)
1. Make a Chinese New Year poster.
I saw this idea on Hubpages and decided to adapt it for my beginning Mandarin class who just learned how to write numbers one through six (below left)

     
2. Make your own Spring Festival Couplet to hang by the door. 
We painted the couplet 出入平安 (Chūrù píng'ān, Peace when you come and when you go) with calligraphy brushes and ink on red paper from our local school supply store. No calligraphy brushes? No problem! You can easily use sharpies (jumbo sized for big characters). 
3. Read The Year of the Monkey, Oliver Chin's latest book in the Tales from the Zodiac series (Immedium: 2016)

About the book: The 11th book in this 12 book series, The Year of the Monkey tells the adventures of Max (son of the famous Monkey King) as he searches to find his fate. 

What we love: 

1. The story is full of Monkey king action. If your kids like Kung Fu Panda, this book will be a hit. 

2. It introduces the sport of shuttlecock or the Chinese hacky sack (毽子, jiànzi), which was new to my kids. 

3. It's bilingual! No pinyin provided, but if you can read Chinese characters, you can read it in Mandarin.

4. Share Chinese New Years legends and traditions with friends through this cute video. 

I stumbled across this cute and concise video produced by the fast-food chain, Panda Express (Nope, they didn't pay me=) when planning a Chinese New Year lesson for my beginning Mandarin class. 

Super cute animation. It tells the origin of the Chinese New Year, the origin of the Zodiac calendars, and how the holiday is celebrated today. Check out Panda Express's CNY website to download free Chinese New Year printables. 

5. Learn a New Years Song! Here are two of our favorites:

Gōngxǐ Gōngxǐ by BadaNamu

Sung in Mandarin at the beginning and then translated to English. If the verses are too complicated, learn the chorus: Gōngxǐ gōngxǐ gōngxǐ nǐ (Congratulations to you!), which is what you say to someone during the New Year. 

Xīnnián hǎo ya (Happy New Years!) Mandarin lyrics and English translation posted here. 

How are you celebrating the Year of the Monkey? 
Xīnnián kuàilè! 新年快乐！Happy Year of the Monkey!

Countdown to Spring...in Mandarin 数九歌

The holidays have passed, and although we haven't had a real winter yet (according to the kids), the winter doldrums have set in and we (...um..that would be me) have begun the countdown to spring. 
My mother-in-law shared this great Mandarin poem that was used long ago in China as a way to keep track of the days between Winter Solstice and the spring planting season, The Number Nine Song (数九歌, shǔ jiǔ gē).
Winter Solstice (冬至, dōngzhì) is a Chinese holiday celebrated by family get-togethers and tāngyuán (汤圆), which are those wonderful glutinous rice dumplings with sweet or savory fillings (my favorite are black sesame paste), floating in a vat of steaming hot water. Yum!

Back to the poem: 

Number Nine Song describes the changes in the weather that occur between the Winter Solstice and the beginning of the spring planting season from a child's perspective.  Time is counted in increments of 9 days, so the "1st 9" in the poem refers to the first 9 days beginning from the Winter Solstice, the "2nd 9" the 9 days after that, and so on. 

    Click here for a free download of this poem

What I love about this poem:

• Good for intermediate students. Chinese poetry can be confounding (to say the least), but this is a pretty approachable poem for intermediate language learners due to its heavy use of numbers.
• It's a riddle! Once you understand that the 9's in the poem refer to increments of 9 days, the poem can be used as a riddle. Have your kids figure out when the 1st 9, 2nd 9, 3rd, 9, etc... occur (Hint: Winter Solstice was December 22 last year). 
• Great lesson idea for Winter Solstice. Yup, it's already passed this year, but put it on the calendar for next year (December 21, 2016) and plan to eat some steaming hot tāngyuán (or eat those now just because you never need an excuse to eat tāngyuán).
• You can hear it performed on a goofy youtube video. There is a goofy youtube video that animates the poem's text (recited by children). FYI: the third line of the poem slightly differs in the video.

How do you count down the days until spring? 

3 FUN! Activities and Games Using Flashcards in Mandarin Learning

Let me start by saying that I've never been a fan of flash cards as a tool for learning Mandarin. They bring back memories of hours and hours spent falling asleep... ...er...memorizing Mandarin vocab as a student. I'm sure I benefited in some way from my flashcards, but they did not engage me in learning Mandarin the creative and active way I want my kids to learn. 
So lately, I've been re-thinking flash cards, using them as a jumping off point for active and creative language learning. 
I downloaded this set of action word flashcards from Teachers pay Teachers in effort to expand our verb vocabulary this fall. I liked the cute illustrations on the cards and that they included pinyin (they didn't include the often-used verb-object combinations though, so I wrote on them).
Each week, I've used this set of action cards in a different activity or game. Now that the girls are familiar with most of the vocab, I'm adding my own winter activity verb-object flashcards to the deck (Click here to download). 
Read on for 3 fun activities and games that use flashcards in Mandarin language learning. 

1-2-3 At a Time

This is a great game to play immediately after introducing a set of 10-12 new verbs. It's an active game for 2 or more players, which can result in fits of giggles. 

1. Introduce a set of 10-12 verbs to your students. Have your students repeat the word in Mandarin after you, while simultaneously performing the action you've selected for the verb. 
2. Once you have gone through the set, place the verb cards face down in a pile.
3. Choose someone to be the first "actor." Have them choose a card from the deck, and perform the action that goes along with the card they have chosen for the rest of the students, "the audience." 
4. The "actor" must continue to perform the action until the "audience" yells out the correct Mandarin word that matches the action.
5. Switch "actors" and repeat the process.

Challenge: When your students become familiar with the deck of cards, challenge them by asking the actors to choose 2 cards (and perform 2 actions at a time) until the audience guesses both actions. If this is still too easy, try 3 cards (3 actions). The silliness of performing 2 or more actions at the same time (e.g. singing while drinking water) will make this game a hit with your kids and make the vocab stick in their brains!

Memory Match

This is another great way to reinforce new Mandarin vocabulary. Play this game just like the well-known childhood game, except you'll be matching the pinyin action card to its corresponding English card. 

Tips: 

• Start with a small stack of new vocab (6-10 action cards and their matches). When your students become familiar with these cards, add in a few extra sets of matching cards. 
• Each time your student takes a turn, encourage them to say the Mandarin word they choose out loud as a way to familiarize themselves with pronunciation. 

Sentence Generator

I came up with this activity after noticing that the girls, although familiar with the vocab we had been studying, were struggling to use the new words in sentences they generated by themselves. I decide to use the action flashcards as our "word bank" for a question and answer pattern we were practicing. 

• We placed the action flashcards face down in a pile, our "word bank.
• The "asker" chose an action card from the pile and used it in the sentence pattern we were practicing,  “你什么时候 (insert verb from card)?” (When do you ____? Nǐ shénme shíhòu
  ?)
• The "answerer" responded with a truthful answer, or when they got stuck, we broke out another stack of time flashcards and used them to help generate a response. 

That's just a snapshot of how we've been using flashcards lately. I'd love to know how you use flashcards in Mandarin language activities and games!