Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Colorful Fish

This is the showcase of my students' work. They are 7th graders and the unit is color. The first lesson of color is to identify colors. I really love their work.




Saturday, January 25, 2014

Classroom cheer - lots of ways

It is so awesome to see so many hardworking teachers share their piece of ideas and great jobs with all of us. It is so amazing to learn from those "sparkling" teachers. That's also a reason why I have this blog to share my work with more Chinese teachers.

So today I learned 10 ways to praise my students. My way to praise my students is using a gesture cheer and saying "fei chang hao" with my students. And now I have ten more ways to praise.


Here is a great teacher's idea of 10 ways to praise, you can assess her blog and videos about how to implement HERE. Make sure check the website out.

Recently, I gradually have an idea about Whole brain teaching. It has many great ideas of classroom management, class, yes, teach, ok, etc. I really learned a lot. And I think I will also use it in my own classrooms.

I will modify those ten ways and come up with a Chinese way to use those cheers.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Tagxedo city

When we teach language, culture part is always a crucial part. City is an important and necessary element when introducing culture.

I think teachers all know Wordle, as an online tool to make word clouds. In fact, even though I know Wordle for a long time, I still do not have any idea about how to use it effectively in language teaching. 

Not long ago, when I was browsing a teacher's blog, I found that she used Wordle to ask students to differentiate words like adjectives, nouns, etc. That is a great idea to check students understanding regarding to vocabulary. 

Today when I was watching a teacher's video on YouTube, I found her background was the London Bridge made by word clouds. It is really a fabulous idea, and I think students will definitely like it. As a tool, I can also use this craft as a mini city to teach them Chinese culture. 

First I searched a picture of Xian, which is an old city in China. 

Then I used this picture to make my word clouds of Xian city.


Here is what it turned out on Tagxedo. I used Tagxedo instead of Wordle because Wordle does not support Chinese character.

Then I printed this picture out on a white paper. I also printed out the city's name on a paper in a different color. I cut out the image and glued it on the colored paper.


I will laminate it and I can use it in any of my classrooms.

Monster box

I saw it on Pinterest! It served as a tattle monster. I really think it is a great way to deal with some complaints between my students. Moreover, it can also serve as an interesting decoration idea in my classroom. Here is how I made it!






I drew those eyes by myself!

Get bored writing Chinese characters? Try Magic book

My mentor teacher always tells them to write flash cards as homework to practice students' handwriting. But students sometimes get bored writing Chinese characters on a paper and copy from the textbook. I asked them to make a magic book. They were so excited when making the magic book! And every one is willing to write Chinese characters on the book.