School year 2013 has begun!!

Welcome back to another great year of Chinese at Mid Prairie Community schools.  We are going to be doing a lot of great things in all our Chinese classes this year from working with I pads, to having Skype sessions with other Chinese schools.  It is going to be an exciting school year as we have Chinese class in all our elementary schools, the middle school, and online for high school level students in conjunction  with Kirkwood Community College.  Please come back often to see what is going on and how you can participate.

End on a High Note

Another year down, another great experience teaching Chinese.  This year I was lucky to be able to teach K-10 Chinese in our district both online and face to face with students.  It was great to see how students learn at all levels from across the spectrum.  One thing that never changes...We all love to have fun.

Have a great Summer 再见!!!

Teach and Learn/Learn and Teach

For the past 16 weeks Kalona Elementary and Mid Prairie Middle School were very fortunate to have a fantastic student teacher from the University of Iowa.  Pei Huang came to us from China and spent time teaching her language and culture to every student from grades Kindergarten through Seventh grade.  The students and I learned many fantastic things and we all felt honored to be in her class.  I enjoyed the chance to pass on what I have learned in my short time teaching.  I can only hope that she picked up more of my good habits rather than my bad habits.  One of the best things about having a student teacher is it makes you be very reflective of your own teaching so as to make them the best examples possible.  I learned long ago we all teach as we have learned so I tried to be conscious of that point as I tried to be a fitting mentor.    
Seeing a new teacher go through all the steps of learning the craft, teaching students, and eventually moving on to their own classes is a heartening thing.  Pei will be moving to White Bear Lake Minnesota to start her own teaching journey.  I am sure those students will benefit from her as much as our own benefited here.

Students from Wellman and Washington Township Elementary Schools enjoy using iPads to learn Chinese, while also spending some time playing Chinese checkers--both on the iPad and the old-fashioned way, on a board!

End-of-year listening, reading, writing and speaking assessments begin this week.

Compare, communicate, enjoy!

This week we are starting our three week look at Chinese playground games.  This gives me an opportunity to have the students do some comparisons between their ideas of what a playground game is and what people in China may consider a playground game.  The students have been able to enjoy games both inside and outside in spite of some of the foul weather.  The experience seems to have been very good for some of the students and they have come up with some excellent comments.

Putting on a show

Sometimes I love technology and some times I want to hurl it at a wall.  However, there is no denying that when it works it can provide a great way to showcase student learning.  Recently, our Mid Prairie Middle school students have been learning how to introduce themselves in preparation for a classroom call with Cedarlane Academy in California and we used some class recorders to give then a look at what they really look like speaking Chinese.  It is a real eye opener for some students to see themselves on camera and it can be a great way to push some students to try a little harder or improve on their already great work.

Music concert!!

Every student at Kalona Elementary is involved in the Spring Music Program on Thursday, March 21 at 7:00pm in the Mid-Prairie high school Gymnasium.

Mark it on your calendar and get ready to enjoy the kids moving, dancing and singing!