18Jul
2013
0

Birthday Lesson

Happy Birthday
 Shēng  rì   kuài  lè
生         日 快      乐

 

This lesson was for Year 1, aged 5 and 6. The objective from the Framework for Languages was to take turns.

http://www.lightbulblanguages.co.uk/resources/PrimaryFrench/KS2-framework-pt3.pdf )

0.3 Understand the convention of taking turns.
O.4 Copy language modelled by the teacher.
The children had already learnt how to count to 6 so were ready to turn their list into a sentence.
We practiced counting to 6 by passing a balloon around the circle, each child saying a number, counting to 6 and then starting again at 1.
I wanted them to learn how to ask and answer about their age.
(Sentences)
I broke down the question and got the children to repeat it by saying it to the person next them, behind them and to be silly, to the ceiling and up their own sleeve. After I found out who was aged 5 and who was 6, I did the same with the answer.

Then I had some volunteers practice the conversation with PaoPao the Panda Puppet.

Then we did Kagan Cooperative ( http://www.kaganonline.com/download/Cooperative_Learning_2-Day.pdf ) Mix Pair Share. I sang the birthday song;

zhù  nǐ   shēng rì   kuài lè

祝     你   生         日   快     乐

When I stopped singing the children had to put their hand in the air to find the nearest partner, they put it down when they had a partner. Then the tallest asked the question and the shortest answered and then swapped. We did this several times.
I always ask who did you hear that spoke good Chinese. Children often recommend their friends but I find its a nice opportunity to hear their own name praised by a peer.
Our Chinese assistant had told me that in China when you buy a birthday cake, the bakers give you the candles and a paper crown. The children then made a paper crown. They were to fill in if they were 5 or 6 with a choice of writing the pinyin or Chinese character. They could decorate it with sparkly stickers.
For this lesson I only wanted to children to begin to say the sentence. Some of the high ability had excellent recall and could say the sentence and most said some of the sentence.