Thunks

Odd Questions to Make the Kids Think

Developing speech and language skills are an essential part of the Early Years. Language development leads to developing story ideas, critical thinking, social skills and many more!

Thunk work towards raising children’s confidence to speak in front of groups, in full sentences and to think about topics they haven’t previously considered.

I’ve often asked the kids what colour is Tuesday, which they sometimes take literally and say the colour of the word on the board.. Other Thunks could be:

• Can you touch the wind?
• If you took the stripes off a zebra, what colour would it be? (Also tiger and spots from a leopard)
• Where do words go after you’ve heard them?

Teaching Mandarin

Free Resources and Teaching Tips

Everyone can teach Chinese! All you need to do is give it a go!

You may worry about mispronouncing the words and teaching them incorrectly but pronunciation can be corrected at a later date. Building confidence in speaking, understanding and reading a new language is key in language acquisition.

Below you will find a list of website which will demonstrate pronunciation but Google Translate is a fantastic source when learning new words. I have also included Pronunciation Guides in the Mandarin for Beginners book.

There are a lot of resources online for learning Mandarin Chine

se. One of my favourite language programs is Poisson Rouge.

I have made a few resources, lesson plan and exercise book for children to use when learning Mandarin Chinese. 

Coming Soon!

Mandarin Worksheet Book

In a few days time, I will have completed my Mandarin book. It will come with lots of speaking, listening and reading activities.

(I feel writing Chinese is too difficult to teach without being there to explain it directly. However, if you want to give it a try, Chinese characters start top to bottom, left to right.)

This is a You Tube video teaching how to write ‘wǒ’ meaning ‘me’.

Resources available will be:

• Mandarin book with different activities involving short sentences, numbers, colours, shapes, fruit and more.
• Sentence building games
• Speaking and listening games
• Pronunciation guides
• Bingo games
• Go Fish games

I’m looking forward to releasing the lot! Please give feedback if it’s useful!

More Posts Coming Soon!

Science, Understanding the World and Thunks!

This Mandarin book has been taking up a lot of my time but I have some more lesson plans up my sleeve!

I am going to be looking at a variety of different science experiments, encouraging the children to hypothesise and predict what is going to happen. I’ll be focusing on shadows experiments (sunny day required) and friction experiments. I have some more ideas for space lessons, focusing on artwork.

I’ve got ideas for Christmas lessons, both religious and secular.

And Thunks! Only the best thing to come to the Early Years! Thunks are tricky for the children to get to grips with initially but, as with everything, they soon get to grips with them and develop their thinking skills.

These posts will follow my final resources post for my Mandarin for Beginners book.