- Chinese Brush Painting, taught by Shu Ren’s Kai Yao To, who has many years of experience both as a teacher and as an accomplished artist
- Chinese Wind and Percussion music, taught by instructors from DJ Wind Chinese Music Academy
- Wushu (martial arts), taught by Hao Zhihua, a former national champion of wushu in China
- Suzuki violin, taught by Annette Swarzeuski, who has fifteen years experience teaching the Suzuki method.

Shu Ren will also offer After School Mandarin Chinese for both beginners and intermediate/advanced students. All classes are open to students from surrounding schools, and we can provide transportation from some schools. Classes begin September 7 so register now! Full class descriptions and registration forms can be found here.

We welcome you to join us, and to spread the word to others in the community who may be interested. More information about the class and registration forms can be found here.

During each two-week session, students learn Mandarin language skills and Chinese cultural knowledge through fun, immersion-based activities. These include music, dance, stories, arts and crafts, martial arts and so on. Teachers speak in Mandarin with gestures and with their bodies, so children understand the tasks at hand.

See this link for more information and to register.

Nov. 16th-Dec. 5th

Dear parents,

Language: 小小熊，I can do it!

What can I do since I have grown up? Can I help my parents? How do I help? Helping parents is the biggest way of showing I have grown up. We listened to a story, “小小熊”. We discussed what and how we help our parents. We also shared a book, “I can do it”. We also have daily activities that encourage children to help parents every day. Children are happy to be a good helper to adults. For Thanksgiving, we talked about what a traditional Thanksgiving meal would have. What do we usually do on Thanksgiving? What are you going to do on Thanksgiving?

Math: Who is taller?

We measured children’s height. We compared everyone’s height and made a chart. We saw clearly from the chart who is tallest and shortest in the class. We also lined up from shortest to tallest and tallest to shortest. We also played pattern games with height.

Science: What do others do when they grow up?

We all try to be independent. As we grow up, we try to learn how to help people and how to manage our selves. How about animals? What do they need to learn for living? What are the unique things animals do?

Cooking class:

We have talked about how we can help parents at home and how we can enjoy our friends. Tomorrow, we will make a “Happy Face Sandwich” with friends. The ingredients that we will use are bananas, strawberry jelly, raisins, mini pretzels, and bread. Children might also enjoy making sandwiches again with their parents. We will make sandwiches as our snack.

Music: 感恩节- 我家的农场有火鸡, Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble, 他有一件彩色外衣，红色黄色绿色蓝色，感恩节到了开心，爸爸妈妈谢谢你。

We did rhyme practice. PeiPei played a simple rhyme and children would try to follow the rhyme.

Art: We made a beautiful turkey and we made our Thanksgiving meal book.

Social Study: Thank you!!谢谢

We talked about who and what you are thankful for. By sharing the stories, we know that thanking the people around us is very important. As we grow up, how important is showing appreciation? When and how do we show our appreciation?

Nov. 2nd-Nov.13th

Dear parents,

You are also able to review biweekly newsletters on the classroom blog through the Shu Ren school website once a month. In the near future, we will be able to have activity pictures on the blog.

Inquiries: How I express myself with emotions. What do I do with my friends?

Language:

After introducing our five unique features, we talked about how we usually use our facial expressions. When we see people are happy, how do our facial features work together? When we see people are sad, how do our facial features work together? What about angry, and sad, and all the other emotions that we can think of? We shared when and what makes you happy, angry, and sad. For example, children are happy when eating ice cream, having birthday parties, and playing with parents.

If we see our friends feeling sad, what would you do for them? Giving friends a hug, apologizing to our friends if it is because of me, and helping our friends. We had a special way to make our friends happy: sign language- I love you. 我爱你。We can always show our love to our friends.

Math: We continued our last inquiry of knowing the birthdays of others and ourselves. We collected the data and made a graph to show how many of us were born in each month. By playing “friend train”, we had opportunities to find 2 friends in a group, 3 friends in a group, and 4 friends in a group to be on the “friend train”.

Music & Rhythm: “我的心”- 天空生气的时后是黑色，海洋温柔的时后是蓝色，冬天掉眼泪的时后是白色，我的心高兴的时后是彩色。

“找朋友”- 一二三四五六七，我的朋友在哪里，在这里，在这里，我的朋友在这里

“好朋友，行个礼”-好朋友我们行个礼，握握手呀转个圈，一二三四五六七，我的朋友在这里。

Art: Which colors help you express emotions? We made our “heart ornaments” with different colors.

Social study: “快小姐，乐先生”

By sharing the story, 快小姐，乐先生(Mr. and Ms. Happy), we realized that people have a lot of emotions that occur during our daily life. How can we make people around us happy? After the story, we introduced our “happy heart pillow”. If we and whoever around us is not feeling happy, we try to provide them the happy heart pillow. It will make people happy. It is one of the ways to release our unhappy feelings.

Science:

We discovered why our elbows are wrinkly. How does it work? Does it work just like a flexible drinking straw? Why? What do you think? We all tried a flexible drinking straw to see how it works.

Please register online to attend the January 20, 2010 tour of the:
* Pre-K classroom
* Kindergarten classroom
* Grade 1/2 classroom

Please register online to attend the January 13, 2010 tour of the:
* Pre-K classroom
* Kindergarten classroom
* Grade 1/2 classroom

Please register online to attend the January 6, 2010 tour of the:
* Pre-K classroom
* Kindergarten classroom
* Grade 1/2 classroom

Register online for the December 16, 2009 school tour.