Elementary School Unit： 天气还是运气？.doc

Elementary School Unit: 天气还是运气？ Unit overview A Chinese penpal of your class, 云风, has a blog. He posted some experiences about how bad weather ruined his outing plans in China on his blog. After reading it, you and your classmates share some similar experiences in the blog. You will read each other’s blog postings. Also, you and your classmates compare the weather in Bejing and some cities in the USA, including your own hometown and find out what do people do in different seasons. Lastly, since your family is planning to visit Taipei next year, so you read some information about the four seasons in Taipei. Target language Mandarin Chinese Time 12 instructional days, 40 minutes per day. Target student 5th graders Chinese proficiency level: Novice-high Instructors Yan Wang; Yanhong Zheng; Brooke Cheng; Yi-Chen Lee; Ts-Ying Wu Objectives As results of this unit, students can: Describe the weather in four seasons in different cities. Describe a traveling experience that is affected by certain weather conditions. Compare the seasons and weather between their home city and Beijing. Identify the main messages of blog postings on traveling experience. Combine characters into words. Identify main idea and supporting details using the reading skills, such as predicting, asking questions, inferring, summarizing. Can-do statements Base on National standards Communication Ask and answer questions about seasons and weather, and also the activities one can do in certain weather conditions/seasons. Identify the main ideas and supporting details of a descriptive text about weather and seasons. Write one’s traveling experience. Culture Identify the activities favored in certain places in Beijing. Comparisons Compare the seasons, weather and seasonal activities between cities in China and in the US. Connection Science: Identify the three phases of water (water, ice and steam) and associated the three phrases with the radicals of water, ice and fire. Interpret th