Saturday, February 7, 2009

Yi Ping's Winter

Today the weather is snowy and freezing. This day there is too much snow. I with my husband together went outside to shovel snow. I took shovel by hand to shovel snow. My husband used the snow blower. We did three hours to finish the snow.

I hate winter. It is too cold, and often snowy. In winter, trees have no more leaves, and gardens have no more flowers. When it is snowy everywhere, I am too scared to drive and walk.

Chinese New Year by Ying

In China, New Year is one of the most important holidays. It falls on the first day of the first lunar month. People follow many national and local customs. They prepare delicious food, clean and decorate their houses. They paste poems with lucky words on the door. One of the events of the holiday is the whole family gets together for a big dinner. People stay up to eat dumplings at midnight for good luck and health. They eat delicious food with symbolic values. For example, chicken is for good luck. They also exchange greetings with friends and relatives.
During New Year, there is no sweeping because people think it will sweep away good luck. People also have many local customs.
This holiday is exciting and colorful for children. It also brings happiness.

Christmas Time by Yi Ping

Today is Wednesday December 23, 2008. The weather is rainy. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. In China we don't have this holiday. I'm Chinese, so I don't have special food for tomorrow. I only hung small color lights on my house in front, to celebrate Christmas and New Year. My neighbors also hung different color lights on their houses in front. At night everybody turns on the lights and the street looks beautiful!

Candy's Christmas Day at Work

I worked the whole day today, but we closed early, because we had a party at the restaurant.
Tonight I saw Xiaoyan there. Her son works as a busboy there.
During the party, we had a lot of food for dinner. We drank champagne. We were singing, and we had a "lucky drawing" too. Our boss bought many gifts for the employees. Everyone just neede to draw a number and then we get different gifts. I got a hot pot. Xiaoyan's son got a toaster. We were very happy tonight.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Introductions


Hello, I'm Chris Bourret and I'm an ESOL teacher for RI Family Literacy Initiative - RIFLI. I teach out of the William Hall Library in Cranston. This year we've had students in my morning ESOL class do dialogue journals, which have been excellent. I am really proud of how much everyone has written this semester.
Students have been so curious about what their classmates have written this term. So we decided to put some writings on a class blog. That way they are accessible to the whole class. Everyone chose one piece they really liked from their journals, and then I put the writings here on the blog. We've also been able to add sound to the stories, so you will be able to see and hear each journal entry. Hope you enjoy them!

Irina's favorite holiday


The New Year is sometimes my favorite holiday in Russia. We usually decorate the fir tree and put many gifts under the tree.

Often, everybody thinks that the New Year brings new hopes with it.

Usually, we say good-bye to the passing year, with glasses of wine. We meet the New Year with a glass of champagne.

The relatives and guests usually congratulate each other. They always dance and sing.

Usually, in Russian we say "How to meet the New Year, just live it."

Maria's Thanksgiving

11-26-2008. It was a special day for us in the English class, because we had breakfast together to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. I had to go home during class, but came back. We had different sweet things, but my coffee was not missing when I came back to class. Thank you everybody!

November 27, 2008. I made roast pork and sweet potatoes with green salad. I was invitied to three homes, but I could only go to one, my brothers house. I had a great time. I love my family. They made a good turkey. We enjoyed it and watched movies too.