我饿了
wǒ è le — I’m Hungry
📐 Standards alignment
ACTFL World-Readiness: Communication (interpersonal, presentational) · Cultures (everyday foods at a Chinese table) · Communities (asking politely for what you need)
Can-Do targets (NCSSFL-ACTFL, Novice Low):
- I can name six foods and drinks in Chinese.
- I can ask for something to eat or drink using a simple phrase.
- I can say “I am hungry” in Chinese.
Learning objectives
- Recognise and say six common foods and drinks
- Use the 我要 wǒ yào pattern to ask for something
- Sort today’s words into things you eat and things you drink
Materials
Real food, if you can manage it — an apple, a banana, a glass of water on the table makes this lesson twice as good. Otherwise pictures, or the contents of the fruit bowl.
Prior knowledge
Units 1–7. 我的 wǒ de from Unit 5 Lesson 2 comes back inside the new pattern today, and 谢谢 xièxie from Unit 1 gets used for real.
Key vocabulary
米饭 面条 包子 水 苹果 香蕉
What is in the kitchen?
Open a cupboard or the fruit bowl together and name five things in English. Ask which one your child would eat right now. Then hold your tummy and say 我饿了 wǒ è le — “I am hungry” — with a very sad face, and let your child copy the face before the words. Hunger is a feeling every child can act out, which makes it an easy phrase to remember.
Six things to eat and drink
Tap each card to flip it over. Look at the characters, say the word out loud, then check the back for the meaning — and press 🔊 to hear it.
我要 — “I want…”
我要 wǒ yào means “I want”. Put any food straight after it and you have a real sentence: 我要米饭 wǒ yào mǐfàn, 我要水 wǒ yào shuǐ. This is the first time in Kindergarten that your child can ask for something they actually want in Chinese, so use it at genuine mealtimes — it sticks ten times faster at the table than in front of a screen. One gentle note: 要 on its own is quite blunt, just as “I want” is in English, so always finish with 谢谢 xièxie.
Snack-time ordering
Turn the kitchen into a little restaurant. You are the cook; your child orders using 我要 and one of today’s words, and only gets the snack once the sentence comes out in Chinese. Then swap roles so your child has to understand an order rather than give one. Real food makes this the most motivating activity in the whole unit.
Memory game — find the pairs
Every Chinese word has its English meaning hiding somewhere in the grid. Tap two cards to see if they match.
Find the matching pairs!
Listen and choose
Press each play button and pick what you heard.
1. Press play. Which food did you hear?
2. Press play. Which food did you hear?
3. Press play. Which food did you hear?
Hungry monster
One player is a hungry monster who can only eat what is named correctly in Chinese. The monster growls a food word; everyone else has to find or mime that food and feed it over. Wrong food and the monster spits it out with great drama. Swap monsters often — being the one who chooses the word is the part that teaches.
Show what you know
1. Which word means “noodles”?
2. You are thirsty. What do you say?
3. Which one of these is a fruit?
Great work!
Today your child learned to name six foods — 米饭, 面条, 包子, 水, 苹果 and 香蕉 — and to ask for them with 我要. Food vocabulary earns its keep three times a day, so this is one of the easiest units to keep alive between lessons: ask the question in Chinese at every snack this week. Lesson 2 adds the best word in the whole unit — the one you say when something is delicious.
Take it home
Draw my dinner
Draw your favourite dinner on the plate in the box. Label anything on it that you learned today with its Chinese characters, and draw a glass of 水 beside it. Then order it out loud using 我要.
Name: Date:
Order your own snack
For three days, ask for your snack in Chinese before you eat it, using 我要 and 谢谢. Get a grown-up to colour in a star each time you remember without being reminded.
Note for teachers & parents
Pacing: this lesson is best split around a real snack: do the warm-up, flashcards and the pattern before eating, then the ordering game with actual food, and save the quizzes for afterwards.
Watch for: 香蕉 xiāngjiāo starts with that breathy x sound, which is not quite an English sh — smile widely and let the air hiss past the sides of the tongue. 包子 bāozi keeps the light ending from Unit 6: BAOW-dz, not baow-ZUH. And watch the third tone in 水 shuǐ — it dips down and comes back up, so it sounds longer than children expect.