Since the beginning of Unit 3, the boys have been practising how to use a pair of chopsticks. Little did they know that using chopsticks would be part of their assessment at the end of the unit!

As you may be aware, making food in a class at school is not an easy task! There are a lot of preparation tasks behind the scene and, therefore, the boys worked very hard to earn the opportunity to make rice paper rolls during a Mandarin class. They practised their given texts to make sure the majority of them could say the words fluently.

In this unit, we learn how to say 春卷 (chūn juǎn) – spring rolls. We were going to make spring rolls, but it’s too dangerous to have hot oil in the classroom with young students. Therefore we decided to make Vietnamese rice paper rolls instead.  To many, rice paper rolls are not something they have regularly on their dinner table, so as a class, we had an interesting discussion of “what should we put in the rice paper roll”. As the boys found out, we could put anything and everything in the rice paper rolls, as long as the boys would finish eating them at the end. To avoid any food wastage, allergy’s and special dietary issues, we asked the boys to bring enough filling to make 2 small rice paper rolls each.

“Making rice paper rolls is really not that difficult…”, as the Year 3 and Year 4 boys will tell you. The most challenging part would be using the chopsticks to pick up a rice paper roll, dip it into the sauce and send it safely into the mouth. Some had to abandon the chopsticks and use their fingers instead!

The boys had a fun experience of making the rice paper rolls. A big thank-you to all the parents for preparing the ingredients!

Ms Eva Angel – LOTE Teacher (Mandarin)