Our struggle with chinese and a free 3 parts cards printable

 

 

First of all, our family wishes all the Chinese a prosperous and happy lunar new year ahead! Buy 4D win 4D and buy TOTO win first prize! LOL.

 

Although my husband and I mostly converse in Chinese at home-like 99%, my 2 boys Chinese are super duper lousy. When we moved here, Aidan was 3 and Allen was 1, both of them only started picking up language (from the television and school) after we moved here. So now they speak English even better than my Singlish (Singapore version of English with mixed dialects...) and with an accent too.

 

And since we will be moving back to Singapore this year September, I started to panic, especially for Aidan, whereby he will be having Chinese language as his second language in schools. I tried to google for Chinese teaching resources online that is available in United States (which is super limited and expensive), asked my dear sister back in Sg to help me purchase Chinese books and paid for their ridiculous shipping to here. Below are the few reviews on the Chinese materials I got:

 

 

Firstly I got hold of this: Er San Kuai Du which is recommended by many bloggers.

 

This set consists of the following:
-   1 guidance book (tips/instructions for parents to follow when using this kit in Chinese)
-   1 guidance DVD book (tips/instructions for parents to follow when using this kit in Mandarin)
-   279 sets of matching word with picture cards
-    2 sets of matching plate :1 for word/s (字 / 词) and 1 is for phrases/ sentences (短语/ 句子)
-    5 word toys (follow the instructions and these toys can transform into animals)
-  100 words stickers

 

It is supposed to make Chinese learning fun with all the hands on materials provided. BUT!!!! Not suitable for my boys yet. When I tried the first lesson with them, they dun understand what I am talking at all. Then I tried translating in English, they both got confused and ran away-.-" So, now this set is chucked in storage and still waiting for a chance to resurface again.

 

Next I got this MY FIRST CHINESE WORDS teaching set from betterchinese.com.  It consists of 36 mini story books and an audio CD. This little books are far more 'effective' for my books as they are catered mainly to English speakers (like my boys standard now) and expose them to speaking the language first. Aidan and Allen spoke their first full sentence after reading the first book from this set. Wo ai wo de mama... Aarh so sweet... LOL!

 

Highly recommended! (But a bit high end though, I couldn't bear to purchase the other supplement materials. So I got to try to diy them instead.)

 

 

A good Chinese educational online video resource is 巧虎. Most importantly their videos on youtube are free! (Just search for qiao hu on youtube and many free episodes will pop up.) Everyday I will let them watch 巧虎 on youtube and both of them enjoyed it very much and will pester me to play it for them. Their videos coves a wide range of topics, even things like good manners and potty training. Allen started mimicking the potty training part after watching for a few times and initiated to go potty himself now. Good right? No need me to teach... LOL.

 

 

For handwriting part, Aidan started to learn to write Chinese strokes and simple Chinese words in his ci zi book. This little grids writing book flew all the way from Singapore to here de hor. Exp na. LOL. He will learn 2 strokes and 2 new words every week. After learning the new words, I will put them up on the wall and review the reading with him everyday. Thinking of making 3 parts cards for him too when I have time.

 

For encouragement, I will draw a star on the last grid and he will paste a sticker on it when he finished writing the other grids. Copy the hooked on phonics award system for their workbooks. This system really works!

 

For little brother who loves his 3 parts cards, I made this Chinese numbers 3 parts cards for him to match. He loved it and asked to work on it immediately after I just finished cutting them up. You can get the free printable pdf here: chinesenumbers3part and just print them on cardstock and laminate them for durability.

 

There are many ways you can use this material, the traditional Montessori way, as flashcards, matching with Montessori bead bars and sand tray tracing control card. I will take more pics and blog them once we got to it.

 

Hope you all will enjoy this free printable and do drop me a comment on it. Thank you all so much for dropping by:

 

XOXO

Ashley

 

Alphabet of the week: Letter A

 

 

We finished our letter A study 2 weeks back and I finally had the time to post about it today. So much things to do yet so little time. As usual we started off with the reading of the letter A book by thisreadingmama.com. Then I pulled out the tactile letter for Allen to trace with his fingers. The Montessori way of tactile learning is an excellent way to teach letters recognition and preparation for writing. I got mine from ideal school supply which is cheaper than the traditional montessori sandpaper letters. The cards are sturdy so they should be able to last well and so far both my boys love them.

 

 

 

As for big brother, we used kumon wipe-off alphabet flashcards to reinforce the writing.

 

I printed this handwriting worksheet for Allen, he tried his best to trace 2 to 3 letters and started to scribble after that. I am more than happy to see him starting to hold a pencil or marker now:)

 

 

The sightword of the week is 'at'. This is big brother doing the sightword maze worksheet. Easy peasy. Sometimes Allen will ask to try it out, then I will let him at a go.

 

 

Allen working on the tracer page and drawing the apples.

 

For number recognition 1 to 20, instead of the usual marker coloring, I pulled out our sorting pie and used the tongs and apples. Allen gets to practice his fine motor skills and places an apple at the number when I randomly called it out. This sorting pie is also a great hit among homeschoolers. And as usual, I got them from the trusty amazon online.

 

 

 

Allen and I started on the Montessori maths books that I purchased from taobao.com. Dirt cheap for the books but the shipping can kill!

 

Upper case and lower case alphabets matching using hooked on phonics flashcards.

 

And beginning sounds matching as well. OKOK! I admit, I spend a LOT! on the teaching materials. At least it's for their education right? So is worth it man, really, the difference in them is so huge that my husband also think that they are worth the money investment. HEHEHE.

 

 

(Pardon the chocolate stain on Aidan's mouth) Both of them finished their sightword search.

 

Ok, enough of the worksheets, now to the fun portion. Letter A for apples! This is a apple sequencing puzzle which I downloaded from here. Good for introducing the 'whole' concept.

 

And this is Aidan sequencing the apple cards according to size and labelling them. Picture cards are downloaded from confessionsofahomeschooler blog.

 

For counting, I printed this apple tree from confessionsofahomeschooler blog and the boys will draw a number and to count and place the correct number of apples onto the tree. For more budget wise, you can just draw your own tree. I am plain lazy that's y.

 

Next up is the apple life cycle 3 parts cards which I printed from helpfulgarden blog. Do check her out, as she has tons of amazing free Montessori printables.

 

 

And the parts of the apple puzzle. Laminated it so I can chuck it aside and pull them out for revision.

 

Then, we did a little craft and revised the apple parts and life cycle.

 

 

This worksheets for actually both for little brother, but Big brother saw it on the table and just started to work on it along with Allen.

 

Rhyming cut and paste.

 

 

A is for asia. I pulled out our leapfrog world map and talked to Aidan about Asia... He listen till blur blur and just keep talking about the airplane. I even went to the library to borrow a book on our hometown, Singapore. Tried to read it to him, but he is not interested at all and ran away... Sad, chuck the map and book back on shelf... Maybe next time...

 

This is Allen second try on his name writing worksheet. If you wanna me to help you customize it to your child's name, just drop me a comment below and I will get to it asap. As you can see, Allen's handwriting still has a long way to go, well, at least he can recognizes his name well and can spell it out orally. Jiayou!

 

And this concludes our letter A week. Luckily, we had our Chinese new year celebration last week,  we got very slack in our homeschool so it will be a super short and sweet post.

 

Thanks for dropping by

XOXO

Ashley

DIY montessori maths beads

After seeing the colorful and interesting Montessori maths beads online, I got very inspired to DIY my own set. This Montessori method of using beads to represent quantities is a great way to teach young children maths, as they makes it interesting and more concrete.

I just finished my bead stairs and is using them to introduce the numbers 1 to 100 to both of my boys currently. There are many other ways to use them and the boys like to play with them a lot.

Materials needed:

 

Beads of course! In 10 different colors to represent the different numbers: RED, GREEN, PINK, YELLOW, BLUE, PURPLE, WHITE, BROWN, NAVY and GOLD. Traditional Montessori materials requires wooden beads, but I couldn't find them at a reasonable budget  thus I just improvised and opted for the cheaper plastic beads option. I purchased Darice plastic faceted 8mm beads. each pack have 480beads and I got 1 of each colors and 2 of the golden sun colors. Cost 42usd excluding shipping fee. I got them from consumer crafts.com or you can get them from amazon.

Next up is the beading wires, I got them from walmart craft section, a total 3 of them at 2.50usd each. cost: 8.20usd after tax.

 

And of course, the tools. A basic round nose plier and wirecutter will do.

 

Making the bead bars:

 

You need to make a eye loop using the round nose pliers and bead it accordingly, leave a small length for another loop and cut the wire. I kind of went into a factory mode by cutting all the wires for the particular length 30pcs in one go, thus the making process went quite fast. Its' really easy and my boys were nosy around when I was making them as they can't wait to get their little hands on them.

 

The beads I brought were more than enough and I had tons of the leftover beads which I turned them into mini bead bars set for my niece. I am planning to make more of the golden 10 bars to be able to introduce the value of up to 1 thousand for my 5 yr old.

 

 

And lastly, I went to get this organizer box for storage from Michaels, with a 50% coupon of course. Sadly there wasn't enough compartments thus I got to merge the 1s with 2s and 3s with 4s. Or you can pop by ROSS to get their make up organizer tray which have more compartments but I had this box already so I gave it a miss.

 



 

 

So in total I spent around 55usd and made a set of Montessori bead bars for my kids, a mini set for my niece and still have tons of leftover beads in the colors of 1 to 9.

 

 

In comparison to this amazon set pricing, with less than 20usd more I got a bigger set of Montessori math beads bars and many many 10 golden bead bars. What do you think? Is it worth the effort and pricing to diy or to just purchase the authentic set?

 

Thanks for stopping by:

XOXO

Ashley

 

 

 

 

Sharing a DIY Name recognition worksheet

Inspired by the fun hands-on spelling worksheets online, I attempted to make one for little brother to practice writing and name recognition. It involves tracing your name, coloring, searching and cut and paste activity. Which makes it fun for the kids to do and luckily Allen enjoyed it.

I created it using Microsoft words office and you can find the file here and edit it to what ever name you want. Note: you will need to install the tracing font in order to view the tracing portion correctly but if you dun have office and interested in having it customized to your preferred name, do comment below, I will try to edit it and turn it into a pdf and upload it for you:)

Thanks for dropping by,
XOXO
Ashley

Alphabet of the week: Letter C

We are in the 5th week of the curriculum by thisreadingmama.com. (mainly for little brother to reinforce his alphabet recognition and to encourage him to write them. Big brother knows his alphabets well enough so I only involves him in the sight words portion and spend more time on his spelling of cvc words and phonics blending.) The first 4 letters covered were T, F, P and M but I wont be covering the stuff we did then as I did not have any nice photos taken.

And I dun really follow the intended lesson plans for each day as we normally finished all the activities planned within 2 to 3 days of homeschool. So I got to look online and get more ideas of activities and games to add on to the weekly plan for the rest of the week.



Everyday we will begin with the reading of the letter booklet. Allen takes a lot of pride in reading the mini books. He will always pester me to listen to him reading the books. After that we willl sing the sight word song.



This week sightword is 'look'. I love the sightword songs cos it makes it so much easier for them to remember the spelling of the words. Both the boys will take turns to do the sight word mazes and sightword search. For big brother, I will also print out the sight word worksheet from confessions of homeschooler blog for him to practice his writing as well. And whenever we had our story time, I will take note to stop and ask the boys to read the words that they have learnt so far to reinforce and help them 'sticks'.



I also printed out the following activities from confessions of a homeschooler blog:
number arranging caterpillar and the hungry caterpillar picture cards which I laminatrd and punched hole in each picture and the boys will practice their fine motor skills by lacing the picture cards in sequence when I read the book to them. They loved this activity so much that I was requested to do this with them for at least 4 times this week.



Next is the pocket chart sentence building for allen. (aidan dun really like doing this activity not sure why but allen loves it. Yup my 2 boys are 1 heaven 1 earth. super different from each other)






Allen is practicing his scissors skills wih the patterning cards and we did the ABAB pattern which allen finds it easy peasy after which I tried AABAAB and he got a bit confused initially. Lol.



For number recognition, I will call out the number and allen will have to color in the correct numbers. He just mastered 1 to 10 and I am hoping to start on 11 to 20 soon.



I also used this Velcro stick on numbers chart for him to play with. This is a printable from http://toddlercanread.blogspot.com/.



Allen writing his alphabet on the salt tray. We will also practice all the alphabets learnt so far and I will also write down all the learnt sight words one by one and ask him to read them for me.

Allen dotting his alphabet C worksheet.

And we baked cookies for breakfast!

Books we read: Corduroy, The very hungry caterpillar, The cat in the hat and many more...



And this concludes our alphabet C week. With a picture of Baby Abbie tutu mouth.

Thanks for dropping by:
XOXO
Ashley