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