Teaching Chinese at Home

[jasmineong]

Hi Tamarind,


you mentioned that you have even better books than all the 马小跳, 笑猫日记 books from Popular, which areused by Berries and Tien Hsia for their upper primary students.

Can I ask what books are those? What’s the titles and where can I get them?

[Wan]

I just bought this set of 汉字王, thinking of combining with siwukuaidu flashcards for my 5yo to understand 部首. If mummies have similar experience, pl share. Hope to instil interest for my son to recognise Chinese characters as he likes hands on activities

[url=http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=gxQyKNA]

[alvinaT]

Hi tamarind,


Would you be able to recommend books for the K2 boy too? He is going to a school with higher Chinese so I need to \"start work\"

[joconde]

tamarind:

.......
My advise is to buy all the 马小跳, 笑猫日记 books from Popular, and make sure that your son reads every one of them. These books are used by Berries and Tien Hsia for their upper primary students. I have even better books than these (same level of difficulty, better story lines), will post here when I have the time.
.....

Hi tamarind,

I will be eagerly looking out for ur other book recommendations, and hopefully slightly simpler ones, becos this author's writing is a little too 'cheem' for my son

Cheers !

[Brenda10]

Wan:

I just bought this set of 汉字王, thinking of combining with siwukuaidu flashcards for my 5yo to understand 部首. If mummies have similar experience, pl share. Hope to instil interest for my son to recognise Chinese characters as he likes hands on activities

[url=http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=gxQyKNA]

Yes. I agree. Understand 部首 makes learning/recognize CL word simply and effective.

E.g.

炸鸡
蚱蜢
作业
兵不厌诈

[laughingcat]

Wan:

I just bought this set of 汉字王, thinking of combining with siwukuaidu flashcards for my 5yo to understand 部首. If mummies have similar experience, pl share. Hope to instil interest for my son to recognise Chinese characters as he likes hands on activities

[url=http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=gxQyKNA]

Hello Wan, can you share where did you buy the 汉字王? This seems interesting. How much did you get it?

[tamarind]

relaxedmom:

I've started getting my DS to read chinese articles and then write down words that he's not familiar with. We didn't have time to do it every night, but managed to complete like 3 articles per week - which I thought was no mean feat already, since he doesn't like chinese

Actually, I do not advise parents to make kids write down words that they don't know. As I wrote earlier, kids must read as many story books as possible. They will come across the same words again. The most important task is actually not learning new Chinese words, but to develop a love in Chinese. If my parents make me write down every word that I don't know, I will dread reading Chinese books too.

In fact, when I was in school, I read Chinese books extensively on my own, my parents were unable to help me. At first there were many words that I don't know, but the stories attracted me to go on reading. I only checked the dictionary once in a while. Since I read so many Chinese books, many words were repeated and that was how I learned Chinese. I didn't even remember spending a lot of time studying the Chinese textbook, but my results in Chinese were far better than my classmates in RGS and RJC.

My girl, now P1, used to read far more English books than Chinese books. But earlier this year, when I asked her whether she likes Chinese or English books better, she told me that she likes Chinese books better I was so happy to hear that. She said that's because there are so many interesting Chinese books. Every night before she sleeps, she carries a pile of Chinese books to her bed and reads them before she sleeps.

So the key to developing a love in Chinese, is to find Chinese books that can interest a child. There is no point looking in local bookshops which are pathetic, except for the 2 series of books that I mentioned which are very popular in China. But then those are not the best children's books. Thanks to dangdang.com, I have bought many wonderful Chinese books for kids.


Dear all,
I am very busy with work now. When I am free I will update my blog to list more wonderful Chinese story books, will post here soon.

[Wan]

laughingcat:

Hello Wan, can you share where did you buy the 汉字王? This seems interesting. How much did you get it?

tried 汉字王 with son. We flipped thru siwukuaidu & picked words then challenge who can find the word piece 1st. Help to reinforce some words he consistently forget eg. 和 which is abstract to teach.

I'm thinking of other ways to play. One idea is to play scrabble way, each player can draw 10 cards & see who can combine into more words. Then we can write down the new vocab & revise after the game.

I ref to the summary page on siwukuaidu bk 7 for quick ref for the 部首

laughingcat, I have pm u

[jemlth]

Brenda10:

Wan:

I just bought this set of 汉字王, thinking of combining with siwukuaidu flashcards for my 5yo to understand 部首. If mummies have similar experience, pl share. Hope to instil interest for my son to recognise Chinese characters as he likes hands on activities

[url=http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=gxQyKNA]

Yes. I agree. Understand 部首 makes learning/recognize CL word simply and effective.

E.g.

炸鸡
蚱蜢
作业
兵不厌诈

Yes, it's very effective to use 边旁部首 to teach Chinese. Cos you are using these words to help them remember and understand better.

Eg.
炸 - Means fried, hence 火字旁
蚱蜢 - Grasshopper, an insect, hence 虫子旁
作业 - Work, commonly done by man, hence 人字旁
诈（欺诈）- means to deceive, to lie, associated with talking, hence 言字旁（和说话有关）

This method is very helpful to help your kids make sense of the words. So even when they don't know the word, they can attempt to make a guess based on the 部首. If you would like to find out the meaning of other 部首, I'd be happy to reply

[Brenda10]

Hi, just to share some interesting part that we learnt yesterday while watching the 综艺大哥大:


不到北京，不知官小
不到辽宁，不知话少
不到黑龙江，不知尿少

Very amazing, while we were discussing about the show this morning and dd can stll remember the 不到北京，不知官小 and 不到黑龙江，不知尿少 well.

Also, in yesterday show, the 6 contestants were given a topic of the “magic show after 100 years” to present and only two were performed on the right track. The comments from the judges also give DD an important thing to understand especially when writing the Comp, make sure not out of the subject otherwise your effort is in vain.