In English and Chinese
I’ve been on so many paths with this one. I started with what everyone wants in a perfect world: What a beautifully perfect world! Ha! Basically no rewards should be given. All achievements should come from the heart right? This generally works and but takes a lot of effort – from BIRTH. My husband and…
Many moms have shared their daily schedules or activities on our Facebook Group: Motherly Notes and it’s a common question that parents have because children like to: Procrastinate Procrastinate Procrastinate Moms like to maximize their kids study schedule as well as their own times. How in the world do other kids study 5-6 things in…
Learn the story behind Mother’s Day. Ann Jarvis, Anna Jarvis.
我想聽你說 Popcorn Talks 桌遊來了!
Age: 5-7 with parent, 7+ independent This is a neat set of science magazines fit for first to third grade level in Chinese. 99% of the magazine has zhuyin but there are a couple lines in their comics section that don’t but it won’t deter your budding reader from reading this because it’s FULL of…
I wanted to continue discussing commonly asked topics about the Chinese journey. I’ve noticed many many many kids in my class able to speak in Chinese and some very fluently but yet do not have the proper tones down or have picked up that “ABC” accent. This may be okay for most but there are…
Age 8+ Purchase Link: 西方經典童話套書(1~20冊) I’ve been tracking down sets of classics for a while now. One that has detailed stories and close to the original zhuyin colorful illustrations excitingly written for the 3rd to 5th grade child comprehension questions in the back has 20,000 to 30,000 characters a book (Little Prince and Midsummer Night’s…
Here’s my introduction video: I recently started using this backpack for my older child (6 years old) and she just absolutely loves it! The straps and back are researched and designed to be ergonomic for kids so it redistributes the weight for the child and they don’t feel any pressure points even after long hours…
Math is something that my husband and I are pretty focused on. My goals were to achieve the following: Before Age 3: Count to 100, know shapes and colors including harder shapes like rhombus, pentagon, hexagon, octagon, isosceles triangle, obtuse triangle, scalene triangle, light pink, dark pink, magenta, turquoise, etc. Age 3: Do simple…
There are many card games that are used in our Facebook group and I decided to use one on a daily basis with my two kiddos. To my surprise, it hasn’t gotten old yet. Many people use the game heart attack differently. For us, I call out the word they’re supposed to slap down on…
Everyone does flashcards differently. I do a “Build Up” method that’s shown on the video and the steps are listed below. I led the example with my four year old in the video: Do a once over. Go over each flashcard ONCE with a pronunciation and meaning (I didn’t do this in the video for…
We are snowed in today and the kids are home. This means I have from 6:30am in the morning until about 8:30pm. That’s a long time with the kids at home! I always take out open ended toys when they are home like this so it kills about 1-2 hours by themselves in the morning.…
We love this pen. We love this pen. It’s not some new product but we love it. I forgot about this until I looked at our old photos. You melt plastic from a pen and they stick together to form anything you’d like. Of course my girls opted to do “rings” with their initials on…
In efforts to help everyone in my Facebook Group track their progress of their children’s Chinese study, I’ve compiled the most frequently used 2400 characters. If you can’t read independently after this list, I’ll be very surprised! Some people may use these as: Word games board. Poster to put on the walls and pin down…
I’m always thinking of more ways to make learning more dynamic because it helps with memorization and internalization of the material. Luckily, I found my kids to love “teaching” me stuff because it makes them feel empowered with their knowledge. It nicely feeds into their confidence and they have fun being teacher. I bought a…
Age: 5+ (or for those who don’t eat toys anymore) You can buy it on amazon: Think Fun Hoppers Game We have had this game for over two years now and it’s one that repeatedly gets taken out because it doesn’t get old. We take these out on planes, to hotels, etc. because the size…
One of the moms on our Facebook group showed a video of her daughter putting stickers on a Chinese character chart. How “wonderful” is that? Stickers + Kids = WIN. I used to give them stickers for everything. Did you do you your chores today? Give a list of chores chart and have them stick…
My five year old writes Chinese. We’ve started her on 康軒國語課本(一) Kang Xuan First Grade Material this year and their writing worksheets are okay for a five year old but for my three year old who sooooooo eagerly wants to be like her sister but doesn’t have the fine motor skills yet, I created my…
Chinese textbooks bore me to death and they will surely bore my kids to death. Do we do it? Yes, for the worksheets. Do we read it? Not really. We jump straight to worksheets to practice some writing. Plus, their first grade texts are only maybe 20 words each lesson and slowly increases through the…
Most of you who know me figured I never like toys that are one ended or targeted towards only one age group. If I get bored with my kids, I’ll never appear lively. I think the number one reason we’re so tired playing with kids is due to the fact some toys are PLAIN BORING.…
I found this nice idea to use your old crayons and make them new again. I found this from this site that explains how to do this. The only thing different I did was find cuter molds off Amazon! You can search “cute silicone molds for chocolates.” You’ll get anything from animals to hello kitty to…
By now you probably know I’m not a sit down type of mom who likes to do everything from the books. Whenever I have a “building toy” that’s open ended, I dive for it. When I saw this set, I instantly bought 2 sets of it. By now you should already know I am a…
Children waste paper. Children waste paper. Children waste a lot of paper. There’s also miscellaneous paper they love throwing everywhere. There’s the frequent folded up paper they said it’s a “letter” to someone found under the bed, under the table, in a cabinet. When I open them up, it has only one word or it’s…
My children were into a puzzle phase (I’ll do a review of the puzzles we have later) and it turned to a point where it’s not enough to just do the puzzles at home. I always like to spark their creativity (and kill some time they have and gain some quiet time for me –…
Everyone loves legos. It keeps the kids occupied and they get to explore their creative side. I had no issues with Legos but found it annoying that they came in these boxes with pre selected parts and how to put together the parts. It limits the creativity of the kids and they feel like there’s…
Using boxed science craft kits to save time preparing a project for your kids to do.
I’ve heard many types of “no’s.” Stern: “No! Stop doing that! You stop it right now you hear?” Softly: “No no dear, that’s not for you sweetie…” Playfully: “No no no no no no no no no” (with a singing tone) Directionally: “No, it’s not read that way. No, that’s not the right answer.” What’s…
I had a chance to spend the entire week with my cute nephew who is 7 years old. His school is highly academic and they usually read 1-2 grades higher than their current grade level. Therefore, the test scores of this school is always at 99% of the nation’s average. Scary? Yes I know! On…
It’s never too late to reason with logic with your children. I had the “pleasure” of teaching my nephew how to do a book report today. I would say his personality is the opposite of easy to deal with. Frequently when I talk to him, he’d be staring at the wall thinking about literally “nothing”…
As I’m reading through all these books, one recurring theme is the effect of media on the child’s brain. The more I read, the more agitated I get at these companies making educational videos for babies and saying it’s good for children. From what I see, it’s good for the “parents” to get free time…
Teens lie no matter whether you’re strict or not. Darling did a study on teens showing that parents believe that being more lax and rules would institute teens to tell them more about their lives but the opposite happens. Not instituting rules makes the teens feel that you don’t care about them and they go…