Motherly Notes Methods – Nurture Love Educate

In English and Chinese

  • Onyx Boox Reader Review – Tool for Teaching Reading, Writing, Etc.

    Onyx Boox Reader Review – Tool for Teaching Reading, Writing, Etc.

    Last year I had my children read from Kindle for their English books and then uploaded my own Chinese books but the problem with Kindle is the screen is so small, it’s not really Chinese compatible and Amazon doesn’t have any Chinese books that my children can read so trying to load Chinese on Kindle […]

  • How I Taught My Toddlers Math (Ages 2-5)

      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 […]

  • Member Post: How Her Daughters Learned to Read Chinese Fluently (Nelli C)

    Another inspirational member of our Facebook Group has shared their incredible journey of how their children learned to read fluently in Chinese at an early age. You are welcome to join our group to learn more from our members! 感謝Julie Liu的邀稿。 我的女兒們,一個七歲一個五歲。沒有去中文學校、一直以來都是我自己教中文。老大在努力了兩年之後, 中文漸漸趨近我一開始的期待— 讀少年小說, 目前閱讀速度約1分鐘250-300字, 堪稱中英可齊步；小女兒也以超出期待的速度穩定進步中。 I have two daughters ages seven and five who have […]

  • How to Elevate Reading Comprehension in Chinese (Age 5+) 如何提升閱讀理解能力

    My biggest issue in having my girls advance in reading comprehension is … “comprehension.” Ok, that sounds dumb. It’s a pain explaining a phrase every single sentence and you really want to give up sometimes. It’s tedious during reading and the truth is, you’ve already lost the excitement of the story since you’re reading so […]

  • Member Post: How We Learned Mandarin With Perfect Accent

    We have an amazing member in our Facebook Group. They speak Cantonese at home but Jennifer C (an amazing mom) was determined for her children to learn the proper tones for Mandarin. She suggested: Put the phonetic guides next to each word you are learning and make sure your kiddos are pronouncing it right every […]

  • Use This To Practice Reading Characters When You Can’t Find Better Books

     When you cannot find the right books for your kids to read in Chinese without phonetic help, you can try using Post Its! Post It’s has a “Labeling and Cover Up Tape.” It doesn’t harm the book, perfectly removable and it’s a good way to just cover up the zhuyin so your child can practice […]

  • Using Little Flashcards For Games and Phrases

      Here I printed the most frequently used 500 words on cardstock paper and then used a paper slicer and cut them up into little cube cards (not all perfect cubes but that’s okay because I wanted to do it fast). I originally wanted to let them make sentences and phrases but ended up doing […]

  • Using Reusable Sheets to Learn Chinese Phonetics ㄅㄆㄇ

    Many friends have asked me when to start writing or learning the phonetic system in Chinese and in my article My Journey in Teaching My Children Chinese, I mentioned that I always started them early. Toddlers have very less refined motor skills but if they try, they’ll be able to trace anything big. I made these ㄅㄆㄇ […]

  • Doodle the Day Away & Improve Motor Skills While You’re At It!

    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 […]

  • I Hate Doing Flashcards! Please Spit Them Out Automagically For Me!

    Everyone has been saying how useful flashcards are and giving a lot of credit to how “informative” the cards are. I always always always share my resources. I use: http://www.archchinese.com No, I am not a crazy mom (ok, maybe a little crazy) who has so much time that I do this much on a word […]

  • Art + Role Playing = Hidden Learning & Reading

    I love art and I love supplies that do more than one thing. One of my favorite coloring supply is the watercolor pencil. Watercolor is usually light in color which is great but what about when you want some punch? Kids love bright vibrant colors so I use Derwent’s Inktense Pencils (72 colors). I don’t use […]

  • Using Legos as an Educational Tool with Preschool Children

    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 […]

  • You Don’t Always Have Time to Prepare an Art or Craft Session for your Kids, Here’s the Solution!

    Using boxed science craft kits to save time preparing a project for your kids to do.