Teaching Methods – Motherly Notes Methods

Time Management: 學習時間表怎麽安排最有效率？ How to Create Study Schedules with Maximum Impact

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…
故事聊一聊 – 林世仁老師的秘密 + 故事時間！

Books in the Video are not limited to: All our sessions are broadcasted in our Facebook Group FIRST and presented LIVE in group. Don’t forget to JOIN! https://www.facebook.com/groups/motherlynotes
❤️🧡💛WHY ZHUYIN IS ESSENTIAL💚💙💜

Why Zhuyin is Essential for Learning Chinese.
Need to Correct Your Chinese Pronunciation and Tones?

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…
康軒: 需要買哪些課本或練習簿來學中文? Which Books Do I Need to Buy from Kang Xuan to Practice Writing Chinese?

Many moms from our Facebook Group: Motherly Notes have seen my original post The Battle of the First Grade Chinese Textbooks: China vs. Taiwan vs. States and have asked me about what to buy in KangXuan’s website because there seems to be a million items in there. Well, the answer is… you should really buy all their workbooks…
Member Post: Non-Native Mom’s Second Year Chinese Journey (5.5 Yr Old Reads Beyond Native Level) by Melissa C.

This is a follow up post. As you may recall, I started teaching my daughter characters in July 2017, when she was four. Almost 1.5 years later, she and I are reading bridge books together. We are reading 1st grade level books, and our comprehension level is roughly that of a slightly behind Kindergartner. I…
Game:成語接龍撲克牌 (10 盒) Idioms Playing Cards (10 Boxes)

Reading levels in Chinese is hugely dependent on how well you know idioms. The harder the books, the more idioms there are. Why? Well, it’s using four characters to describe something or a situation or feeling that could take a whole paragraph to explain! This is why the Chinese language is so beautiful. Every feeling…
Member Post: Super Speed Teaching Chinese (learn 1500-1800 characters in 6 months) 六歲半小男孩在半年內認1500-1800字的心得分享 (by Jon. Lin)

To learn more, join our Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/motherlynotes/ The following is a post from our group member in our Facebook Group. She’s ONE AMAZING MOM but as all Chinese mothers are, she fails to ADMIT THAT. I will try to translate the best that I can her journey. Down below she’ll say she’s lazy and…
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…
Journey Step 2: Teaching Chinese Beyond First Few Hundred Characters- Learning Curriculum Before Second Grade

If you haven’t already, you should read my first post on My Journey in Teaching My Children Chinese (Teaching Children Chinese From Age 0-5) In that article, I really stopped around age three and didn’t really go into detail of what my three year old read in the last year and what my five year…
C-Pen 2.0 百科掛圖 – C-Pen 2.0 Encyclopedic Picture Boards

I received C-Pen’s NEW product recently and have been holding off a review until I’ve played with it a little. Uh WOW. First of all, my daughters flipped through every page with 尖叫聲 because it’s well…. HELLO KITTY Even my very ungirly girls like Hello Kitty… so… this was a hit. There were a few…
如何加快小孩閲讀的速度? How to Increase Reading Speed (Chinese/English/etc.)

I’m getting this question so often now. Somehow people like to gauge reading level by speed. So many parents are so in a rush to have their child reading faster. You can’t just force them to read faster. You can’t just force them to read faster. You can’t just force them to read faster. I’m…
C-Pen 2.0 Flash Cards 識字卡

Please visit our Facebook group for more information! https://www.facebook.com/groups/motherlynotes/ C-Pen is actively making curriculum and teaching aids for kids who are learning Chinese. This is their first take at flashcards and as always, this company is a bit nerdy and geeky just the way I like it. Just from looking at their pen, you already…
Member post: Amazing Twin Boys Who Are Reading Chinese and English At Least Two Years Above Grade Level (Sin Yee T.)

Hi Members of Motherly Notes! Once in a while I find a gem in the group and I pester invite them to share their teaching methods with us because I find it truly valuable to the community to know how miracles happen. Actually, miracles don’t just “happen”… they were created by mothers who put in an…
Book Review: 魔數小子 – Marilyn Burns Brainy Day Collection – Math Set (25 Books)

Age: 4+ with parent or independent if they know zhuyin, 5+ independent Where to Puchase: 魔數小子 – Marilyn Burns Brainy Day Collection This is a set of math picture books great for smaller kids to an introduction of “concept” of different topics in math. There’s everything from counting, addition, subtraction, to multiplication, division, measuring, time,…
Chinese Teaching Systems: 樂樂文化聽讀套書 Le Le Chinese 300 Books, 1000 Characters (Traditional & Simplified)

Introduction Video This is a set of 300 little books ranging from 8 to 12 pages. There are three levels with 100 books a level. You can do them in any order you wish when you’re within the level and pick up characters from each book. Each level introduces a few hundred new characters as…
Book Review: 漫畫教科書：數學益智王套書6本 Smart Math Comics Grades 1-6

Age: 6+ independent, up to 6th grade Please visit our Facebook group for more information! https://www.facebook.com/groups/motherlynotes/ Purchase Links: 漫畫教科書：數學益智王 1 漫畫教科書：數學益智王 2 漫畫教科書：數學益智王 3 漫畫教科書：數學益智王 4 漫畫教科書：數學益智王 5 漫畫教科書：數學益智王 6 I was searching for a math set that didn’t involve too much working out of problems because we follow the Singapore Match Curriculum at home…
Using a Dictionary: 5000字多元學習國語圖典 – 5000 Character Dictionary

Age: 5+ For more information, please join our facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/motherlynotes/ Purchase link: Gloria Bookstore If you are teaching your child Chinese, you’re probably starting to wonder when to start them on using a Chinese dictionary. For me, it’s: when the child knows how to differentiate radicals, when they know pinyin/zhuyin, when they can respect a book…
My Journey in Teaching My Children Chinese (Teaching Children Chinese From Age 0-5)

Note: The above video physically shows you some main points I listed below. I didn’t go over everything in the video but I think it’s the ideas that needed a video. Also, I’m not a professional blogger and this is written for my own records only as well as to share with friends and family.…
“懂了” 識字卡！ (简体 + 繁體）Dongle Flashcards Simplified and Traditional – 2,346 Cards

I’m super excited to introduce this set of flashcards. You can purchase through Taobao or through their own company. Their website has a lot more items you may be interested in purchasing… Dongle 懂了: http://www.idongle.cn/ This is a set of 2,346 flash cards with both traditional and simplified fonts! Simplified in the front and traditional…
How I Taught Beginning Phonics and Blending (Up to Age 5)

We started teaching phonics early (yes, you guessed it, beginning before they were one) because I found babies were easy to really teach anything to without reason behind anything. It means they’re great with just memory and not logic (at least yet). They develop reasoning later but if they had the basics all memorized, then…
Reading Pen Review: C-Pen 2.0 點讀筆, Listening and Reading Tool for Kids

Introduction Video: I’ve used a lot of pens and this one I’m quite happy with! There are many functions of this pen: It can record your voice so you can read books to your children without you even being there! Whoo hoo. You can input MP3 files in there! Great for language learners so…
Book Review: 亮亮的成長 30本+6 CD , All About Vicky Set (30 Books + 6 CDs)

Age: 3-6 ######DISCOUNT CODE ##### Now sold on Gloria’s Bookstore: 【全新再版】亮亮的成長 (免運) Shipment date: August/September 2018, sold until sold out Use the coupon code: motherlynotes Special Pricing: $65 including shipping , $10 rebate if you pick up at her warehouse in Sunnyvale, CA Join our Facebook Group to learn more about this set! Click here:…
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…
Book Review: 直映认字教材 Picture Guided 1500 Character Learning Set (Simplified,简体）

Age: 2+ Join our Facebook Group to learn more from other crazy parents! This is a very very affordable set and teaches a lot of characters. It has 6 books with 11-13 lessons in there and for each lesson there are “black” characters and “red” characters. Red characters are for the kids to learn and…
We Finally Graduated from 注音 (Zhuyin)

歡迎來加入我們的瘋狂虎爸虎媽團，一起分享教小朋友中文的心得呦！ Join our Facebook group to know more about how more moms and dads are teaching their children Chinese! I never knew how many characters my big one knew. After she was born, I went with the flow of what I thought was an efficient teaching method for learning to read in both English and…
Using Heart Attack As a Game to Learn New Chinese Characters 用“心臟病” 的遊戲來認國字

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…
Using “Build Up” Method for Flashcards (20 Characters in 20 Minutes) – 如何用識字卡來認國字

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…
Book Review: 天才認字王套書, 成語書苑 Genius Chinese Character Reading Pen Learning Set , Idioms Set

Age: 3+ independent or with parent Please visit our Facebook group for more information! 【智點】基礎語文認知套組(含新型點讀筆) 天才認字王套書 Genius Chinese Character Reading Pen Learning Set 【智點】成語書苑點讀學習套書 – Idioms Set There’s a slight correction for the stuff said on video. There are 1200 characters in this set, not 1600. This is a character learning system. It won’t help…
Member Post: How My Child and I Both Learned Chinese (Melissa C.)

Intro: Melissa is one of our creative moms on our Facebook Group Motherly Notes. Her dedication to her children, her dedication to herself, and the crafts they do at home always BLOW MY MIND away!!!! I have forever grateful that she’s willing to share her experience with us. I love her experience and it always…
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…
Member Post: How Her Child Read Chinese Fluently Before 5 (by Valen S.)

Valen did her post in our Facebook Group in Chinese but I will translate it as best as I can here. You can visit our group to get advice from more crazy moms and dads and how they taught their children: 應熱情大方又不吝分享的版主Julie之邀，來談談我家孩子學習中文的心路歷程～我家劉鼻涕（小名）目前6歲半，小一新鮮人。目前會讀繁體、也會簡體，會看注音也會看拼音，也可以不仰賴注音看漫畫書看的津津有味。她發音標準，看到華人長輩會自動講中文，有時陌生人還誤會她是不是不大會講英文。。看到這裡，你可能以為我有很神奇的方法可以分享。事實上我沒有什麼秘訣，她也沒上過中文學校、沒學過基礎漢字500，家裡也沒有任何字卡。所以我一向不太分享孩子如何學習中文，因為在我看來，我並沒有做了什麼。如果你問我，那到底有做什麼？我想，只有一點值得提。就跟版上瘋狂買書的媽媽們一樣- 大量的買書，大量的親子共讀。 My daughter is six and a half right now. She…
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…
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…
The Battle of the First Grade Chinese Textbooks: China vs. Taiwan vs. States

Out of curiosity, I am going to compare textbooks: 康軒 from Taiwan Grade 1 上海世紀語文 from Shanghai China Curriculum Grade 1 馬立平 Mǎ lì píng States Curriculum Pre Grade, Grade 1 (and Grade 2) There’s a huge difference in the curriculum of the three above. The general gist is we are slow in the…
Interviews With Parents Who Have Successfully Taught Their Children Chinese

We frequently get asked the questions of how to teach our children Chinese in the states and there’s a lot of resistance from children here in the states. All sorts of problems come up and every family has a different situation. In all differing situations, how do parents set up their children for success in…
Learn Your First 2400 Chinese Characters

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…
There’s No Other Way Around Knowing How to Write Chinese!

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…
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…
Why Using Textbooks To Teach Chinese May Not Be the Most Efficient Way To Teach Reading

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…
Using Sage Books As a Native Chinese Speaking Family

As I’m looking on the Facebook groups and other forums. The number one issue families have is that the kids don’t want to read the books. Some run away at the first word. Some just cannot make it through. Some are just fine and fascinated with everything in the Sage collection. I wanted to go…
Teaching Your Children to Read Fast with Sticker Labels

This isn’t a new trick. This is actually a very traditional type of teaching. When I first taught my older daughter to read, I used these labels around the house with English words when they were younger. I’m now doing it with Chinese. We would always sound them out and point to the object the…