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Printables

Summer Chinese Listening Worksheets

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Summer makes me very lazy, and I wanted to create a way where my kids could work on their Chinese listening skills just by watching TV. There are a lot of great cartoons on streaming services where you can switch the audio to Mandarin Chinese. I honed in a two of them: Word Party – on Netflix, and Bluey – on Disney+.

I created little worksheets to go along with episodes from Word Party and Bluey, and so far, the kids are enjoying them. Is it because I promise a prize at the end for checking all the boxes? Maybe… but it’s an excellent way for them to hear Chinese in real life settings and at real life speed.

Feel free to download and use these worksheets. I’ve uploaded 8 total. I usually sit down with the kids at the beginning of the week, go over the pronunciation of each of the words on the worksheet, and have them say it back to me. Once they are confident in being able to pick out and say the words, I let them watch the episode themselves and I walk away. They do this about 3 times a week, and move on to a new episode the next week. Now that’s summertime lazy!

Bluey S1E1 WorksheetDownload
Bluey S1E2 WorksheetDownload
Bluey S1E3 WorksheetDownload
Bluey S1E4 WorksheetDownload
Bluey S1E5 WorksheetDownload
Bluey S1E6 WorksheetDownload
Word Party S1E1 WorksheetDownload
Word Party S1E2 WorksheetDownload

Happy Learning!

Products, Teaching

Tiny Chinese Preschool Vol. 1 Book Release!

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Tiny Chinese Preschool was a concept I came up with while trying to teach 3 children Chinese over their summer break. I felt the material I had was too hard for my 2 year old, who could barely hold a crayon, so I wanted to create something more simple for his age group.

I started with some simple characters and used those characters over and over in simple worksheets. I made flashcards of those characters and played games with my child. Tracing and writing characters was especially problematic, but after some testing, I finessed a way that my child could color in parts of the character a stroke at a time to help him better recognize the character later. I could see real improvement in his reading, and he was even using the characters to talk to me in day to day life! And after nearly two years of hard work, I’m proud to present my best Chinese learning book ever!

It is now available on Amazon! You can buy it here.

This is a book of worksheets and games for preschool children ages 2-5. The first chapter focuses on preschool skills like cut, color, circle, mazes, tracing, and hidden pictures. The following 8 chapters integrates those preschool skills in learning two opposing or matching character pairs, like big and small, fast and slow, sleep and play. While learning these characters, online audio (now available through QR code scanning for convenience) can help guide pronunciation. The last two chapters are a review chapter and an easy reader mini-book, where every character learned is now integrated into a fun story. This is an excellent entry level workbook for children and their parents just beginning to learn Chinese.

Here is a peek to the inside pages. Each page is full-color, bright illustrations, and appealing to children.

As part of Tiny Chinese Preschool’s book release, I will hold a live video of Tiny Chinese Homeschool’s Facebook page on September 26th, 2023 at 11:00 am ET. I will let you see the inside of the book and demonstrate how the it works. I’ll be there to answer any questions. I hope to see you there!

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Tiny Chinese Preschool Book Launch!

Culture, Holidays, Printables

Happy Chinese New Year!

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This year is especially exciting to me because it is the Year of the Rabbit– that’s my year! Yesterday, my husband was talking about an article he read on an app called “Dú Zhōngwén” which is a great app to read Chinese articles that are short and has varying levels of difficulty. Anyway, the article was able how the tradition of giving children red envelopes started.

Apparently, it started with a myth that there was a little demon that would come and touch the foreheads of children to harm them–make them sick with fever or a cold, or worse! But the parents of the children realized that if they put money under their pillow, then the demon would leave them alone. Later this story morphed into parents just giving children red envelopes with money inside for good luck. I laughed when I heard this story because I can imagine a little demon touching foreheads and causing havoc, but I can imagine the fear it would inspire in a lot of children’s heads at night.

So I decided to make a red envelope cut-out (minus the demons) for a fun way to practice giving red envelopes to each other. Maybe you can really slip in money!

Enjoy!

tch_chinese-new-year-red-evelopes-012123-1Download

For more great printables, visit this page below!

Printables
songs, Teaching

New Year, New Music Video: What Is Your Name?

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I created this song a long time ago, but after intense focus over winter break, I was able to record and film it. I think this is a great way for kids to learn to introduce themselves. As you can see in the video, my kids are taking it as seriously as they take everything in life. I hope you enjoy it!

For those of you learning from the book, this song goes great with Tiny Chinese Homeschool Vol. 2, Chapter 1.

Key phrases taught:
你叫什麼名字?/Nǐ jiào shénme míngzi?/What is your name?
我叫_____./Wǒ jiào____./I’m called____.

Events, Products

Tiny Chinese Homeschool Vol. 2 Book Launch!

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It is finally here! I think I learned a lot from making the first book, so this second instructional installment is even better! More creative and colorful worksheets, more cut-outs, addition of short stories to review all the vocabulary–you’ll just have to see it for yourself.

If you need a sneak peak, the book launch is a perfect way to see the book, to ask questions, and to win a free copy. Here is how you can join:

Tiny Chinese Homeschool Vol. 2 Book Launch

I have 3 free copies I want to giveaway and it’s really easy to enter if you have Facebook. All you need to do is share our book giveaway post and write one Chinese-learning goal you have. If I can see that you shared and commented, I will add your name to the drawing! Here is the link to the giveaway post:

https://fb.watch/8M0NpmumGc/

Thank you!

I realize there was a lot of people that helped me with this book. I had my friend from Taiwan and her perfectly fluent kids do most of the audio. My cousin, who has a hidden talent for character voices, did the recordings for the short stories. My niece expressed continual excitement for the next volume. And complete strangers would offer encouragement and share their interest in future publications. Every bit of it was essential for me. Lately I’d like to share a huge accomplishment. Just a few days before the book launch, the book has achieved the #1 new release badge in Chinese Children’s Literature category on Amazon.

That’s something that I’ve only achieved on a couple of my other releases, and that happened after the launch, so this is a big deal to me. So thank you for your support and for teaching your children Chinese. I hope you feel it’s already worth it!

2021-10-26T19:00:00

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Tiny Chinese Homeschool Book Launch Countdown

See you at the book launch!