Products, Teaching

Tiny Chinese Preschool Vol. 1 Book Release!

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!

Events, Products

Tiny Chinese Homeschool Vol. 2 Book Launch!

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!

Products

Vol. 2 is Just Around the Corner!

With the start of a new school year, I promised a new volume of Tiny Chinese Homeschool. And now the release is just a few weeks away! You’ve helped me with feedback on the cover and now I am happy to review a sneak peak of the final product:

This volume focuses on speaking Chinese in the community: at school, with your neighbors, while taking a walk, at the grocery store, and more! It uses the same methodology as Vol. 1: each chapter teaches 7-12 vocabulary words and 1-2 target phrases. But this volume is different because now there are more worksheets and games to reinforce learning in a fun way. Here is an example of some of the games:

Like the last volume, after every 3 chapters is a review chapter. Each review chapter contains a short test, and now introducing short stories! This is exciting because the short story uses words almost exclusively learned in the previous 3 chapters so it is simple to read. At the end of each story is a reading comprehension test. In short, it is a fun treat to reward the learner and showcase their improvement. Here is an example of one of the short stories:

Character practice is also included. This volume chooses two characters from the whole chapter to learn. Now, stroke order is taught. Here is an example of a character writing practice:

These are just a few key differences that you will notice in this volume. Like the previous volume, dialogues and corresponding audio are provided so you can hear the language in context. Each chapter glossary provides grammar tips and cultural insights. This is a great resource for those who want to learn Chinese but need small steps to do so.

Keep your eyes peeled because it is just around the corner. See you at the book release!

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Book Launch Complete

This has been a busy week! We opened the launch on the weekend, inviting people on Facebook to share about the book and why they wanted to learn Chinese. The responses were varied and excellent:

We started strong with Chinese and French but eventually just narrowed it down to French because I honestly couldn’t keep up resource wise. I’m wanting to re-start with my kids, my oldest keeps asking and this would be a great way!

-Alex S.

My kids homeschool and would love to learn Chinese!! I teach Chinese children English.

-Laura A.

I’d love to get a copy of this book. I wanna teach my baby Chinese so she could communicate with my family in China!

-Lucy M.

I want to freshen up and learn it again to be able to converse with my old friends in China!

-Kenneth B.

I would like to learn Chinese because it is such a mystery to me!

-Debbie C.

From the names of the participants, I was able to do a live drawing and book preview. Here is the video:

I wish I could have done more giveaways. It was a great experience to hear the excitement over the book. My husband keeps urging me to start on Vol. 2, because even if Vol. 1 doesn’t sell right away, it would be good to keep the series going in case it picks up quickly. I have to admit, I’ve had a mixture of elation and depression throughout this launch. There is so much potential of what this book could be, but it’s been a slow, slow start.

That’s it for now. Who knows what the future holds?