Mini-Book 6- 象想要飛

象想要飛 (Xiàng Xiǎng Yào Fēi, Elephant Wants to Fly)- This may be a big leap in vocabulary and grammar structure from Mini-Book 5, but please forgive me.  I post these books as the children I know need them and it has been over a year since my last Mini-Book post.

This is the sixth book in the series.  To locate other Mini-Books, click on the "Mini-Book" label on the right hand side of the web page.

Unlike other books I've posted, this one was written by another person- Kendra from ChineseReadingPractice.com.  She offers leveled text on her blog and writes a post about once a week.  With her permission, I have reformatted it into a book and added pictures.  I also enlisted the help of a native Chinese speaker (from Taiwan) to look over the text.  A few words have been adapted and this may reflect the Taiwanese way of saying things.


象想要飛- traditional characters with 注音符號
象想要飛- simplified characters with 漢語拼音(Hànyǔ Pīnyīn)

Create Your Own Handwriting Sheets-Chinese Vocabulary Book

Create Your Own Handwriting Sheets-"Chinese Vocabulary Book" is FREE!  It's a very basic worksheet generator, but is worth posting because it offers teachers the option of including the

注音符號 with traditional characters or the 漢語拼音 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn) with simplified characters. Each worksheet will contain rows for tracing and rows for copying.

This link is from Chinese Normal University.

Here's a sample worksheet of numbers 1-5:

Worksheet-  注音符號

Worksheet- 漢語拼音 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn)

Create Your Own Handwriting Sheets-Hanzi Grids

Create Your Own Handwriting Sheets-"Hanzi Grids" provides leveled membership.  That means it provides access to the website with many features as free.  However, you can upgrade by paying membership.  This is a very neat website.  It has several features including:

• Control of spacing between characters grids/boxes,
• Control of the size of the characters within each grid/box,
• The option of using either traditional or simplified characters, and
• Control of whether the Learner is copying or tracing the character (slide the "Visible Characters").

Here's a sample worksheet of numbers 1-10:

Tracing

Copying

Chinese Character Art

Here is a wonderful video/piece of artwork that displays the beauty of Chinese characters!

• The Art of Writing, A film by Yu Ji

LingoSpring Chinese Memory Game

LingoSpring was developed by an entrepreneur to help Chinese Language Learners practice recognizing characters. As you've probably guessed from the post's title, LingoSpring is a new twist on Memory.  Aside from the typical settings you would expect from a Chinese-based game like this, there is also a setting that allows you match simplified characters to their traditional counterpart!

LingoSpring will allow you to create your own personalized word list.  However, it also comes with a built-in character list arranged by frequency of use.  This is wonderful because if you have a student who has just started learning Chinese, you can quickly access beginning-level characters and jump right into playing. 

Inside each game of Memory is the ability to add a character to a "Focus List."  This is your personalized list of words that you want to review more closely.  Once you have a minimum of 12 characters in this list, you can play a game that randomly selects 12 characters from this list to play memory with or study.

36 Strategies or 36 Chinese Idioms

HuaYu World- This company has provided 36 Chinese idiom stories for free!  These stories provide an explanation for why certain phrases are said the way they are said.

You can choose to read the story or listen to it in Chinese.  You can read the story using either traditional Chinese characters with ㄅㄆㄇ or in English.  To view a story in English-- after following the link above, click on one of the 36 idiom stories and then choose the "ABC" button on the left side.  At the end of the story is an explanation of how the idiom relates to the story.

If that wasn't enough, the company has also created beautiful pdf's that include both the Chinese characters/ㄅㄆㄇ and the English translations.

Mini-Book 5- 我是 . . . .

我是 . . . . (Wǒ shì . . ., I am . . .)- This is the fifth book in the series.  To locate other Mini-Books, click on the "Mini-Book" label on the right hand side of the web page.

The fifth Mini-Book is designed to reinforce the use of 我是 . . . . (Wǒ shì . . ., I am . . .).  It also continues to expose the reader to common characters in order to reinforce character recognition.

This Mini-Book was created to be personalized by your child.  Please, take the time to paste photos of them into the books.  This makes reading more fun for your child and encourages them to practice reading.  Also, when you print be sure to print on both sides of the paper.  Page 2 prints on the back of page 1, etc.  Then stack the pages so that when they are folded along the center line, the page numbers proceed in numeric order.

我是 . . . . - traditional characters with 注音符號
我是 . . . . - simplified characters with 漢語拼音 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn)

Fun Books to Read

Toon Book has a collection of books in English and foreign languages including Chinese.  There is no pronunciation guide, so readers must be strong in character recognition.  However, some of these books don't require much vocabulary beyond one or two semesters at the university level.  A parent with such a background could easily read at least a couple of these books while encourage a child to read the characters he/she knows.

Mini-Book 4- 妹妹和哥哥

妹妹和哥哥 (Mèimei hé gēgē, Little Sister and Older Brother)- This is the fourth book in the series.  To locate other Mini-Books, click on the "Mini-Book" label on the right hand side of the web page.

The fourth Mini-Book is designed to reinforce the use of 和 (hé, and).  It also includes common everyday actions such as 吃早飯 (Chī zǎofàn, Eating breakfast) and 去學校 (Qù xuéxiào, Going to school).

This Mini-Book is a large file (35kb) so give it time to load.  It is larger than the others because it includes photos.  Please feel free to paste your own photos over these so that your Mini-Book is personalized to your children.  Also, when you print be sure to print on both sides of the paper.  Page 2 prints on the back of page 1, etc.  Then stack the pages so that when they are folded along the center line, the page numbers proceed in numeric order.

妹妹和哥哥- traditional characters with 注音符號
妹妹和哥哥- simplified characters with 漢語拼音 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn)

Color Coding Worksheet

This Color Coding Worksheet helps kids focus on the shape of the character or  注音符號 or 漢語拼音 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn) letter that you want them to recognize.    Choose 3-4 characters or "letters" and assign each a color (see the key in the upper left-hand corner of the worksheet).  Ask your child to color each apple according to the key.

Below is a sample Color-Coded Tree and a blank one for you to create your own worksheet using characters you are practicing in your home.

Color Coding Tree- 注音符號
Color Coding Tree- 漢語拼音 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn)
Color Coding Tree- Blank

Character Artwork With Tissue Paper

This is a supplementary post for "Getting Your Young Child to Write."


To decorate a character start by creating an outline of the character.  I created mine using Microsoft Word.  After typing the character, I enlarged the character and then (by going to the font tab) I selected "outline".  This created a hallow character my kids could fill in with tissue paper, buttons, beans, or fill in with crayons and markers.

If you are less tech-savvy, you can simple draw out an outline of the character.

For this art project, we glued tissue paper onto the outline.  I recommend that you do this with kids ages 5 and up.  I tried it with my four year old and she tried and had fun, but it didn't come out so well.  My five-year old was more successful.

Remember the point of this project isn't to make a beautiful picture (although that is nice, too).  It's to help the kids focus on the parts of the character.  As you will notice above, we used different colors for the different parts of the character, which really allows us to see the different components (such as 艹 and 人).

Animated Stroke Orders for Common Characters

 Animated Stroke Orders for Common Traditional Characters-  Here's a great place to find out the stroke orders of common traditional and simplified Chinese characters.  This site is maintained by The Ministry of Education, R.O.C. (Taiwan).  The site is available in English or Chinese (you can click on your language choice in the upper right-hand corner).  Furthermore, characters can be searched for through several different input methods including:  radicals, 注音符號, 漢語拼音 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn), stroke order, or (if you can type characters on your computer) via characters.  It also provides animation on the correct stroke order for 注音符號.

Mini-Book 3- 我的朋友

我的朋友 (Wǒ de péngyǒu; My Friend)- is the third book in the Mini-Book series.  To locate other Mini-Books, click on the "Mini-Book" label on the right hand side of the web page.

This book supplements the teaching of the words 我的 (wǒ de; my) and 他的 (tā de; his).  It discusses a boy who is Chinese and his friend who is American.  The book discusses how to two boys are alike and reinforces the idea of friendship between cultures.

This Mini-Book file is much smaller than the first, so if you had difficulty downloading the first you may be more successful with this one.  Also when you print, print on both sides of the paper.  Page 2 prints on the back of page 1, etc.  Then stack the pages so that when they are folded along the center line, the page numbers proceed in numeric order.

我的朋友- traditional characters with 注音符號
我的朋友- simplified characters with 漢語拼音 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn)

Chinese Magnetic Poetry- Part Two

This is a follow up of a post called "Chinese Magnetic Poetry."

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So you've purchased or created a set of Chinese Magnetic Poetry (with the pronunciation included as necessary).  NOW WHAT DO YOU DO?

I just started using my magnetic set with my kids this week.  So bear with me as I sort through what works and what doesn't and expand this post.

I decided to start with a question/sentence that they have had lots of experience with lately, the 有 . . . 也有. . .  (yǒu. . . yě yǒu. . .; have . . . also have . . .) grammar structure they've been studying at the heritage school.  This is something they have heard a lot about and is a structure they've repeated back in sentence form, but it is not one they have been successful generating verbally independently.  For example, they can repeat the phrase "我有小狗.  我也有貓咪." (Wǒ yǒu xiǎo gǒu. Wǒ yě yǒu māo mī.), and they can fill in the blank in the example 我有____.我也有____., and they understand the meaning of 有 . . .也有 . . .; however, they can not use the grammar structure 有 . . .也有 . . to answer the question "你有什麼?" (Nǐ yǒu shéme?;  What do you have?).

1. I decided to introduce the magnetic characters by creating my own sentence using the 有 . . .也有 . . grammar structure and leaving them on the board.  I also made sure all the other magnets were off the board so that my kids could easily focus on the sentence without being distracted by other magnet pieces.  Then I had each of them individually come look at the "really cool" Chinese magnets.  I pointed out that most of the characters on the board were ones they had seen before and that the pronunciation was next to each character if they need it.  I also pointed out that some of the characters did NOT include the pronunciation because some of the characters were very familiar to them (ex. 小 (xiǎo, small).  This was a nice way of reinforcing to them that they were making progress in learning the read Chinese!
2. Then I had each child read the sentence I had made.  I listened to his/her ability to sound out the characters using the pronunciation guide when it was necessary.  I found that the first time they read the sentence it was very slow; I know from my education background that when children read slowly, their comprehension decreases.  So after my child read it through once, I read it out loud to them and then checked my child's comprehension.  If you notice that your child's reading speed is slow, you will need to read the sentence for them to him/her before asking comprehension questions.  If s/he has difficulty with comprehension you will need to think about whether the vocabulary or the grammar structure is giving them difficulty and address this before moving on to the next step below.
3. The next step is removing some of the support.  In the case of the 有 . . .也有 . . grammar structure, I left the phrase "我有___.我也有___." on the board and left spaces to be filled in.  Then I placed several familiar and appropriate words that could be placed in the blanks.  I asked each child to read the sentence fragment on the board and then find two words to fill in the blanks.  Then I asked him/her to read the sentence s/he had made.  After s/he read it, I repeated it using as native-like speech as possible (meaning that I read it like someone would really say it--with intonation and without over-exaggerating the tones).  Then I checked her/his comprehension of the sentence s/he had made.  Make sure to stay on this step until your child understand what the 有 . . . 也有 . . . means.
4. In step three, you continue to remove support.  Leave all the words necessary to write the sentences "我有___.我也有___." on the board (including several words choices to fill in the blank), but scramble the words so that they are not in the correct order.  Then ask your child to make a sentence about two things they have using the "有 . . ., 也有 . . ." sentence structure.  Ask her/him to read the sentence s/he made.  Does it make sense?  Are the words in the correct order?  If not, stop and show her/him how to fix the sentence; then have her/him make another sentence.  Before moving on to the next step, your child should have good comprehension of the sentence they made and be able to arrange the words in the correct sentence pattern.  Continue modeling correct pronunciation and intonation to your children.*

*I'm making this note here since this is the first time in my blog I've addressed sentence formation.  Particularly for children learning Chinese as a second language, it is important for them to hear correct intonation.  Intonation is how voice pitch changes throughout a sentence.  Intonation can convey important information about how a person is feeling or (in the case of English) whether the sentence is a question or a statement.  For example, in English when someone asks a question their pitch raises from the beginning of the sentence to the end.  When they make a statement the pitch drops at the end.  If you're not sure what I mean, try saying the following sentences out loud.

• Did she really go to the store?
• Yesterday, I went to the store.

 Now try saying the two sentences above as if you are angry.  Now try it as if you were excited.  Notice how your intonation changes.  Chinese does similar things when reading with emotion and even when forming questions.  Without learning correct intonation, a person's speech can sound stilted.  However, you probably don't need to teach this explicitly; just modeling will go a long way.  If necessary, enlist a fluent Chinese speaker to help you (a teacher, a neighbor, a friend, etc.).  You can also expose your children to correct intonation by letting them watch movies in Chinese or by listening to Chinese stories on CD.