注音符號 Song

Check out this YouTube video of the 注音符號 alphabet song.

Tangrams

Looking for some cultural activities that your young child can participate in?  Check out Activity Village's tangram page.  There is a pattern you can print to make your own tangram set and several fun tangram patterns you can puzzle out!

Want to know how to say "tangram" in Chinese?

- 七巧板

- 七巧板 (qī qiǎo bǎn)

Culture Kits

If you live near a university with an international program or a well-funded library, ask if they have Culture Kits available.  These are simply tubs of materials that are about a particular culture.  A Chinese Culture Kit might include realia such as:  traditional rice steamers, chopsticks, paper lanterns, traditional toys, and jewelry.  Each Culture Kit typically also provides an Information Sheet listing facts about the items in the kit.

If you live near Iowa City, the international program at the University of Iowa has several Culture Kits that can be checked out for two-weeks.  There is a 5 kit maximum.  Below are some links that direct you to the Culture Kits available at UI.
Home page for Culture Kits
List of kits searched by keywords:  China, Chinese, Taiwan, Asia

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

Stuck for ideas about how to keep your kids' attentions on your lesson?  Here is a website with a list of wonderful games to play with children learning a foreign language.  Have a look and see what might work in your classroom or family!

Games in the Foreign Language Classroom

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.