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.

12 Happy-Chinese Pinyin Lessons

This website has a list of the "12 Happy-Chinese Pinyin Lessons."  The audio is O.K.  The downside of these lessons is that the examples they give you to help you to remember each pinyin sound is based on Chinese.  For example, to teach you the sound for "ü," they tell you it's the same sound as the word for "fish" in Chinese.  So this lesson set may be more helpful to children who already speak Mandarin at home and are learning the writing system.  However, for those of you who are learning Chinese as a foreign language, go ahead and take a look at this site.  There is lots of repetition of the sounds and it is always spoken in correspondence with the pinyin so you can still practice connecting the pinyin with the correct sound.

Pinyin Alphabet

Here is a video with great audio that shows the pinyin as it sings the pinyin alphabet.  I did see one misspelling; around 1 minutes and 30 seconds into the video it tells you the pronunciation for "üu."  However, the spelling should instead be "ün."  If someone disagrees with this assessment, please let me know in the comments.

Learning Pinyin

My favorite site for practicing pinyin pronunciation and tones was www.studypond.com; however, it seems that site has been discontinued.

I've been looking for a new site that does an equivalent job of explaining and providing examples.  The next best site that I have found so far is http://www.learnchineseabc.com/chinese-pinyin-system.htm.  It breaks down the processes of learning pinyin into manageable steps.  It also provides examples of each of the sounds individually, within a word, and with each of the possible tones.  What is unique about this site is that it provides a video of what the articulators (teeth, tongue, palates, and lips) are doing during pronunciation.  The only downside is that the website was written by a non-native English speaker and you must sometimes figure out the intention of the sentences as the meaning is not always clear; however, examples are abundantly provided.

Guess Who- Faces

Here's a fun little game that can be used in several different ways.  I've listed them in order based on Chinese skill level with the easiest being first and the hardest one listed last.

You could adapt this game to practice just about any adjectives/description-words in combination with any appropriate objects/nouns.  In the pre-made board below, I focused on the following vocabulary:

• Body Parts
• 眼睛 (yăn jīng, eyes)
• 鼻子 (bí zi, nose)
• 嘴吧 (zuĭ ba, mouth)
• 耳朵 (ěr duo, ears)
• 頭髮 (tóu fa, hair)
• Descriptive Words (Adjectives)
• Colors
• 紅色 (hóng sè, red)
• 黃色 (huáng sè, yellow)
• 綠色 (lǜ sè, green)
• 藍色 (lán sè, blue)
• 黑色 (hēi sè, black)
• Short/Long  
• 短 (duǎn, short (for hair))
• 長 (cháng, long(for hair))  
• Big/Little
• 
  大 (dà, big)
• 小 (xiǎo, little)
• Shapes
• 彎彎的 (wān wān de, bent/curvy)
• 圓圓的 (yuán yuán de, circle/round)
• 方方的 (fāng fāng de, square)
• 尖尖的 (jiān jiān de, pointed)
• Grammar
• I also created some faces with missing body parts in order to provide an opportunity for my kids to practice the 有沒有 (yŏu méi yŏu, have/don't have) grammar structure that they have already practiced.

After you have learned several adjectives and body parts you are ready to play this game of Guess Who.  The board I created practices body parts, shapes, short/long, small/big, and have/doesn't have.

1.  The teacher describes a body part and the student points to a face that matches the description.  Use the pre-made board from below.  This level allows the student to hear the Chinese vocabulary and associate it with the correct picture.  Use this level if your student is too young to draw accurately.
2.  The teacher describes a body part and the student draws that body part.  Use the blank board from below.  This level allows the student to hear the Chinese vocabulary and associate it with the correct picture.
3.  The student describes a body part (blue eyes) and the teacher draws that body part.  Use the blank board from below.  This level allows the student to practice basic vocabulary without any focus on grammar.
4.  Like "Guess Who," the student secretly chooses a face from the pre-made board.  The teacher asks questions to try to determine which face the student picked.  This level allows the student to hear how to formulate questions in Chinese and models the vocabulary.
5.  Like "Guess Who," the the teacher secretly chooses a face from the pre-made board.  The student asks questions to try to determine which face the teacher picked.  This is the hardest level because the student must ask the question using Chinese.  (The teacher might choose to focus just on the target vocabulary and not worry about the student getting the Chinese grammar correct.  Instead, the teacher can model the correct model back to the student before answering the question.)

Guess Who- Faces, Blank Board
Guess Who- Faces, Pre-made Board

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)

Hot and Cold Game

In the familiar version of this game, an object is hidden from one child and his friends watch him/her bumble around the room trying to find it.  The friends give the person who is "It" clues such as "You're getting warmer" when the person is getting closer to finding the object, and clues like "You're freezing" when the person who is "It" is very far away.

In this Chinese classroom version, one child is still "It" but instead of his/her friends giving clues such as hot/cold, the friends chant the name of the object hidden (or of the target vocabulary word on a hidden flashcard).  As the person who is "It" gets closer to the hidden object/flashcard, the children chant louder and louder.  And as the person who is "It" gets farther away, the children chant softer and softer.

What a great game to get the kids to practice saying the target vocabulary!  Kids remember better when they are having fun!  Also, this is a nice game for helping quiet kids find their voice in the classroom.

I must acknowledge that Nicholas O'Brien, from Kalona Elementary, Iowa showed me this game (here's his blog).