Extensive Reading: The secret to learning Chinese

Extensive Reading has been the key to our family’s Chinese learning. It’s about reading widely for pleasure, focusing on of texts where >98% of words/characters are known. This post describes how the approach works, and how stress free it can be. Don’t focus on teaching the child 500 words; focus on setting up a love of literacy for life.

Chinese kids shows: best non-animated

This posts summarises our favourite non-animated Youtube series for children in Mandarin Chinese, suitable for aged 3 to 10 year olds, including drama, current affairs, game shows and lifestyle shows. All links provided within the post.

My bilingual parenting mistakes, and resolutions for 2021

(above graphic is modified list from Bilingual Kidspot) As the year draws to an end, it marks my one-year anniversary of blogging about Chinese home learning.  In an otherwise-really-bizarre-year for the whole planet, it’s been a haven to be able to write and learn together with so many amazing parents trying to do the Chinese-EnglishContinue reading “My bilingual parenting mistakes, and resolutions for 2021”

The truth of raising bilingual children by two mums

Maggie and I met online. After chatting, we couldn’t help but realise how similar we are, yet so different when it comes to raising bilingual children. We’re like role reversals – an Aussie mum in Asia (that’s me) and a Chinese mum (Maggie) in Australia, each is doing the same thing – raising bilingual girls and blogging about it. Read more…..

Top apps, books, blogs and learning tools for a child learning Chinese

Top recommendations for books, apps and learning resources to help your child learn Chinese

Sagebooks 500: Chinese Levelled Reader Review

Sagebooks taught my 2 & 4 year olds to read Chinese characters, and are either loved or hated by most. Here’s how we made a success of reading Sagebooks in our non-Chinese speaking family.

Being an expat at local school in Singapore

What it is like as an expat in a local Singapore school? Is it stressful?
What is it like to learn Chinese? Here’s our experience.