Can someone recommend good resources for teaching Chinese to young children. Simple or beginner Books, flashcards site, etc. I am currently using Little Pim, LR and Wink to learn. But would like to know if there are any other DVD resources as well.
Here is excellent resource:
http://so.youku.com/search_playlist/q_洪恩宝宝看世界
We were not able to find a way to get the physical product ( tried and tried!), but they have TONS of episodes on youku.com ( Chinese youtube), my kids love these and it is a full immersion too.
If you search for å¹¼å„¿è¯†å— (Baby learns to read) on youku.com, you can find some more good resources right there, these are just some of the ideas, that helped us!
Here is another one explaining how each character derived (we did not start this one yet, but I thought to mention as it seems good, would like to hear about this particular one from native Chinese speakers!):
http://www.youku.com/playlist_show/id_3609806.html
And we are always on a look out for good Mandarin programs as well, so any links, ideas, suggestions are welcomed 
! Thank you for starting this topic!
We love the Wink to Learn DVDs, Pim and Little Chinese 
I was most disappointed that the three new Pim dvds have pin yin rather than the characters. 
I’m saving up to get http://www.childbook.com/My-First-Chinese-Words-by-Better-Chinese-s/266.htm - they look really good for starting
I also want to get http://www.childbook.com/Chinese-Made-Easy-for-Kids-1-Simplified-Chinese-p/lcmekst01.htm to work through in a year or two.
I have no personal experience with this website, but you can check out http://www.poppingpandas.com/
You might want to check out the Touch Reading Pen: http://www.childbook.com/Touch-Reading-Pen-with-Chinese-Books-s/416.htm, especially if you don’t speak Chinese. I have been looking for something similar in French to no avail.
aangeles thank you so much for a link to Touch Reading Pen.
Great idea with tons of reading books available!
Karma to you!
I found a pen reader/book for the Quran while looking for French. Thought I would share it for anyone else interested.
Dance & Learn Chinese with Mei Mei - http://www.meimeiandme.com/dvd04.html
We have this DVD ( it was a present from our Grandma, when she came from China) and I have not used it till now, as usually I prefer when there is no English whatsoever when Chinese ( or any other language) is used in the video.
However we pulled it out of the box a week ago, and … now it is my children’s favorite DVD!
My daughter ( 2.5) goes around singing 4 songs beginning to the end, just after a few times of watching it! Even though Mei Mei speaks some English throughout the program, all the songs are done in Chinese and the words are acted out and presented in a slower manner/spoken by the singers, which makes it easier to learn the words. Dances are fun, and overall I think it is a good additional learning resource.
We don’t have any other DVDs from that site, so I can not speak for them. Will be curious to hear from others, whether or not they liked her other products
Thanks all for the wonderful suggestions. I like the reading pen product very much.
One series that you can check out is I Can Read (我会读） series, which was written by a Singaporean author who has over 30 years of teaching experience. She was disappointed in the lack of good teaching materials in the market when she was searching for good books for her toddler grand-daughter. So she decided to write one herself. The series was so popular amongst her friends and relatives who encouraged her to publish them. She subsequently authored a few other storybooks, including Reading Lad (读书郎） and Tao Shu ï¼ˆæ¡ƒæ ‘ï¼‰ series.
You can read more about it in online store, Read With Me Mommy. The store also carries Wink To Learn DVDs Speak and Read and Sing To Learn DVDs.
I don’t know if you have the Leap pad but they have books in French that are just like the tag books but in digital format. Some of the books are called ultra e-books and the level of difficulty can change as the child’s reading level progresses. My children love these books, and the books have phonics games that pop up within the story. I wish they had them in other languages besides English and French. They did get downloadable Little Pim movies for the Leap Pad in several languages including Chinese which my children love. Most of their games and a few videos are also offered in French.
I will say this about Leap pad. Its a tool best used sitting side by side with the child in order to get the most out of it. That is my opinion. Kids can easily get distracted and fiddle with it without doing much or learning much of anything. My kids are 3 and 4 years old that use the Leap pad.
http://www.poissonrouge.com/schoolofchinese/
I stumbled upon this great resource today. Its one of the simplest and child friendly sites that will help increase and reinforce Chinese vocabulary. My eight year old can’t wait to get her hands on this site as her new school teaches Chinese everyday. The site is so easy I am sure my three and four year old can navigate the site without the typical frustration that most websites provide.
Wait! This one looks even better, and I am seriously considering it as a Christmas present for the kids. Its around 50 bucks for a 1 year subscription which compared to all the other materials one would buy its a great value.
The site says it directs the child so that their learning progresses. It appears that no more do you have to watch your child flit around from game to game. This is really appealing to me. There is a nice tour that explains it all and lets you get a look at the games and books.
http://www.mandarama.com/homepage
I found even more great places to check out. This one has pages of free resources on Chinese and reviews on different textbooks. I didn’t get through all the pages. The pages just kept going and each page had at least one great resource. I gave up for the night on page 23…not sure how many pages there are on this site.
http://www.thechinesestaffroom.com/resources?page=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C1
Here are some that I liked the most. (I am on a roll).
This has several audio in English and Chinese. Plus lots of games.
http://www.maxandmei.com/
You can buy the books here:
http://shop.ppp.com.hk/category/box-set-audio-cd
lots of other great resources on this site.
I am not sure if you can get these books in the US or not that go along with this site. But they do have an app for the IPhone (next year I am getting one of these ).
http://www.primaryschoolchinese.com/
The next one is pretty extensive, but it is another one you have to subscribe to. Its for several languages as well. Its around fifty bucks per language package and it has several different levels from beginners 1 and 2 to Advanced. There are games, songs and books to reinforce lessons. Free two week trial.
www.languagenut.com
I am super excited about the next link. Free Chinese Character printable posters. Woot Woot!
http://mandarinposter.com/resources/
Learn to count into the thousands with this great calculator game! My kids are going to like this one.
http://www.thechinesestaffroom.com/resources/games/11-04-27/free-game-learn-chinese-numbers-calculator-style
A book of greetings with fill in the sentence games.
http://www.thechinesestaffroom.com/resources/games/11-03-02/free-chinese-game-book-greetings
Here is a list of resources and on the last page is a list of Chinese Apps.
http://www.thechinesestaffroom.com/sites/default/files/3/resources/lesson-plans/top_10_tools_handout.pdf
Take a look at this free curriculum with six complete units and podcasts to match.
http://www.thechinesestaffroom.com/resources/lesson-plans/10-07-20/free-ks2-age-7-11-mandarin-chinese-scheme-work-lesson-plans-start-he
Some great Chinese learning video clips from BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/primary/chinese
Have fun!
Wow! Pretty cool list!
Poisson rouge is nice to get the children clicking away on the computer, but there’s only vocabulary, no games…
Has anyone tried Mandarama? Is it possible to sample it for a few days?
You can take a tour of mandarama (see here: http://www.mandarama.com/guest-tour/discover%2Bwhat%2Bmakes%2Bmandarama%2Bso%2Bspecial ), and get a feel for the games and lessons. The languagenut allows you to seem more of what it has to offer, and I kind of think it might be better. Its hard to tell because Mandarama doesn’t give a very indepth look. Languagenut offers more than one language which might be appealing to most. You have to pay for each language and level separately while on Mandarama gives you access to its entire site for one year subscription.
Languagenut lets you choose between Hanzi and Pinyin, so if you prefer no Pinyin than you have that option. (that of course is a nice option). It has a free play area as well which allows you to see how they present their material. http://www.languagenut.com/us/trynow/
I think I would go with Languagenut over Mandarama from what I see.
If you want to learn Chinese alongside of your LOs, here is by a far the most extensive online Chinese learning course for FREE. I love free! You have to register, but again its free and worth it. I am still in awe of how extensive this site is and for it to be free.
http://www.hanyu.com.cn/en/enhome.aspx
This part is great for you and the little ones to do together. Its from the same site.
http://www.hanyu.com.cn/en/followme/
Okay don’t hate me, but I have another one. It just gets better. I promise. I just thought there was nothing free online for kids to learn Chinese, but I am wrong!! I have never been so excited to be wrong. This site is amazing for kids. Its a child friendly (AD FREE) site that provides four different courses to learn Chinese and lots of supplemental resources of games, videos, books. It just goes on. You don’t have to register either. There are four different online courses if you scroll to the bottom and look on the left hand side of the screen. I might be on this site all day. Check out the “Happy Chinese” course. Its 24 lessons long with each lesson containing a cartoon video, situational video, new words review, sentence patterns, games and pronunciation practice.
I don’t hate you at all
Thank you so much for all these links… I am a bit overwhelmed but with your valid recommendations I am going to take it one site at a time.
I have a question for those of you who don’t speak Chinese and want to teach it to your kids. A how do you do it? I can’t pronounce most of the words even after hearing them 20 times. I have this http://www.betterchinese.com/Preschool/Textbook_3/My-First-Chinese-Words-Simplified_2.html that I picked up at a thrift store for $2. I had this great idea I’d learn Chinese with my son…hmmm, not so much. I even went to the Chinese resturant and asked if I could get my kids to play with theirs because I want my son to learn Chinese and I’d even pay them. Or I’d babysit for free…I have this daycare things going on in my home. No luck…We are nearly in the niddle of nowhere so any advice??.