Resources: Teaching Your Kids Piano

My girl is currently playing and learning piano by herself without attending formal lesson. I do not send her for piano lesson as I think formal lessons might kill her interest, while fun and interesting lessons might not yield the results in short term thus require more capital in the investment (no, it is not a waste of money just that you'll need to spend more).

Will I send her to proper lessons in future? My answer would be "Yes" if she really has the interest but "No" if she doesn't.

This post includes the resources I printed for her from the Internet, you may refer to it if they are useful to you:

1) Printable manuscript:
http://www.zpu.cc/pr/
You may print the manuscript according to your setting, example resize the staff (i.e. the lines), add in treble or bass clef, add in bar and etc.
For those who just want to print the manuscript in blank, treble clef or bass clef  without the trouble of doing the setting, you may refer here:
http://makingmusicfun.net/htm/printit_manuscript.htm
This is useful for the kid to practice writing the notes and symbols.


2) Free download of music scores with an application for PC or Apple users:
http://www.77music.com
This is a Chinese website, sorry for those who cannot read Chinese.
There are many free music scores can be downloaded here. What I like the most is the free application which you can open any music scores and the app will show you how is it played on piano. Excellent website.

3) Free piano sheet from easy to difficult levels:
http://makingmusicfun.net/htm/printit_piano_sheet_music_index.htm
Another excellent website, I can't believe all these are free for download, many easy to play music scores for the kids which they are familiar with.

4) Theory games for the kid that I find useful and interesting:
http://makingmusicfun.net/htm/printit_manuscript.htm
Other theory worksheets or games:
http://makingmusicfun.net/htm/printit_notename.htm

I'll update this post as and when I found new website with useful resources.

If you like this post, do like my FaceBook page "learn the fun way" for more updates :)

Chinese Fun Class: Lesson on Body 我的身体

For your information, I've sold away my set of 二三快读 (Er San Kuai Du i.e. Chinese Fast Reading for age 2 and 3), so I will not be posting my Chinese lessons using the materials from this set anymore. It is a good starter set for young children to pick up Chinese words, but I sold it because I have other ideas for my girl.

In this lesson, I intend to do a summary on the body parts in Chinese with her. She had learned it from the previous lessons and also from her school. I searched the Internet for relevant worksheets but I found the resources are very limited. Thus I created it for her, you may download it by clicking the picture below:

You may print the image out, cut the words and let your kid label the picture.

To start the Chinese lesson, we sang the song 早安你好 by changing the word “早” to “好” as the lesson was conducted at night.
The lyrics go like this:
“老师好（早），同学们好，我们开始上课了”

I asked her to name the body parts in Chinese. I then gave her the worksheet above, she was excited to see her favourite Barbie doll picture and asked me how to say "Barbie doll" in Chinese. she read the words one by one and pasted them on the picture.

She labeled the picture with the words that I had cut out from the worksheet above.

Her barbie doll picture labeled with the body parts in Chinese:

After completing the first worksheet, I gave her the second worksheet which is the nursery rhyme of 两只老虎 (Two Little Tigers). You may download it here:

There are 3 blanks to be filled up which have a matching picture. Cut out the words below the worksheet and let the kid paste them on the correct blanks.

The worksheet done:

We read the worksheet one time and sang the nursery rhyme. Learning Chinese words through singing nursery rhyme is really a very good way.  Kids will find it easier to recognise the words and they also find it interesting.

Lastly, she did a craft on tiger mask. The materials are as follow:

All you need are just a paper plate, two rubber bands, some cut out of the stripes and ears.

She pasted the stripes on the paper plate:

 We decided not to paste the ears so it is as described by the nursery rhyme “一只没有耳朵”， haha!

 The mask done and she quickly put it on to scare her younger brother.

 We had fun with the mask and sang the nursery rhyme a few times.

Note: Although this post is written mainly in English, the lesson was conducted in Chinese and she was speaking only Chinese during the lesson. I against speaking a mixture of more than one language in a sentence.

If you like my Chinese Fun Class, please like the Facebook page "learn the fun way" for more updates.
Do refer to the labels on the right hand side for other English fun classes.

Development age: 3 years 10 months
(every kid learns on his or her own pace, this is just a milestone of my girl as a guideline)

List of my Chinese Fun Classes:
1) Basic lesson 1
2) Basic lesson 2
3) Basic lesson 3

My Fun Class: A - Z Upper and lower case letters

There are quite many readers asking me for the upper and lower case A - Z letters which I printed on an A4 size paper for my girl to use it with the A - Z pictures. If you're interested to get one you may download it from the link here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0Jop-U2bqVAV2hQaWlJbDgzaWc/edit?usp=sharing

A sample page of the document used:

You may let your kid colour or trace the letter. After the kid is introduced with the letter, let the kid paste the pictures of objects spelled after the letter. The pictures can be downloaded here.

Do refer to my A to Z fun classes here:
1) A for Ant
2) A for Apple
3) B for Bubbles and Bear
4) C for Crocodile
5) C for Cake
6) D for Duck and Dog
7) E for Egg and Elephant
8) F for Frog
9) F for Fish
10) G for Goat
11) H for Horse
12) H for House
13) I for Insect
14) I for Indian
15) J for Jelly
16) J for Jack-in-the-box
17) K for Kettle
18) K for Kangaroo
19) L for lollipop
20) L for Leaf
21) M for Monkey
22) M for Mummy
23) N for Necklace
24) N for Net
25) O for Octopus
26) O for Orange
27) P for Potato
28) P for Pig
29) Q for Queen
30) Q for Quilt
31) R for Rabbit
32) R for Rainbow
33) S for Snake
34) S for Star
35) T for Tiger
36) T for Tortoise
37) U for Up and Under
38) U for Umbrella
39) V for Vegetable
40) V for Vase

41) W for Worm

42) W for Whale

43) X is a Cross

44) X for X-ray

45) Y for Yolk

46) Y for Yacht

47) Z for Zebra

48) Z for Zoo

Art Fun! 1 - Fun with Colours!

As she had finished her fun classes, I intend to let her have some art lessons during our free time. So I thought it might be good to expose her to the colours first.

I created the following colours worksheet, you may download it if you find it useful:

The purpose of the worksheet is to expose her to different combinations of the colours, not to force her to memorise the results.

For example on the first combination, I would ask her what colour will it be if I were to mix red and yellow together. Maybe she had not done it before, she would tell me black, pink, red and etc. I let her guess a few times, and told her to mix the colours and observe the result.

She was very excited when she saw the colours changed after mixing together.

She was eager to find out what were the other colours combinations. She did a good job that she had got all the colours right!

Whenever there was any combination that she did not know, she would say "let's mix and find out!".

After she had done all the colours combinations, I prompted her to spell the colours, and helped her to write them down beside the colours. For technique of prompting, you may refer here.

She helped me to wipe the brushes clean after the lesson, I think it would be a good habit for her to keep all the stationery and materials after her art lesson.

Points to note:
The objective of this lesson is to expose the kid to colours, let the kid understand what are primary colours, and not to force the kid to memorise the outcomes. It is very important that the kid enjoy what he or she is doing, if not all the efforts will go into waste.

Development age: 3 years 10 months
(every kid learns on his or her own pace, this is just a milestone of my girl as a guideline)

I would update other Art Fun lessons here. If you like my lesson, please like the Facebook page "Learn The Fun Way" for more updates.

Phonics Set - Read with Phonics Songs and Rhymes

Some readers had asked me where did I get the phonics songs for my Fun Classes, this is the Phonics Set I have been using:

I got the set from the course I attended here.  I heard that Popular Bookshop is also selling.

The book comes with an audio CD, where there are songs and rhymes for each letter. The melody of the songs are similar, the child can pick them up easily. You may refer to my fun classes (first lesson of each letter) for sample pictures of the book.

Interesting sticker activity books for toddlers

My girl (currently 3 years old) likes to do this type of activities books. She especially likes the stickers given in the book where she can paste them according to the instructions of the book. She can do it at least 4 pages everyday before sleep and I have to stop her from doing it most of the time. So I find this a good way to fill up her time and prevent her from watching too much TV.

She learns simple words, numbers, mathematics and reasoning from these books. Right now she can do simple mathematics (summation and subtract) and I find her improving everyday.

If you are thinking of buying these types of activities books, do take note of a few points:
1) Try to buy those colourful books, as my girl doesn't interested on those black and white copies.
2) The stickers in the book have to be meaningful and related to the activities in the book, or else you'll just ended having your wardrobe decorated with all these stickers.
3) Young kids can't really write yet, thus don't buy those books which requires lots of writing, you might kill their interest instead by doing so.
4) Buy those with interesting pictures, the books must be able to keep the children's interest.
5) All kids like to scribble, it is ok if your kids scribble on the books instead of writing words, they'll learn to follow instruction slowly.

The books I bought for my girl are normally very cheap, but with acceptable quality. She still needs my guidance when doing the exercises, but she's improving. I do not force her to do the book, she's the one requesting to do it most of the time, she sees it as a 'game', something interesting to her.

Hope the above tips do help you in finding an alternative activities for your child, other than watching TV or playing Iphone / Ipad :)

If you like my post, do like my Facebook page "Learn the fun way" for more update.

My home, my playground

My elder girl and younger boy are 20 months apart, sibling rivalry has been getting more and more intense ever since my boy turn 1 year old. Previously, my way of dealing with this was to separate the two, buy two sets of toys for them, and avoid conflicts between them, but it had made the situation worse.
After some observation, I found that the best way to improve their relationship is to let them play more, fight more, and learn through the conflicts. I shall blog about this phase in another article, but right now I would like to share how to create a fun environment at home where they can play together in harmony.

Carton box house:

All kids like to squeeze into this small box, which they call it their "house", including my 6 year old niece, who visited us over the weekends.

They hide inside the "house", close the door, open the door repeatedly, playing "Big bad wolf" and feeling excitedly.

This is another version of the toy house, made by chairs, mattress and blanket:

Looked scary? Haha! This is exactly what they like, whenever someone shouting "big bad wolf is coming!" They would scream and run into the "house".

They are not only playing in the "house", but sleep and drink their "milk milk" there too :)

Another all time favourite of theirs, "slide" made by pillows and mattress:

With a mattress and a few pillows, you can turn your house into an indoor playground, at no additional cost! The best toy is not always the most expensive toy, there is really not necessary to buy more toys for our kids thinking that they would enjoy playing them.
They still quarrel and fight over toys very often, but not as bad as before, and now, I do see my girl caring for her brother, sharing her toys with him and my boy saying "sorry" after stepping his sister unintentionally.
Most importantly, my husband joins in the fun to played as the "big bad wolf", instead of complaining about his two little demons, I guess, he has better rest after back home from his work now :)

Learning Phonics at Starfall.com - free programmes!

I've previously posted on free worksheets on www.starfall.com.
Here I would like to show a video of how my girl use its programmes to learn phonics:



She also use the website to learn reading. A very good website indeed, do take your time to explore!

Free Preschool Worksheets at Starfall.com

There are many free resources on the Internet, and Starfall.com is the one that I strongly recommend for teaching of pre-schoolers.

I downloaded the following worksheets for Chloe and she likes them very much. She kept saying "more!" when I let her tried out the worksheets for letter A but I'll have to stop her or else we would be late for sleep :)

You may download the above worksheets here:
http://www.starfall.com/n/N-info/download.htm

The website is very interactive and I'm sure children will like to play with the programmes there. There is section on letter A - Z that your kid can learn the phonics sound:


There are e-books where young children learn to read:



There are also worksheets for kindergarten kids:


Do take your time to explore the website with your kids, again, the website address is here:
http://www.starfall.com

Resource: Pictures of objects start with letters A to Z

This post will be continuously updated till letter Z. The pictures are to be used for the teaching of A - Z phonics. You may download it and use it for your home teaching.

Letter A:


Letter B:


Letter C:


Letter D:


Letter E:


Letter F:


Letter G:


Letter H:


Letter I:


Letter J:


Letter K:


Letter L:


Letter M:


Letter N:


Letter O:


Letter P:


Letter Q:


Letter R:


Letter S:


Letter T:


Letter U:

Letter V:

Letter W:

Letter X:
As there are just a few objects begin with X, you may use "box" and "fox" to teach the sound of X.

Letter Y:

Letter Z:

Guidelines on using the pictures:
1) Cut the pictures out and put them into an envelope
2) Kid takes the pictures from the envelope one by one and name it before pasting on a piece of paper.
3) Spell and read the words before labeling the picture

Refer to my Fun Classes for example.