Chinese Poem - 春晓 - 孟浩然

This is the 3rd Chinese Poems that she can recite:



When choosing the poems for her, I try to choose those easier and popular ones.

The poem in Chinese:
春眠不觉晓
处处闻啼鸟
夜来风雨声
花落知多少

The English translation I found from Internet:
In spring I sleep aware not morning is here,
From far and near, trilling songbirds I hear.
In the pitter patter of wind and rain last night,
How many blossoms fallen? Know not, I fear.

Do note that this English translation is just for your reference. So far, most of the translations I found from the Internet are just translating the words without really giving the meaning of the poem, so I do not encourage teaching your child the English translation.

Other Chinese poems that your kid might like:

1. 静夜思 - 李白
2. 相思- 王维

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)

If you would like to get more updates on her fun learning, please like the Facebook page "Learn The Fun Way".

Art Fun! 2 - Chinese New Year Drawing / Greeting Card

As Chinese New Year is approaching, we did a drawing of plum blossom which can be used as a greeting card.

The materials are very simple, just a piece of white card, paints and a few brushes.

To start, we need to 'blow' the brunches of the plum blossom out, believe me, this is a very interesting activity for your child :)
You can use a brush to put a few drops of the colour on a white card, alternatively you can also use a straw to do this.

Chloe was blowing hard to create the brunches. Do note that the colour must be watery enough, if not it is very hard to blow the brunches out.

The brunches should look something like this:

We then need to print the plum blossom on the paper. I asked her what colour should I mix to get pink, and we referred to the first lesson on the colours combination.

She took red and white and mixed to get pink:

After getting the pink colour, I demonstrated to her how to use the index finger to print the petals of the plum blossom. It should be 5 petals in each flower but she printed it everywhere on the paper without constructing the structure, never mind, the result was still quite satisfactory.

I helped her to write the Chinese words "福到人间" on the card, which means "good fortune or blessing". She written her name at the bottom of the drawing.

 

A picture of her with her drawing that full of 'blessing', ha!

 

I pasted the  drawing on my feature wall in the living hall, it is rather small, I should have use a bigger paper :(

A closer look on the drawing:

If you like my Art Fun!, please like the Facebook page "Learn The Fun Way" for more updates.

Lastly, a very happy Chinese new year to all!

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 Art Fun!:
1) Fun with colours

Do also visit my A to Z fun classes.

Chinese Poem: 相思 - 王维

This is the second video of her reciting the Chinese poem.



Her pronunciation is still very heavy with English accent, but it is much better than her first video clip.

She got the poem after a few attempts, when she's in her mood, she would keep trying until she got the lines, she would also stop me from telling her the next line; but if she's not in her mood, she would tell me she doesn't like the poem, for which I would just let it go.

The poem in Chinese:
红豆生南国，春来发几枝。
愿君多采撷，此物最相思。

The translation I got from Internet for your reference:
“When those red berries come in springtime,
Flushing on your south land branches,
Take home an armful, for my sake,
As a symbol of our love.”


Points to note:
Although I've given the English translation above, you do not need to explain the poem in English to your kids when reciting the poem to them.  Reciting of poem is just like singing a nursery rhyme, the kids do not need to understand the meaning of the poem word by word, they will get to understand it when time comes by.

Other Chinese poem that your kid might like:

1. 静夜思 - 李白

 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)

If you would like to get more updates on her fun learning, please like the Facebook page "Learn The Fun Way". 

Chinese Poem - 静夜诗 - 李白

There are some arguments on whether kids should recite the Chinese poems (those classical type e.g. from the Tang  Dynasty 唐诗, Song Dynasty 宋词, or Yuan Dynasty 元曲), I'm more pro towards the arguments that classical Chinese poems are beneficial to the kids, but I would not force her to memorise the poems, the choice is still hers.

I try to recite the poems to her at night before sleep (so in another words I got to refresh my memory on these.....haha!), sometimes she would recite after me, sometimes she would ignore me and sing her nursery rhyme.

So the first poem she can memorise is the 静夜诗 from 李白. A video of her:


The poem in Chinese:
床 前 看 月 光，疑 是 地 上 霜。
举 头 望 山 月，低 头 思 故 乡

I found the English translation of this poem here, although I do not think it has fully translated the meaning of this beautiful poem written in the Tang Dynasty by Li Bai, it can be a reference for those who do not understand Chinese.

"So bright a gleam on the foot of my bed
Could there have been a frost already 
Lifting my head to look, I found that it was moonlight.

Sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home."

I would upload more videos of her reciting the Chinese poems, but if she is not interested, I would just stop here.


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)

If you would like to get more updates on her fun learning, please like the Facebook page "Learn The Fun Way". 

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.

My Fun Classes, My Fun Time

I first started giving her fun classes in July 2011, when she was around 2 years 4 months old; and we had completed the whole lots of 26 letters, 52 lessons last week, for which she has turned 3 years 9 months old. It took me around one and a half year to complete these classes, for which it was never planned to be finished in a short period.

Although she already knew letter A to Z before I introduced the fun classes to her, she was not cooperative and did not follow my instruction on the first lesson. I was wondering whether she could pick up the spelling through my prompting skill, but she soon picked it up in lesson L.

I became lazy to continue with the lesson after some time, it was not easy as I was busy with my work, each day after work, I left only a few hours of time in the night before she turned in for her sleep. Chloe was the one that kept reminding me to have the fun classes, she would bug me, nag me, and remind me day after day. I guess, the lessons were really fun to her, anyway, she's the strength for me to persist on the lessons.

I have done up a collage on her from lesson A to Z, when it was done, I was really amazed on her progress, my little princess has not only progress well in her literacy but also physically, she has grown from a toddler to a little young lady!

Look at the following enlarged pictures, she's no longer a small baby!

Chloe asked me: "mummy, what are you going to teach me after fun class?"
I do not have a specific plan for her, probably abacus, mathematics, Chinese, or piano....... We are learning everyday, every hour, every minute, not necessary a structured lesson, but it will definitely a fun one.

I picked up phonics together with her, and I'm still continuously learning phonics and pronunciation. I enjoy learning with my kids, I believe they enjoy learning with me too. Moving forward, I hope we could pick up more kills and knowledge through a fun way of learning. I'm sure there would be more challenges ahead of her, but should there be any stress on her study, it would never be coming from the mummy.

A little message to my angel,

Mummy is very happy with your progress, you always do me proud.

Your smile has always make my day, and your sorrow has always make me down too.

I'm happy whenever you are happy, so put on your smile and let's give each other strength to move against whatever obstacles ahead of us.

I love you...always.

With love,

Mummy

List of my fun classes:
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

Last Fun Class! Z for Zoo!

This was the last fun class we had, I was pretty excited, as finally I managed to finish all the lessons with her, and yet, I was a little sad, as something fun seem to be ended, but little Chloe was very looking forward to the next lessons I might have for her. She had been asking would I teach her numbers or Chinese after lesson Z? Ha!

My son joined the lesson with us, but only for the first 10 minutes, and he was chased away by me after messing up the crepe paper when we were doing the craft......

The two kids sang the greeting song to start the lesson.

We had a quick revision on the pictures done in the previous lesson.
If you would like to download all the pictures spelled after A - Z, click here. 

We listened to the nursery rhyme of letter Z, which went like this:
Zipping Zooming z, z, z,
Z is the sound of z.

Do note that American pronounce it as zee/ˈziː/ while British pronounce it as zed /ˈzɛd/, both are acceptable.

I prompted her to spell the word "zoo". For technique on prompting, you may refer here. 

The craft work was to paste the crepe paper on a drawing of zoo. My son helped up initially, but soon he was playing with the glue and started to disturb us, this was the time that he was chased away by us...... haha!

As it was quite time consuming, I let her colour the background and some small details with colour pencils. The completed craft work:

I found a book related to "zoo" and we read the story together.

She had no problem reading this type of short story now.

The kids listened to the closing song Going to the Zoo to end the lesson.

That's all for my A-Z fun classes! 

If you like my fun classes, please like the Facebook page "Learn The Fun Way" for more updates

The lesson plan:
1) Greeting Song, click here
2) Revise letter Z by showing kid the alphabet and the pictures done in first lesson for letter Z.
3) Kid listens to phonics sound and song of Z
4) Kid learns to write letter Z by completing the worksheets from starfall.com (I skipped this as she had finished doing all the worksheets)

5) Prompting
6) Craft work
7) Summary
8) Closing song

Development age: 3 years 9 mths
(every kid learns on his or her own pace, this is just a milestone of my girl as a guideline)

I attended my phonics lesson for mummies here.

List of my fun classes:
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

Fun Class: Z for Zebra

I did this fun class with my kids last month when my mother in law was in Singapore visiting us. She was interested in my teaching method and amazed at her two grandchildren's progress.

The two kids sang the greeting song to start the lesson.

I let her trace the upper and lower case letter Z.

We listened to the nursery rhyme of letter Z, which went like this:
Zipping Zooming z, z, z,
Z is the sound of z.

Do note that American pronounce it as zee/ˈziː/ while British pronounce it as zed /ˈzɛd/, both are acceptable.

 

My son took the pictures of objects spelled after Z from an envelope, he passed the pictures to his sister; the sister named the objects before pasting them on the letter Z paper.

I forgot to put double sided tape on the back of the pictures again, she pasted the pictures with glue.

 

She labeled the pictures with the words I printed on sticker. She read the words before pasting them on the correct picture.

 

Her picture done.
If you would like to download all the pictures spelled after A - Z, click here.

 

She coloured the phonics sheet.

 

I prompted her to spell the word "zebra". For technique on prompting, you may refer here. 

My son was scribbling on the paper while I was teaching my girl.

The craft for this lesson is to paint the stripes on a zebra cut out by using marbles.

You may draw and cut the shape of a zebra from a piece of white paper. Put the cut out in a container. Colour the marbles (two) with black paint, put the marbles in the container and let the kid shake the container.

My boy was very excited and was shaking the container hard!

The zebra art done. I find it rather artistic! haha!

The rhyme for this lesson was adapting from "I'm a little teapot":
I'm a little zebra (bend knees and hands low)
With many stripes (hands make stripes)
Black and white and many stripes (one hand stripe down and another)
x 2 times

If you like my fun classes, please like the Facebook page "Learn The Fun Way" for more updates

The lesson plan:
1) Greeting Song, click here
2) Introduce letter Z, kid traces capital and small letterZ
3) Kid listens to phonics sound and song of Z
4) Kid takes pictures of object begin with letter Z, names and pastes the pictures on an A4 paper.
5) Kid labels the pictures.
6) Prompting
7) Colour the phonics sheet (optional)
8) Craft work
9) Summary
10) Closing song.

Development age: 3 years 9 mths
(every kid learns on his or her own pace, this is just a milestone of my girl as a guideline)

I attended my phonics lesson for mummies here.

List of my fun classes:
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