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cellocoffee

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Posts posted by cellocoffee

    Any Chinese/English dual lingual homeschooling families here?

    in Bilingual Education Board

    Posted

    My son (6) is doing Singapore Math (American level about 3rd Grade) and English (American level about 3rd to 5th grade). Just like your daughters, he just started learning the cello and piano. He has a professional cellist as his instructor but he is very traditional, great for advanced students (my son's doing both suzuki and schroeder). Hopefully we'll find a suzuki cello teacher (hard to find in my area) who could relate better with a 6 year old boy. We have done a little bit of French and are still exploring the right curriculum to keep advancing. There are so much I know my kids could do, but it's getting quite costly (lessons and private lessons) and time consuming (activities for 2 kids).

    Are you guys staying in Taiwan long term or just a visit? I wish we could stay a long term in Taiwan or China to improve my kids' Chinese. Staying in Singapore didn't help as much. Most kids speak English there. Sigh.

     

    Hi, sorry for the late reply. We just came home from a ling road trip: TX-Chicago.

     

    It sounds that your son is really advancing in math. Congrats!

     

    For cello teacher options, there is a good teacher search tool on the Suzuki Association of Americas site where you can just punch in your zip code to find suitable teacher in your area.

     

    We try to go visit my family in TW as long as we don't break our piggy banks too often.

     

    By the way, there is a new on-line Chinese book store in the US now. They ship books with a flat rate.

    http://www.chinesebookonline.com/

     

    Good luck,

    Cellocoffee

    Any Chinese/English dual lingual homeschooling families here?

    in Bilingual Education Board

    Posted

    happy.gif

     

    I am just curious if any one else is pursuing this...... Since I feel like a rarity in any homeschooling groups.... We do almost all the subjects in both Mandarin and English every day. Now my DD1 (just turned 8 this week) is learning much more and quicker in all her subjects in English, I feel I am in a rat race everyday trying to maintain her Mandarin writing and reading....

     

    Same here and that's why I started this post originally. Right now we still maintain Mandarin learning everyday and she goes to a community Chinese school on Sundays. I used to make her write down the key words on every subject we learned each day. Now I just talk about it and show her the words since we don't have enough time to study the same thing twice.

    But my 8yo already learned to use Chinese dictionary and thinks it's interesting to see other characters under same parts 部首 I feel this part of word study foundation has been laid down right.

     

    I think the skill to use dictionary and use word cards to make up simple sentences are fun and more self-directed so your child won't feel been pushed as much.

     

    Just try your best, don't get stressed and try to keep Chinese learning fun for her.

    Any Chinese/English dual lingual homeschooling families here?

    in Bilingual Education Board

    Posted

    Cellocoffee,

    What do you use for Chinese history?

    Thanks!

    Besides the books, I use a rather simple one called 增長智慧的歷史故事--世一出版 and team it with 中國寓言故事-李炳傑編著 國語日報出版

    But I am finally getting my 說給兒童聽的中國歷史故事 CDs and books in a couple of months. With both girls needing more attention and hands-on help from me, I decided to rely on the CDs more with the older one.

    Any Chinese/English dual lingual homeschooling families here?

    in Bilingual Education Board

    Posted

    What do you do for science?

     

    But we've decided to use pinyin instead of ㄅㄆㄇ since the kids already know phonics.

     

    One thought about it all being "tiring" … I don't do true bilingual education on all subjects as you do and I'm already exhausted. I see you also follow Suzuki method which is very time intensive for the parent. At the beginning of this year, I enrolled my kids in a local WTM based history & science program in English. I will probably also outsource LA in the Fall as well. I know it cuts into Mandarin/family time. But for me personally, it has helped me focus on the aspects I cannot outsource and also maintain some sanity.

     

    It's great to find you here. Keep up your amazing work!

     

    So glad to know there are others out there doing this hard work to keep our children bilingual.

     

    To answer your question:

    I use English for Science. But I will say the key words in Chinese if I have time. On the side, she reads this Children's magazine called 巧連智 to learn something about the nature and science in Mandarin.

    I have 4 yearfuls of these magazines which I bought used on Taiwan Yahoo auction to let her read and listen to(my family bought them and shipped them to the US). Many of these bundles come with CDs, occasionally DVDs or VCDs. I must say these huge amount of information play a big part of her vocabularies.

     

    Now that my 8yo can read independently in Chinese with 注音, she has to include one Chinese book a day during her free reading time.

     

    She has never learned pin-yin. 37 ㄅㄆㄇsymbols really aren't that complicated for a 4 or 5 yo to learn. I did it very very slowly with her. Now I am glad that she can pick up any easy reader type of books to read as long as there is 注音. Around the time she was 7, she noticed that all her Chinese learning materials had Pin-Yi. She told me once that Pin-Yin is not English but a different kind of phonics to her.

     

    My thoughts on using ㄅㄆㄇ besides it not being really hard to learn is that when the children are ready to write ㄅㄆㄇ, they learn the basic strokes, like:橫、勾、撇、捺、點, as well as the writing habit for writing real Chinese character in the near future, like: going from the top to bottom, from left to right.

     

    Just my little thoughts.

    Good luck to everyone!

    Any Chinese/English dual lingual homeschooling families here?

    in Bilingual Education Board

    Posted · Edited by cellocoffee

    Cellocoffee,

    Hats off to you for your wonderful work!

    I am trying to find a book about China history in Chinese that is accessible to my boys who have some but not great Chinese listening ears. 說給兒童的中國歷史 with the CDs: Will this one fit the bill? Where do you get it?

    I am teaching Chinese with Ma Liping Chinese first, but now transited to Singapore Chinese, which I am quite pleased about. We do Chinese more as an independent subject.

    Glad to see so many people here.

     

    Thank you all for coming up to this post.

    We just spent a month in Taiwan visiting family. I am very proud to say that when locals talked to my girls, their first reaction was always:" So you live in Taiwan? How come your Chinese is this good?"That comment just made me feel so worth-it to HS my children for these 3 yrs.

     

    My 8yo also helped her American friends order food at the food court. On the other hand, she felt handicapped with her limited reading ability. This motivated her to study writing more seriously after we came back to the US.

     

    About history books,

    Honestly, I only have the used books for 說給兒童的中國歷史, we used other books about Chinese history for read-aloud.

     

    I also use 中國童話 漢聲出版 to start our day. This series contains 365 stories. The idea behind is to read to your child one story a day and each story is tied to the season, or a holiday. Both my 8 and 3yo love them.

     

    Good luck!

    Cellocoffee

    Has anyone used this Japanese math program?

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    Thanks so much for introducing this Shoseki curriculum. Just got this and the Dojinsha workbooks sale package. I am really excited as it's close to how I learned math in Taiwan but also it's cuter with manga style, explicit drawing for each math concept they introduce.

     

    We have been using Miquon and Singapore and I can see using Shoseki as an optional reinforcement for its progression goes along with SM. (No, we don't finish every page in SM but Miquon.)

     

    Thanks again to all the gurus!!

    Chicago Suzuki summer camp?

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    Not going.

     

    But I wanted to encourage you: ds has had lessons/workshops with several of those cello teachers (including some of the teachers who are doing the teaacher training) and they are amazing!

     

    Here's a link to a youtube video of Amy Barston playing Popper's Gnomentanz that is totally awesome!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqBg6A7RGzM

     

    (And she's a terrific Suzuki teacher -- especially with the little ones! I hope your dd gets her!)

     

    Thanks! I've had training with her mom, Gilda.

    Any Chinese/English dual lingual homeschooling families here?

    in Bilingual Education Board

    Posted

    There is a mom on the MEP homeschoolers list who is multilingual who is using the Spanish MEP with her French-learning kids. Anyway she posted this Taiwanese math stuff that's really cute. If you want to PM me your email address, I'd forward it to her for you.

     

    http://mathtext.project.edu.tw/index.php?d=ani is the animated stuff but there's also a text and workbook. Extremely cute too.

    Can't open it with my Macbook. But it's interesting because it's made by the education department of Taiwan. ha ha

     

    Thanks.

    Any Chinese/English dual lingual homeschooling families here?

    in Bilingual Education Board

    Posted

     

    There is a set of very good material from China called si4 wu3 kuai4 du2 (you don't do pinyin in Taiwan? I have no Chinese character here :(). But it teaches word recognition in a very fun way :). What about a Chinese penpal for your child?

     

    I am mulling over whether to do Latin at all now. We are keen to do more than just basic conversational Mandarin and looking at classical Chinese too. Doing two Classical languages seem a little too much.

     

    Just wondering if anyone attempted doing two classical languages, or will it be too much?

    Hi, thanks for your info on 四五快讀（I just guessed the characters.？）I really really appreciate! But as you can see, I used 讀 rather than 读. In Taiwan we use traditional 正體. So that method won't work much for my kids.

     

    I am still planning to teach Latin and a bit of French, very slowly. But since she is really curious about these languages and their relation to English, I'd better just feed her some. Besides, the Latin curriculum should help her with her grammar study. I am hoping it'd be 一石二鳥 one stone two birds.

    Chicago Suzuki summer camp?

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    Hi, just curious if any one here is taking their kids to the Chicago Suzuki Institute(Deerfield) this July2-8? Just thought it'd be neat to meet some new friends from this forum....

    My 8-yr-old girl will be taking her cello book 2 class and I will be in my cello book training. DH will be the full-time Suzuki parent hanging out with our 2 yr-old.

     

    Thanks,

    Galore Park's Skoldo-French-any reviews?

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    There's a 10% sale at bookdepository.com which ends today, so I may order Skoldo. But is the teacher's manual necessary? The answers are apparently on the back of the student workbook and it comes with a CD.

     

    I just downloaded Nallenart D'art Lire Level 1 and I think it will work for us, but I would like to add something else as well, like Skoldo. I think my plan will be to finish all the levels of Lire and then move on to SYRWTLF.

     

    Hi Crazy for Latin, thanks. I didn't even notice their banner of 10% discount! I just ordered the Skoldo teacher book 1, since the interactive CD-R for multi-user is not available. The description for SKoldo is much clear in the Galore Park's website than bookdepository.com

     

    The following the the description from Galore Park:

    "his interactive CD ROM is ideal for use alongside the Skoldo Elementary Book and Skoldo Primary Book One and is a fun way of reinforcing the vocabulary learned in these books. The CD ROM features drag and drop exercises, interactive word searches and a huge range of activities so that children learn French whilst having fun. There are fifteen French songs featured on the CD ROM with the French lyrics which can be sung along to in a karaoke style. There is also a British Sign Language option for each word which can be turned on and off as needed.*

    Try the FREE demo below.

     

     

     

    It's interesting to see some similar stuff we do in your siggy.:lol:

    Galore Park's Skoldo-French-any reviews?

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    My 8-yr-old likes the work book allright. Since I couldn't find the teacher's or the CD on Amazon and didn't want to pay for the international shipping, we just watch Muzzy French and use the workbook as her writing exercise. It's fine since our main focus in Mandarin and will add Latin for her 3rd grade.

     

    But I still would like to have the teacher's book CD eventually.

     

    On another thread, some people recommended two book ordering websites where you can save the shipping cost. One of them is

    http://www.bookdepository.co.uk

    What does your planner look like?

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    I'm using the Well Planned Day planner, but I also got the zippered 3ring binder to go with it. The planner is 3 hole punched, so it goes in the pretty binder, along with my tapestry notes for the next 9 weeks, and I can still add in anything else I need in the 3 rings.

     

     

    I have a file crate system set up for everything else, weekly folders for each student & myself. The kids have math worksheets, map assignments, paper for writing, etc. My weekly folder has menus and things I will need for the week, like field trip tickets/event brochures, maps, menus to try if I have time etc, things I want to research etc.

    I love my Well Planned Day planner, too. But I didn't get their binder, 'cause I was afraid it'll make it too bulky. Was the binder worth it?

    "There isn't a point to reading Shakespeare"

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    I don't know what normal would be in publc school, but I don't remember even thinking about Shakespeare until high school. High school is too late to expose children to Shakespeare, imo. Wasn't there just another thread about students and teachers balking at Great Books and even classics!

     

    One of my high school cello students just told me a similar comment on how the "old" English in Romeo's poem to Juliet was boring, while my DD8 enjoyed it quite a lot!(I'm lucky cause Sharon in Austin gives me great help! I am learning it slowly with my DD.)

     

    I grew up in Taiwan, studying Confucius didn't seem all that important when I was in MS and HS, but I memoed the important phrases and writings anyway.

    After I became an adult, a teacher, a mother, and a citizen, I realized how much this wording facts were rooted in Chinese culture and thinking, literally. And this knowledge helps me gain deeper understanding with issues of many kinds.

     

    Same thoughts I have with Shakespeare. It's not his fault, it's how his work is presented to the youngsters.

    Do we have any Buddhists here?

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    Thanks, I am getting lots of interesting book idea here for myself.

     

    For children to get a spiritual outlook on Buddhism is a little tricky. There is an international buddhism charity from Taiwan I belong to has publishing books for children about buddhism. Most of them are in Mandarin, but I did see some of them printed in both English and Mandarin, in Texas, at least. You can contact your local Tzu-Chi foundation. Most of them have a library of books on buddhism.

     

    I am pretty sure there are more books than the ones are listed on the following web.

     

    http://lab2.us.tzuchi.org/global/home.nsf/resource/tcBooks

     

    My 8-yr-old DD loves reading them and learning about how to be kind to earth and other lives.

     

    Good luck,

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