Hunting for Chinese program for my boys.

My hunt began when holiday was nearing. I imagined 2 restless boys at home with not much to do and I need some time to complete my reports of my teaching practice, I realised they need to be occupied with something! We live in JB, and in our part of the town, there's not many educational stuff for kids to enrol in. I searched online... nothing. I also drove to a nearby neighbourhood and went from school to school and checked out MRC programs. I specifically wanted Chinese only and maybe for a week or 2. But most of the programs are a month long and I can't ferry them up and down everyday for month, too taxing for me. I was disappointed...

I figured maybe they can do an online program in the comfort of our home. I searched and found these websites, some are free, others offer free trial.
http://www.betterchinese.com/
http://www.chinese4kids.net/online-learning/
http://resources.echineselearning.com/kids/
I haven't really started any of this so I won't be able to review how good it is. You can check it out yourself, if you tried it let me know how it went.

Both my boys have been attending a Chinese tuition class in Tampoi, however the travelling is taking too much time and I think they need a 1-1 or 1-2 ratio to progress faster. Time is running out and Tristan is going to Primary next year. I want him to have a good foundation and feel more confident in speaking, reading and conversing in the language and not fear it. My criteria for the tuition is quite different from the usual type of class. I want them to develop a love for the language and especially being able to converse and express themselves in Chinese. Besides learning to read, write and speak, I dont mind them playing games in Chinese, learn rhymes, songs, maths and science in Chinese too. So I searched for a home tutor, I found one and Tristan just started his first class at home today, we are trying it out and we'll see how it goes. He seems alright with the teacher. :)

While searching online for a Chinese program, I accidentally stumbled upon this link from a mom from Singapore, sharing her experience teaching her kids Chinese. I realised that... tuition once a week is not sufficient as well. Learning language is an everyday thing. There's no other choice but to start teaching them myself. And after reading these mummy's blogs I gain a little confidence that maybe, maybe I can do it.

http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/content/teaching-chinese-home

http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2009/12/teaching-chinese-at-home.html

I got my "四五快读"!!! So happy!

One of the blogger mummy reccomended this set of books call "四五快读" and best way is to order from a China online shop. I tried but, it's all in Chinese and I can't find out how much the shipping cost! So I gave up and tried to see if anyone sells it locally. After much search through friends, book fairs, I found a few online shop that sells it!

I ended up buying from this website, it had the best deal: http://siwukuaidu.blogspot.com/  S$40 for 8 books with Free shipping in Singapore. 

There are few more links that tells more about these books. One of which is that the first book contains a 'must' read 30 pages parents's guide. Especially those parents who wants to use the set of books sucessfully. It looks something like this ( see picture on the right) ! super small Chinese characters! I've never been good in Chinese and now it's very 'rusty'. If I get through these pages, it will be the most Chinese words I have read since I left Secondary school! But good news is that with the help of my dictionary app, and lots of han yu ping ying and english translation all over the pages, I am getting through it, passed the half way mark, yeah!

Here, this mummy further updated on the reviews of the book and introduced another 2 mummies who wrote some review on them as well.
http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2012/04/i-first-introduced-series-of-books-in.html

This site is run by 2 dedicated mothers who are passionate about educating their own children. They wrote a great summary of the first 30 pages of parent's guide. (http://myplayschool.net/四五快读-chinese-word-recognition-program

http://www.parentingjoy.com/tag/siwukuaidu/
http://www.parentingjoy.com/2011/09/review-四五快读-chinese-literacy-programme

I'm excited to start teaching my boys with this book as soon as I finish reading the guide. The challenge is to be consistent and very discipline to teach them every day for 15 mins. Wish me luck! :)