My First Chinese Words Mandarin curriculum

I thought I would write an (initial) review of My First Chinese Words curriculum, thinking it might be helpful of others since I had such a hard time finding any sort of Mandarin curriculum for young kids, and so far this one is working for us.

I wanted my children to learn Mandarin because:

• They are half Chinese!
• My kids' Chinese grandparents, who are also here in the US, don't speak much English (although my mother-in-law has been learning lots of words, good for her) and I want the kids to be able to communicate with them. 
• I want them to be proud of and understand their Chinese heritage. 
• I want to give them a skill they can make use of in today's global economy.

So, since I am the teacher in our homeschool, I ended up being the teacher of Chinese culture and language for our children. Which I know nearly nothing about. Yikes.

So, I needed some kind of curriculum. My requirements were:

• Did not require me or my children to know any Chinese. I would be learning along with the kids.
• Was fun and colorful to engage small children.
• Would progress in slow, baby steps.
• Was a pretty good program in terms of quality (I knew I probably wouldn't find something amazing, since Chinese curricula aren't exactly super common in the US).
• Not too expensive, since my plan was to have the in-laws pay for it (hey, I'm broke, and they want the grandkids to learn Chinese, right?).

So I found My First Chinese Words, by the company Better Chinese. It looked as if it would fit the bill, so I talked to the kids' grandparents, and they gave me $100 to buy it! This program teaches by helping the children read books in Chinese. You learn all the words to read the first book, then the second book adds more words, and so on. The books in the online program are animated and can read the book aloud to you if you wish.

I purchased:
6 months of the online program
The workbooks (there are two)
The flashcards (They are huge! Classroom sized.)
The game cards

We did not buy the books and CDs, since they are the same thing found in the online program, and the online program has additional exercises, videos, and activities.
My kids really liked the videos about the development of Chinese writing characters that they have in the online program. They have a funny animation for each character.

Not that many people have kids learning Mandarin, so I thought I'd post some fun and useful resources that I have found. These resources are mainly for young children just starting out in Mandarin (since that's what I've got). I will be adding more resources to this blog post as I come across them.

Here are some free resources we are using along with this curriculum:

Fun Fun Elmo Videos
From the makers of Sesame Street, "'Fun Fun Elmo' is an Educational Program designed to teach children the basics of the Mandarin language." Thirteen episodes are free on YouTube.

Mandarin Numbers Music Video
My kids LOVE this video. We all know our numbers in Mandarin now but we still have to watch this video at least once a week, and with at least 3 encores. My son knows the whole song by heart.

Basic Mandarin Phrases Video
By the same people as the music video above. Includes phrases such as hello, goodbye, I'm sorry, thank you, you're welcome. I love this one because they repeat and that helps to learn to say it with the correct tones.

Monkey Write App (Android)
We use this smartphone app just for practicing writing Chinese numbers because that's the part that's free. It teaches stroke order, scores your attempts, and is fun and easy to use. If you are working on learning Chinese numbers it's just the thing.

 Miss Panda's "Ni Hao" and "Numbers" Songs Video
 Beginner songs for the little ones. Miss Panda also has other videos, including the itsy bitsy spider in Chinese, and popular children's books read in Chinese.

www.poissonrouge.com/schoolofchinese
A basic Chinese vocabulary learning activity. The kids click on objects in rooms and it says and shows the word in Chinese.

UPDATE: I stopped using this program after a couple of years, simply because I didn't have time, and since then I have decided to focus more on Spanish, because I know so much more about Spanish and I can teach it a lot better.

I did like the program, and I think it is nice for young kids or even a little older ones who are new to the language. My kids enjoyed it. The workbooks don't have very many activities for practice, so supplementing with more activities would be a recommendation. We watched a lot of YouTube videos with songs and such. But the online component of this program was good and the flashcards and especially the game cards were helpful.