Bao & Bun's Bilingual Journey

This summer, we’re staying in the States, and since my kids aren’t attending any Chinese language camps, their Chinese learning is up to me. I’ve assessed both kids’ levels and planned some activities to boost their learning.

Little Bao:

Over the past year, Little Bao had a tutor who used Odonata readers to teach characters. While he enjoyed the class, his memorization of Chinese characters remains spotty, especially with commonly used characters. This made me realize that just attending online classes isn’t enough; he needs repeated reviews to remember the characters. After chatting with another blogger, 安媽, I decided to try her method of using flashcards to improve character recognition. I bought a set of 600 characters flashcards by Shih-Ting Huang two years ago but hadn’t used them much.

Following the common advice, I used two ziplock bags—one for characters he knows (“yes” bag) and one for those he doesn’t (“no” bag). I started with the first 250 characters, and so far, he knows fewer than 100 of them. Although I know he recognizes more characters from later lists, I’m sticking with this method to see how well it works for us.

After two weeks, things are going smoother than I thought. Initially, there was frustration and tears because he couldn’t remember some characters, but with daily practice, he’s starting to remember even less common words like 萬 and 脖.

Additionally, I’m using the characters he doesn’t know to create worksheets on PurpleCulture.Net’s Chinese tools, including bingo, word mazes, word puzzles, and missing strokes activities. Both kids enjoy these worksheets, and I’ve set a goal of completing 50 worksheets (I modified the sheet originally for books) for a bubble tea reward. They’re excited about this challenge and eager to do more.

The way I constructed this schedule takes into account that the kids are in full-day summer camps and have some evening Chinese online classes that I signed them up for. During the week, I want to keep things quick and easy with reviewing flashcards or fun worksheets like bingo, mazes, or matching games. Initially, I planned for them to do both flashcards and worksheets on the same day, but that workload was too high. The kids still mostly want to play when they get home, so I reduced the amount of work after trying out the initial plan. Below is the schedule we currently use.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday
Flash Card	PurpleCulture worksheets	Flash Card	PurpleCulture worksheets
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Flash Card	Two picture books	One picture book One Greenfield book

Little Bun:

Similar to Little Bao, it’s time to boost Little Bun’s character recognition. I’m using Mandarin Poster’s 1000 characters as a base, focusing on the words she doesn’t know yet. So far, she knows about the first 500 words from that list (going from the top), and now we’re tackling the rest. Many of the remaining words are abstract ideas like 實在 or written language terms like 談話 that she doesn’t encounter often.

Honestly, I’m still figuring out the best way to teach her these characters. Besides having her memorize them, I point them out in context whenever we encounter them so she can see how they’re used. Fortunately, Little Bun memorizes much better than her brother, so we’ve been making good progress with the flashcards.

Reading remains our primary goal. After finishing 露露和菈菈, we’re somewhat back to square one. She’s reluctant to read more bridge books and prefers picture books or comics. I’ve encouraged her to read 紅豆綠豆椪, which she enjoys, even though it has as many words (the whole book) as some bridge books.

This summer, I’ll continue to sit with her during reading time, encouraging her to tackle more challenging books. It’s hard to predict how far we’ll get, but I’m hopeful we’ll make significant progress.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday
Flash Card Online tutor homework	PurpleCulture worksheets	Flash Card Online tutor homework	PurpleCulture worksheets
Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Flash Card Online tutor homework	100 books challenge Online tutor homework	100 books challenge