5 tips to turning COVID lockdown into a learning opportunity
Learning at home is challenging even at the best of times when you have young ones, and even more so when the entire family has been stuck indoors due to COVID. Its easy for parents to get frustrated, but being together inside for a long period of time allows new habits to form. Take advantage of this opportunity by introducing small habits everyday into your child's routine. Here are 5 great tips to keep your child busy, happy and learning Chinese everyday.
1. A character a day - Write 1 character a day down on a post-it note and bring it up during random times of the day. Before you know it, you can double or triple it and after 4 weeks your kid will be a reading superstar!
2. Fruits and vegetables - Exploring your fridge/pantry every now and again, and picking one food in Chinese to recite. We decided to get out all our vegetables one day and were surprised so many were in the book! The kids had great fun finding and matching up the vegetables and fruits to the book.
3. The toothbrushing song - Integrating Chinese at the same time as brushing your teeth will make it more fun. Here's a Cantonese song you could play in the background and sing along to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3FDmqxGRSw
4. Routine phrases - One of the easiest ways to get your child speaking is by teaching them phrases in Chinese before they have learnt it in English! For example, after dinner, simply saying "我飽了" - "Wǒ bǎole" or "I'm full"
5. Hide & Seek in Chinese - Kids love this game, counting in Chinese will reinforce their numbers even more! Try counting backwards for extra points.
Watch our video below!
Be patient, be kind and stay safe!
Theo