Simple Mandarin word cards

Last Saturday during Alicia's last lesson at Julia Gabriel, I had the opportunity to speak to her Mandarin teacher about teaching pedagogy.

I learnt that the learning aids I've been making for Alicia to teach English would also be useful in the teaching of Mandarin and they work on the same principle, just that Mandarin doesn't have alphabets like the English language and hence the approach would have to be thematic instead.

She also gave me the idea that I should just make simple word cards and stick them on familiar objects in the house to help with word recognition. She reinforced the fact that these don't have to be elaborate: just use a marker and some cardstock or vanguard sheet and that's sufficient since the object itself is present. 

I thought that was quite a good idea and since I had some really old vanguard sheets lying in the storeroom, I thought I'd put them to good use. Who cares if they're really old or stained with age? :P 

Here are the cards:

A very economical way to do simple teaching at home, don't you think? :) No need to laminate and go through all that hassle. Hee. Besides, all the printing I've been doing is taking a toll on the ink cartridges and of course, ahem, our pockets. :P

Back to the basics.

Now I just have to get down to sticking them around the house before I can bring Alicia on her daily 'gallery walk' to familiarise her with the words.

You can of course do the same for the teaching of the English language. :)

Have fun with this really budget-friendly idea!