Setting Up Windows XP for Mandarin Input

http://bit.ly/Chinese-PC

Chinese in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

http://bit.ly/Chinese-Mac

Excellent online Chinese Dictionary with stroke order and pronunciation

http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/chinese-dictionary.php

Astoundingly good online translation tool:

http://translate.google.com/

California is facing a major budget crunch for next year. On Friday thousands of parents, teachers and students marched in San Francisco to call attention to the need for school funding. Many Starr King families attended.

See a parent video here.

This was presented at the May 1, 2010 Mandarin Immersion Parents Council meeting at Jose Ortega. It’s a living document – if you’ve got suggestions/corrections/additions, please send them to us so we can update it. While some parts are San Francisco-specific, most would work anywhere, so we encourage parents at any and all Mandarin immersion programs to chime in.

Compiled by Elizabeth Weise, with help from lots of MIPC parents. Please send more suggests to weise@well.com

For parents who don’t speak Mandarin at home, getting more Chinese in your child’s life is something like getting more vegetables in their diet – you’ve got to think strategically about how to slip it in where and when you can. Here are some options:

Make video time Mandarin time:

If they want to watch videos, let them watch them in Mandarin. Multiple Disney and other movies exist in Mandarin-dubbed formats. You can find them at the San Francisco Public Library and at numerous websites.

Parent tip: Players for Chinese DVD’s:  All commercial players should be able to play Chinese DVD’s.  The problem is that the players are set to view just Western DVDs.  To unlock your player, go to website like the one below, type in your model number, and follow the simple directions http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks

One parent just went to Chinatown and bought a cheap travel DVD player there, confirming that it played Chinese DVDs. This is a good idea if you don’t want to mess with your home DVD player.

If you get movies from NetFlix, you can click on Genres and then Foreign Language and then Mandarin Language to see their offerings. However they don’t appear to have children’s movies.

One thing to be aware of is that the ‘learn Chinese’ videos that are quite popular on these sites are too easy for our kids. Instead, chose fun videos that just happen to be in Mandarin.

Also, ask other parents in the program you know. In third grade, there’s a big trade among parents in a Mandarin version of Star Wars, for example.

Read

Local Bay area bookstores:

Eastwind Books & Arts

1435 Stockton St
(between Card Alley & Columbus Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94133

(415) 772-5888

www.eastwindbooks.com

This can be a little hard to find, it’s in a basement. Many of their books are in traditional characters, but ask for kids books in simplified, they do have some.

Eastwind Books of Berkeley

2066 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704-1006
(510) 548-2350

www.ewbb.com

The Cartoon Museum

655 Mission St.

San Francisco, CA 94105

Has a great anime/manga (Asian comic books) bookstore with helpful owners. Parents have recommended Hayao Miyazaki, the author and film producer of Ponyo and Sprited Away. Ponyo is a really beautiful cartoon book and Ponyo is  more appropriate for younger kids.

NanHai

510 Broadway Suite 200

Millbrae, CA 94030

650/259-2140

This is a good Chinese bookstore with lots of kids books in simplified characters and lots of books with CDs for kids. They’re really quite close if you go down the freeway. And there are excellent restaurants on that little stretch of Broadway, so it’s a nice weekend outing. One tip: It can seem difficult to use if you don’t speak Chinese, but ask for help. If you know in advance you’re going, call their consultant Doroteo Ng, who’s been very helpful to the MIPC, and tell him when you’ll be there so he can ask someone to be available to help. They also sell the HanBan series used as textbooks in 3^rd grade.

Books, videos and CDs online

chinasprout.com

(check out their video section)

www.childbook.com

They’ve got both books, CDs and DVDs

www.mypandapaws.com

They have Dora and Elmo DVDs in Mandarin with simplified subtitles!

www.chinesetapes.com

Lots of Barney, Thomas the Train, Snoopy.

bogeji.ecrater.com

Lots of Dora, Charlie and Lola videos.

Make car time Mandarin time

Stick Mandarin CDs in the car and when you’re driving let them learn Chinese songs. You can find lots of these CDs at local Chinese stores, ask the clerks which are good for kids.

Stream Mandarin radio:

www.mandarinradio.com

www.chinese-outpost.com

Local TV:

– On KTSF-26 there’s a long-running Taiwanese kids’ show called “Fruity Pie” that runs at 8 AM and another kid’s show called “Tutule” at 2:00 PM.  These are 30-minute shows that are targeted to younger (pre-K though 1st grade).  Although they are not shows older kids might choose to watch, a little nudging usually gets them to give them a try and then they capture their interest.

Watch Mandarin videos online

Parent Tip: If you find something you like, bookmark it! It can be very hard to find them again if you don’t know the name in Chinese (or if you can’t write it in Chinese.) Also, you’ll be able to send the URL around to the other families in your school. One note: Watch with your kid so you can edit. It’s easy to click on things in Chinese and quickly end up someplace you didn’t expect. Once you get to know a site it’s okay, but you probably don’t want them to click around themselves too much at first.

From a parent: My kids enjoy watching Mandarin videos, such as Doraemon, Pleasant Goat, Pororo, Thumb Bear, Martin Morning and Big Head Son. To preview these series online, go to www.tudou.com and search for:

“大头儿子小头爸爸”  (Big Head Son – 78 episodes)

“马丁的早晨”  (Martin Morning – 52 episodes)

“机器猫” (Doraemon the Japanese robotic cat – 500 episodes!)

“喜羊羊与灰太狼” (Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf – 465 episodes!)

“拇指熊” (Thumb Bear – 11 episodes)

Cartoons.

http://space.tv.cctv.com/podcast/xxh2

Songs and videos.

http://www.fanpop.com/external/7358

Ton o’ Chinese songs online

http://music.ibiblio.org/pub/multimedia/chinese-music/html/children.html

Sun flowers language studio stories

www.youtube.com/user/chinesesunflowers#p/u

Chinese YouTube

www.tudou.com

cartoon.tudou.com

Flash Empire

www.flashempire.com

Hard to know what all these are, but seem to mostly be kids cartoons.

Reading:

We know you don’t read Chinese. Neither do we. But there are a lot of books out there with CDs, so you can play and read along. The teachers and the MIPC are working hard to get more of these into the classroom (the recordings have been done and we’re working on translating the titles.) Check the websites, bookstores and the library for examples.
Parent tip: — My second-grade son and I use the San Francisco Public Library’s website frequently and he’s getting pretty good at using the search tool.  When he discovered that his favorite series “Garfield” was available in Chinese, he checked out every book available.  They are in the traditional characters but he still enjoys them.

Tip: go to the library web site at www.sfpl.org and then search “Garfield Chinese.” You can reserve books from other branches and have them sent to the branch nearest you so you don’t have to go all the way to Chinatown, which has the biggest collection of Chinese books. Also, ask your librarian. Most branches in San Francisco have a Chinese-speaking staffer. Sometimes they’re a little nonplusses by non-Chinese-speaking families asking for Chinese books, but it’s up to us to educate them.

Using the Internet as a dictionary

– In 2nd grade, the students must submit sample sentences along with the characters they are learning.  We rely on several excellent and free online resources.  I like the audio components to help us with the pronunciation.  I also thinks it’s helpful, if not essential, to take the time to learn pinyin in order to use these tools.
babelfish.yahoo.com

Translation
www.yellowbridge.com

Great dictionary, shows stroke order and has audio pronunciation
http://us.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php#word

Nice dictionary
www.nciku.com

If you don’t know pinyin, I find using an online Chinese dictionary where you can draw them with the mouse to be very helpful:

Yellow Bridge Dictionary (look for the little button with the paintbrush)
Nciku Dictionary (draw in the box in the top right corner)

Parent tip: For parents with iPhones and iPod Touchs, there are several Chinese dictionary apps. And another, called DragonDian, allows you to practice Chinese characters by drawing them on the screen.   “If she doesn’t draw them cleanly enough the computer can’t match it.  If she does a good job it always finds it.  My only complaint is that stroke order doesn’t matter.” To find others, search on “iphone Chinese apps”

Misc.

There’s a monthly Taiwanese magazine that comes with storybook, workbook, CD, and sometimes DVD or toys.  The materials are age-specific and go all the way up through elementary school.  One mom said “My kids absolutely love the materials.  My 2.5 year old can “read” the books and listen to the CDs by himself and sing along in Chinese. The only way to get the materials is to call Taiwan and have them shipped.” Unfortunately, the web site is all in Chinese and the magazine only comes in traditional characters. But it might be appropriate for someone in a program that uses traditional, and a teacher could help with ordering.
www.benesse.com.tw
– We keep an eye out for Chinese businesses and try to figure out what the characters on the signs are.  Sometimes he chats with the shopkeepers and shoppers too because many people can speak basic Mandarin even if they are Cantonese speakers.  Menus in Chinese are also always fun to try to decipher.

— There are several local San Francisco businesses with Mandarin-speaking staff. Check the MIPC website at miparentscouncil.org for the current list. Then when you go in for a haircut or for dinner, ask the staff to only speak to your child in Mandarin.

See the video here.

It’s a standing joke in the comics – the kid tells the parent at 7:30 “Oh, I’m supposed to bring two dozen cookies to school this morning.”

But if you’re a parent in Starr King’s Mandarin immersion program, the statement could just as well be “Chen Laoshi said I’m supposed to bring tang yuan to school today.

Great, the parent asks. What’s a tang yuan?

The answer, I was informed, is that it’s a dessert made from rice that’s served in a sweet soup.

Okay. How do you make it? No worries, my 3rd grader tells me, Chen Laoshi (teacher Chen) sent the stuff home in my pack.

Ah ha, I think. It’s a nice mix, like the ones you see in the Asian section at Safeway. How hard can this be?

Then I looked in her pack. And this is what I found.

Okay. This is nothing a lifetime of relying on  The Joy of Cooking has prepared me for. In fact, none of my cookbooks address this particular dilemma. Said 3rd grader is no help.

Thank god for the web. A search of tang yuan (at least our 3rd graders can spell pinyin, I’d have been totally lost if she’d written the characters) didn’t do much, but “glutinous rice ball” turned up a great recipe (fancier than we needed) but most importantly, the photo of the bag was the same – we were on the right track!

So we began. Mind you, it’s 7:15 at this point and lunches haven’t been made, hair hasn’t been brushed, breakfast hasn’t been eaten. But rice balls must be made, it’s the Chinese New Year Festival at 1:30 and we’ve got to be ready!

Another web site suggested adding a little food coloring for interest. My 3rd grader insisted that Chen Laoshi used a package of strawberry jello (later confirmed at school) but we didn’t happen to have any. So food coloring it was.

After a little somewhat heated discussion about what the texture of the dough should be (“But Ms. Chen said it should be wet!”) we ended up with this.

Next came the battle of the balls. I wanted big (i.e. more, faster) but the girls were adamant that they had to be little because they got bigger when they were cooked. So we went small.

Next, you boil the tang yuan to cook them. I started in while the girls were busy rolling.

And rolling and rolling and rolling.

Eventually I realized I needed two pots going just to keep up.

We tasted some at this point. Let’s just say this, tang yuan are very bland. Clearly, it’s all about the sugar soup. They just taste like boiled rice flour with a slightly bitter edge that I still don’t know what was. I think the Thai idea of stuffing them with candied peanuts and then rolling them in coconut is a good one. But they did get bigger.

Then you cool them in cold water.

And finally, at 8:00 (school starts at 8:40 and it’s a 20 minute drive away), they were ready to go.

But it was all worth it. The Spring Festival (aka Chinese New Year) that the Starr King Mandarin immersion teachers organized was amazing.

There was a dragon.

That danced.

Every child in the school, from the English, Spanish, Mandarin and Special Education programs, took part. There were nine booths, each with an activity

and most with some kind of Chinese delicacy, including our delicious glutinous rice balls.

Each student has a passport they got stamped at each booth.

Mr. Rosenberg, our principal, tried but didn’t do as well as the 1st graders at calligraphy.

There were crafts

a beanbag toss

And ribbon dancing.

And the rain didn’t start until all the kids were back in class!

Thanks to Ms. Chang, To, Tong, Sung, Chau, Zeng, Chen & Wang for everything you do for our children, every day, and for an amazing 2010 Spring Festival!