Forgot to tell you that we're excited over the arrival of the newly released Baby Learns Chinese 2nd set of DVDs and flashcards.

Yay!

The set includes DVDs number 4-6 and Flash cards set II.

The learning principles used with this Learning Chinese for baby is also from the Doman school of thought that believes babies can learn another language and can read if you just spend some time everyday helping them read in big figures. The Doman learning principles are not confined to just language but other cognitive abilities. The Doman book I have is the one about teaching baby mathematics. Exciting book, that one.

What I'd really like to share is the story about the inspiration behind the production of the "Baby Learns Chinese" materials. This is written by the founder, Ms. Yama Chan:

"After reading the book "How to Teach your Baby to Read" by Dr. Glenn Doman, I started using the flash card method to teach my twin boys how to recognize Chinese characters and English words. They were almost 1 year old at that time. I found that even though my boys could not speak yet, they were able to recognize the Chinese characters after seeing them a few times. It actually took them longer to learn English words. I think my boys found Chinese characters easier to remember because Chinese words are inherently images. To them, each Chinese character is, as long as the character relates to things that are familiar with in everyday life, they had no problems recognizing and reading the characters. By age 2, my boys were able to recognize about 100 Chinese characters. They are 6 now and they love reading Chinese books."

Ms. Chan then proceeded to team up with other parents and educators to spread this method to other families that want their kids to learn Chinese well and early.

Come see the newest Baby Learns Chinese DVDs 4-6

Labels: baby learning mandarin, bilingual babies, ChildBook products

Baby's First Words in Chinese, CD was designed by a group of language experts for newborn to two year old babies. I just added an audio sample as well as a widget that shows 16 pages of the 94 page booklet that comes with the CD.

It's nice Baby's First Words in Chinese includes a guide for the parents on how to bring up their child bilingually. Really nice touch that it would be nice if other products also included this!

Labels: baby learning mandarin, bilingual babies

I just added a a video preview! Great video with a lot of content. Highly recommended.

				Global Toddlers: Adventures in Mexico. Chinese, English, Spanish, French
				Our Price: $19.99
				Kids love the puppet and children scenes, animation, and live footage and still photos of real animals, fish, plants and landscapes of Mexico. Awarded DVD of the Year by Creative Child Magazine for 2008 (Educational DVDs for babies, toddlers, and kids category)”. 115+ spoken and written words for children in Chinese Mandarin (with Pinyin), English, French, and Spanish

Labels: bilingual babies, learn chinese

Little Pim: Playtime, 3-Pack Bundle, Learning Chinese for Babies, toddlers, and preschoolers is really well done. It was created by the daughter of Pimsleur (famous for Learning Foreign Language Materials).

Ground breaking video for teaching babies, toddlers and preschoolers

Total immersion experience and offers hours of fun for you and your little ones

DVD is entirely in Mandarin with English sub-titles available. Great design!

It even has places to stop in the video for review. It's a carefully designed series for Learning Chinese for the young ones. I have even heard good feedback from parents that they learned some Chinese watching it!

The first DVD covers eating and drinking, the second Wake Up Smiling (DVD 2), and Playtime (DVD 3).

Baby Learns Chinese, DVD, Level 1,2,3 & Flashcards also uses full immersion for teaching, and adds Chinese Characters with the belief that the very young can also learn them. Dr. Glenn Doman, author of the best selling books on early childhood learning, including "How to Teach Your Baby to Read". Research has shown that children from birth to age 6 learn languages at an extraordinary rate.

Using Music for Learning Chinese is a great way. Songs for Learning Chinese - CD/Tape With Book Sets has a table comparing different products. Some have famous songs in English and Chinese along with a book. It's a great activities for parents and their child.

Reading to children is a great way to expose them to a language. A great touch book is I Won't Bite. One of my favorite books.

There are two school of thoughts on Bilingual Material. One is it makes the reader a bit lazy. The other is it's a great way to pick up the meaning.

Coloring Pictures are a fun way to learn a bit of Chinese.

These are really well done:

				Learning Chinese Coloring/Activity Book, Simplified Characters
				Our Price: $12.00
				(simplified characters) Chinese For Children, A Coloring/Activity Book Learns Fruits, Colors, and Numbers Designed especially for young children Author has two Master Degrees and has experience in public and private schools.
				Learning Chinese Coloring/Activity Book, Traditional Characters
				Our Price: $12.00
				Chinese For Children, A Coloring/Activity Book Learns Fruits, Colors, and Numbers Designed especially for young children Author has two Master Degrees and has experience in public and private schools.

Labels: baby learning mandarin, bilingual babies

Nice article that was on MSN originally from Parents Magazine about Bilingual Babies - how to bring up Children Bilingually. Having worked very hard with my wife to bring up our daughter bilingually over the last 13 years and running Childbook.com I have a few opinions on the subject...

The article does a nice job of going through the basics that small children have an incredible ability to learn, they can keep languages straight, and has some recommendations for Spanish, Italian, and German products. But nothing for Learning Chinese! The article includes some nice quotes from experts on how much children can learn at a young age. The article did mention one issue that sometimes children may know less words in their original language, but when you add both languages together they know more words than their monolingual counterparts. The number of words also differs tremendously depending on parents. What I have noticed is children soon catch up when they get into schools. Not to mention the influence of TV and video's - the wonder of Barney and his singing :-)

If parents speak to their children all the time the children will learn more words has been proven true in studies and to me is common sense. Of course I also read to my daughter as child and got weird looks from my wife. If the child is not spoken to that much following that logic, then the child will not learn that much vocabulary. In a study I read from my Teaching Credential/Masters, there may be cultural issues where parents do not realize the importance of speaking to their children when they are babies. Very interesting study that I wish I could find the link to, it deal with a school in California. I have also seen this in the class room where in kindergarten some kids came to school already knowing their numbers and colors, and others did not.

Here is an article that I wrote wrote with some suggestions/tips on Learning Chinese for Children

Product Recommendations
For learning, I like fun activities that have songs you can sing with your children such as Teach Me Chinese (done in USA) has with popular songs in both English and Chinese and come with a book with Pinyin, English, and Chinese Characters. There are also other products on the market such as Let's Sing Mandarin for ages 3 and up that was created by a Chinese teacher in Singapore. On closeout, I suggest test out Teach Me More Chinese on Cassette for only $4.95 (CD version costs more) Sing & Learn Chinese CD & Book is also popular, as well as Speak and Sing Chinese with Mei Mei

Learning Chinese DVD's are also a great way to expose children to Chinese. They are mostly in English and introduce basic Chinese words. Mei Mei was a Montessori teacher who has created a series of 5 DVD's for Learning Chinese and states for all ages. When the Montessori method is done right (I went to a Montessori school), it's a great way to teach with the right teacher and child that can work wonders! The theory believes that kids can be self directed, I differ that I believe a little more pushing/direction is needed for some children as well as structure. The teacher (as usual) makes a huge difference and needs to keep on top of the students so they don't game the system. Other products is Early Start which has four DVD's Learning Chinese for children ages 1-5 in their series, which have been extremely popular and is recommended for ages 1-5.

For children that have started school, two DVD's I recommend are Let's Go To School with Mei Mei 5 and Follow Jade - Let's Visit Chinese Kindergarten in DVD Children can relate their experience in an American School to a Chinese one, while learning some Chinese. The Follow Jade Series has gotten great ratings.

Labels: bilingual babies, Learning Chinese