Tips

3 Lists to Help You Start the School Year Off Right

It seems like just yesterday that the school year ended. Now it’s time for another grade, another classroom, and another set of adventures in Mandarin immersion.

Whether your family is wrapping up school shopping or already getting settled back into your daily routines, please take a moment to check out these three amazing listicles from GreatSchools.org:

  1. School Supply Lists for Every Grade. This article contains lists for pre-school through high school students. The elementary school grades are broken into lists for early and later grade levels. The authors wisely recommend cross checking these lists against those supplied by your children’s schools.
  2. Creating the Perfect Homework Space. This article encourages parents to build a functional, distraction-free study nook by considering their children’s work habits, temptations, and needed resources among other things.
  3. Smart Afterschool Snacks. The most effective homework space could be rendered useless if your child is too hopped up on sugar or too hangry to focus. This article provides nutritional suggestions for tasty snacks that will give your learner the energy to hit the books with gusto… or at least with focus.

Wishing you and your family an excellent school year!

 

 

7+ Podcasts for a Screen-Free/Screen-Limited Summer


It’s summertime. It’s the digital age. It’s tempting for our kids to fill those long, sunny days of freedom binge-watching the Disney Channel or YouTube, or gaming till bedtime. When we were their ages, our parents may have urged us to turn off the television and video games and play outside instead. Nowadays, digital devices let kids take the TV and video games outside with them, far from their caregiver’s keen eyes and ears.

Podcasts are a great way to find balance between letting your kids engage technology and limiting their screen time (or eliminating screen time altogether). These audio recordings can be great during bedtime, while finishing up chores, and on long road trips, too. There’s great content being produced for kids of all ages, from storytelling for the littles to fun facts and even light social commentary for tweens and teens. As you might expect, there are even Mandarin podcasts aimed at children and language learners.

Here are a few of our favorites, in order of age-appropriateness:

  1. Story Time. 10-15 minute stories that are great for pre-school and small children. you can play them right inside the website or download the audio files to your computer or device to play another time. You can also access Peace Out, a series of bedtime relaxation recordings for the little ones, on the same website.
  2. Wow in the World. This is NPR’s kid-oriented podcast. Its exuberant hosts Guy and Mindy explore cool science and tech topics like “Exploding Ants!” and “The Science of Poppin’ Knuckles.” Fun theme music and sound effects helps to keep curious school-age minds tuned in – helpful since the episodes average about 30 minutes. The weekly show is just over a year old and offers a premium membership service in addition to the free podcasts.
  3. Stories.  This podcast has been sharing kid-friendly adaptations of classic fairy tales, folktales from cultures around the world, Bible stories, and even original works since 2016. There’s a brief ad before each story, but they also have a Patreon account that lets you download ad-free content and even get your children’s name mentioned during a future podcast.
  4. Six Minutes. Aimed at tweens, this podcast is a modern-day take on the lost art of serial radio dramas. Twice a week, listeners can follow the six-minute long adventures of a girl named Holiday, who is found “floating in the icy waters off the coast of Alaska with no memory.” So far, there are 41 sci-fi-ish episodes. Binge-listen, anyone? (If you’re into sci-fi for kids and tweens, also check out The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian.)

  5. Stuff You Missed in History Class. Developed by the creators of HowStuffWorks.com, this engaging podcast digs into the annals of history from around the world, satisfying curious minds on a number of topics. The website conveniently arranges past podcasts into categories, including African, Black, and Chinese history. The episodes are fairly long and don’t come with many bells and whistles, so older tweens and teens will probably get the most out of them.  (411 Teen also covers serious, more contemporary topics, but as the name suggests, it’s crafted with teens in mind.)
  6. This American Life. NPR’s popular weekly show has become one of the nation’s top podcasts. It’s a great choice to listen to as a family as your kids mature. Some of the topics might go over their heads a bit, and the language can get a little dicey at times, but it also creates a perfect opportunity to engage in meaningful discussions.
  7. Kids Chinese Podcast. This podcast features over 140 Mandarin language lessons broken down by grade level from kindergarten to fifth grade. Pinyin and character script can be found throughout the site. Although “kids” is in the title, the home page states that the lessons can be helpful for kids, teens, and adults. So listen as a family and one day soon, you may be able to talk to (and hear) your language learners in Chinese too!

Check out more lists of amazing, kid-friendly podcast at Common Sense Media. Don’t see your family’s favorite podcast listed? Share it with us in the comment section.

Join Our Mandarin STEaM Club!!

Science and Technology combined with Art & Language … Now we’re thinking outside the box!

Every second Saturday of the month PAASSC will host a Mandarin STEaM Club. For those who don’t know what STEaM stands for, here’s a little break down for you: Science, Technology, art, Engineering and Math. But we are taking it to the next level and including language into the equation. PAASSC is thinking outside of the box and flipping it on it’s side to offer your child a fun and unique learning experience.

What is Mandarin STEaM Club?

We had a wonderful showing for our first event of the year. We are really excited about the direction that PAASSC is taking. The children have developed and are developing great and lasting relationships with one another. Our parents are committed and engaged with one another. Moreover, our volunteers are amazing and continuously bring their best to each event.

This year PAASSC presents the Mandarin STEAM Club. This is a great opportunity for our youth to explore Mandarin language skills, critical thinking and self-confidence while engaged in fun, hands on projects.

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5 Ways to Make YouTube Safer for Kids

If your kids are like mine they are becoming more savvy and curious in their web searches. This is a great video with tips on how to make YouTube safer for your children.

10 Educational Sites To Teach You Languages For Free

There are so many great reasons to take the time to learn a new language. Unfortunately, many of the well-known resources for learning to speak or read a new language cost way too much money. This doesn’t mean that learning a new language, improving language skills, or developing a stronger cultural understanding is impossible.

There are definitely ways in which all of these things can be done for free. Not convinced? Check out these free resources for learning to speak a new language.

1. Babbel

BABBEL

Babbel.com is a website that offers visitors the opportunity to learn several languages for free. These include Portuguese, English, German, and Russian, among many others. Babbel is extremely friendly for mobile users, and it provides a very practical benefit by including teaching methods that allow consumers to begin learning to speak the language right away.

This feature is especially useful for those who want or need to apply their new language abilities in practical situations.

2. BestEssay.Education

bestessay.education

Not every free language education website is intended to meet the needs of those who have absolutely no familiarity with a particular language.

Some websites, like bestessay.education, are a great resource for college students whose native language is not English. Bestessay.education serves students who are bright and talented, and who have established a significant mastery of the English language but need some additional polish on their writing assignments.

3. Busuu.com

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Busuu is a social learning website where users register, select a language that they wish to learn, and then begin their lessons.

People who use Busuu can interact and socialize with one another and native speakers as a way to practice and test out the skills that they have picked up. This is a good option for those who learn best via social experience.

4. Livemocha.com

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This is another free language learning website that leverages social interaction as a means to help people learn languages for free. If you join Livemocha.com, you can take language lessons, have conversations with native speakers, and get great information from the many blog posts published to this website.

5. British Broadcasting Company

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If you have ever wanted to quickly develop practical foreign language skills, you can accomplish this through the British Broadcasting Company’s language pages. The pages that are featured here are now static and no longer updated, but don’t let that scare you away. You can still access interactive learning experiences that give you the opportunity to learn over thirty languages.

Do you know somebody who is planning a vacation in the near future, and who might benefit from developing some language skills that will allow them to order food, reserve a hotel room, or simply introduce themselves to others? You could do a big favor for them by sharing this post.

6. Duolingo.com

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Duolingo combines free, socially driven language learning with more traditional and measurable teaching methods. As with similar websites, those using Duolingo take various lessons where they work on their own to develop language skills.

These self-paced classes are great for anybody who wants language immersion without immediate instruction. However, for those who do crave feedback and instruction, there are many teachers who will gladly provide feedback and progress reports. If you enjoy a challenge, try to keep your streaks going and earn as many hearts as you possibly can.

7. LearnaLanguage.com

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This website delivers the curriculum provided by visual link languages in a way that makes learning a new language both fun and practical. This website allows you to learn through a slightly different interactive experience. You can select the language that you want to learn and you will be immediately immersed into a variety of language learning opportunities that utilize visuals as well as videos.

8. Byki.com

byki

If you are a fan of the focused learning experience that is created by flash cards, you will Love Byki.com. There is both a free and a premium option, but those who wish to learn a new language for free will certainly enjoy the languages lessons that are provided to them via Byki. This is a great site for those who want to interact with their chosen language site via a mobile or touch screen enabled device.

9. Openculture.com

openculture

If you are interested in learning more than just a language for free, this is the perfect website for you. This website is as dedicated to cultural education as it is to language-based education. This means that students who take the classes can learn languages while enjoying an immersion experience.

If you love the idea of learning a new language, learning about a new culture, or possibly all three at once, openculture.com is a fun and youth-oriented place to begin to learn.

10. Hinative.com

hinative

Picture this, you are going on a business trip and want to impress your boss. Or, you are preparing to go on a personal vacation to a place where you only barely know the language. You want to learn the language, but you only want to receive assistance from natives. Imagine being able to ask a native speaker directly how to pronounce something, or asking them about whether or not a translation is correct.

This is not a place to learn a language from the ground up, but it is definitely a website that assists people in expanding their language skills.

 

Repost from Lifehack.

A Clever Mom Uses Periodic Table For Battleship Game For Her Kids

So, you’re looking for the FAMOUS Periodic Table Battleship, are you?  You are in the right place. I am so glad you stopped by!

Periodic Table Welcome

Chemistry seems too difficult for kids? A clever mom has used periodic table to play battleship game with her kids and they just really enjoyed it!

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For more information, you can visit her blog and watch the video for details.

 

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