Mrs Lu

It’s me, Mrs Lu. Ever since I became a teacher in 2004 that has been my name.

Today I came across a lovely mum. She shared her concern with me that she can’t understand her 4 year old boy. She said she has been having nerve racking moments every day. What shall we do if we keep having conflicts with our kids because of understanding problem?

A good way to understand your child is by listening to and watching your boy or girl and their peers. There are many methods to listen to and to watch kids, but the foundation is usually through interactive activities. It’s great for parents to get involved in interactive activities, but avoid being dominant in these activities. If you often have nerve racking moments, the first step you need to take is to break the bad habit bit by bit. Normally it takes two months to form a good habit, it varies widely depending on individual circumstances.

I will post more articles about how to listen to and watch kids on this website. In the meantime, it might help to read Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development.

Regards,
Yours

Mrs Lu

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We all know learning is cumulative. Everything new is based on something we have just learned. We also know that it is very important for kids to revise their work during homework. remember and digest what they have learned but we face a big challenge to make a kid sit himself/herself at a desk.

To encourage our kids to do homework, there are some questions we have to ask ourselves first. One of the more important is “do we have a dedicated study space or room with a desk and chair?”

Through my teaching, I came across a family with more than 7 bedrooms, but every room is crowded with stuff (toys, books etc.) It’s hard to say which room is for playing, which for studying, which for sleeping. With so much stuff, homework gets lost easily and the kids get distracted every few minutes. In this kind of environment, kids can’t tell when its time to play and when to study. This leads to a serious fight after parents ask “why have you not done your homework?”.

A lot of how kids act comes down to psychology shaped by their environment. Simply providing a room with a desk, a chair, a pencil, papers and an eraser before homework can reap great rewards. This should then be maintained so that kids gain good habits when studying and so you should see them sitting in their chair studying for hours.

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The Lantern Festival is coming soon!

During Lantern Festival, streets and gardens are full of dazzling and colourful lanterns. Families and neighbours gather together to enjoy the last day of Chinese New Year celebrations, people will entertain themselves with a traditional Chinese game called 猜灯谜 (cai deng mi), solve riddles on the lantern and also they will make, cook and share a traditional Chinese Dim-Sum called Tangyuan (汤圆). You may say, when is The Lantern Festival? I would like to celebrate too.

The Lantern Festival(元宵节 yuan xiao jie) is a Chinese festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in Lunar Calendar. It marks the final day of the traditional Chinese New Year celebrations, and falls on some day in February or early March in the Gregorian calendar. As early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BCE-CE 25), it had become a festival with great significance.

Recently, October 2016, a lovely group of Chinese learners and their friends and partners enjoyed a trip to some of the most remarkable places in East China organised by Magic Mandarin.  Afterwards we were delighted to receive a lovely thank you note from the group:

We thank you sincerely [for] the memorable trip to China. All your effort and hard work to please individual expectations are remarkable.  We entrust in you for the future!

Please accept a token of appreciation from all of us.

Welcome to the new Magic Mandarin Website!

We hope you like it.  If you have any suggestions please let us know.  We’re still working on it so do come by again soon and hopefully it will look even better next time.  Thanks!