Since the grand opening of Best 4 Future bilingual bookstore, I have been thinking and looking for children’s books of other languages, such as French, Germany, Spanish, Japanese and etc.

The big question is: where can I find those books? Do I need to travel to those countries, for an instance, France, to purchase French children’s books and bring them back to the US?

With limited capital I have right now, it is straightly impossible.

“So I have to wait until I save enough money from the sales of Chinese children’s books”, I thought and sighed, putting the dream to the back of my mind.

Until one day, about one week ago, I received a comment for Best 4 Future blog.

Bringing up Baby Bilingual, chinese for children, chinese language for young children, Chinese learning for babies, Spanish/English bilingual children’s books, teaching young children chinese | December 31, 2010 7:08 pm | Comments (0)

Two months ago, I published a post named Why she speaks more English than Chinese? I want to find out why DD speaks more English than Chinese even I have been creating a Chinese-rich environment since her birth (see How I help my baby acquire a second language?).

One reason I figured, maybe also the most important reason, is that I didn’t strictly follow One Parents One Language (OPOL) rule. I read to DD in English as well, only because sometimes she got tired of our limited stock of Chinese books and wanted something different. This is the only time I don’t speak Chinese to her.

Is it the very reason causing her to speak more English than Chinese?

I am not sure. But I do agree that OPOL is the the best and the easiest method for parents to bring up a baby bilingual.

The question is: how strictly or consistently do we need to follow OPOL?

There are a lot of theoreis and a lot of debates. I found two interesting articles from http://www.multilingualliving.com. One is The OPOL-Fanatics from Christiane Küchler Williams. The other is An Apology for Being “Inconsistent” from Alice Lapuerta.

Bringing up Baby Bilingual, chinese for children, chinese language for young children, Chinese learning for babies, OPOL, teaching young children chinese | December 24, 2010 10:33 am | Comments (0)

There is no doubt that storytelling in China, as elsewhere, is as old as its civilization. People have been telling stories for millennia to educate and entertain. Chinese parents and grandparents have been using storytelling to make their children and grandchildren aware of the importance of academic advancement and filial piety. (Pearson and Rao 2003, 131–146).

One of the stories that have been known and loved by generations of Chinese children is The Magic Locus Lantern.

Bringing up Baby Bilingual, chinese for children, chinese language for young children, Chinese learning for babies, Chinese mythology, teaching young children chinese | December 15, 2010 10:52 am | Comments (0)

After the grand opening, the online bilingual bookstore has been receiving a flood of traffic from all over the world. But I noticed there was more surfing than ordering from these potential customers. Why?

A local mother of a two-year-old unveiled the myth.

Bringing up Baby Bilingual, chinese for children, chinese language for young children, Chinese learning for babies, Chinese/Bilingual books with CD/VCD/DVD, teaching young children chinese | December 9, 2010 1:32 pm | Comments (0)

DD showed her strong will and desire for independence when she was only few months old. Now, at month 29, she definitely tried — again and again — to do things herself.

Before taking a bath, she could take off her own shoes, socks, pants, and diapers. She still had problem to take off her shirt, but she was working to find another way to get if off. During the bath, she wanted to wash face and hair, rub the soap over her body by herself. After the bath, she wanted to dry herself with a bath towel and comb herself with a brush.

During the dinner time, she wanted to use the spoon or fork to eat without any help. If I put the food onto the spoon and placed the spoon on the plate, she would damp the food back to the plate and tried it all over herself.

She already knew how to turn on TV, use the remote control to change channels, and put CDs into the CD player. Now she tried to press the keyboard, move the mouse, open or close an Internet explorer window on the computer, and take the print off the printer.

She even showed strong interests in driving! She loves to stand on the driver seat, turn the wheels, and push buttons (of course the engine was off).

Overall, she wanted to try everything we could do. Since she was a quick learner, sometimes we had to deliberately do things behind her, for her safety and the peace of our mind.

But, ironically, there was one thing she didn’t want to try— going potty. At month 29, DD still wore diapers, and showed little interests in potty training. Therefore, when she got her diapers wet or dirty, she had to come to me for help.

Baby Growth | December 1, 2010 2:54 pm | Comments (0)