Congrats Cookiezz! Also quiet quiet ah you! keke Hope you have a smooth delivery!!! Gambatte!!
Connie & friomum: Have you tried reverse psychology in a positive way? I tried on my girl and kids in school and it works (well sometimes..) Of course we don't want to use it too often else they will get the wrong msg to do the opposite every time we say something, you don't want to be caught saying "Please do run across the road". To them, it's like a game. Eg. some kids will whine when I give homework.. I say in a drama way with actions.. "Ok.. then you better not do! If you manage to answer the questions, you become smarter than the rest!" Something along that line.. and it normally works hehe
As for teaching of Chinese, due to the nature of my job (zhi2 ye4 bing4!), I've been doing it along the way with English (my helper and mum are speaking to her in broken english. Eg. My mum told her to mop the table instead of wipe or clean -_-") I have to remind my mum to speak to her in Mandarin because they are picking up real fast nowadays. And my girl showed her she can.
She catches pretty fast as I keep repeating daily like steps of washing hands in mandarin. I don't think my girl have to patience and attention span to sit down for a good 15mins to learn like how we teach in school. She will actually pull me away when I point to ABC chart I pasted on the door. But when Hub teach her using chart while feeding her, she guai guai listen and try to follow.
No books never mind, we go out we come across cat I teach her Mao. I speak to her mainly in Mandarin. If she doesn't understand, I will use actions/point or repeat in english followed by mandarin. Like bring the clothes to wash, I pick up the clothes and ask what is this? When she say clothes, i repeat clothes- yi fu. She normally will repeat with the "ah" behind..lol (yi fu ah?)
My hub complain she can't master A-Z & 1-10, I teach her vocab got use meh? Sorry la but to me, learning got SOP to follow de ah?
I don't think need a book and a chart, make the kid sit down then they can learn. They are actually picking up along the way by observing and copying what we say and do. I guess they will eventually pick up the specific subjects and topics. (I bought one set of English n Chinese flashcards when we spree-ed for it but didn't use! hahaha..) And no one method fits all la.. so have to trial n error see what works for your kid (just like in sch)