I love these old school egg trays – they remind me so much of my childhood.
They are safe for the little ones too, so my 6-year-old and I devised a memory game for Chinese word recognition. Here is what you need:
- recycled egg tray (I find that you do not really need to cut them; keep them for adding in more characters as you go along)
- round plain stickers
- marker
- ping pong balls (from any stationery or sports shop)
First, write down on the stickers the characters you want to teach or revise. You need even numbers, and two sets of the same characters. You want your child to match these characters later on. We started out with 6 characters, so there should be 12 stickers in total.
Then stick them on the ping pong balls. (Tip: The stickers are removeable, so you can change the characters when your child is ready to move on)
On the reverse side, number these ping pong balls. For best effect, unscramble the characters before numbering them.
Now you are ready to play!
- Baby calls out a number, then reads the character on the reverse side of the ball. For example, number 5 is 妈.
- Baby puts back the ball, word side down.
- Baby calls out another number and reads the character on the reverse side of the ball. For example, number 1 is 小.
- The aim is to (a) remember which number corresponds to which character and (b) match the characters to win.
My 9-year-old enjoys this game too, just increase the number of words for a bigger challenge! You can also have a play off. Two kids take turns to call out a number, reads the character and puts it back. Whoever can remember and match the most, wins.
Comment below to tell me how it goes.
Play and say in Mandarin. 爸爸妈妈们，一起加油！