Review of DailyNoodles Chinese Activity Books

I am really excited to share the activity books that eased us into our Chinese learning journey!  When my daughter was 2 years old, I was speaking only English to her but wanted to start teaching her Chinese.  At the time, since I could not read Chinese, I had no idea where to begin.  Thankfully, I found these fun workbooks from DailyNoodles about numbers and animals!  If your family speaks mostly English and you have young children, these books a helpful introduction for fun, hands-on Chinese learning!

These Chinese activity books are perfect for:

• Busy parents who don’t have time to make activities from scratch.
• Families who speak English or mostly English; they are also good for fully bilingual families as well who are transitioning to Chinese speaking.
• Families who want to ease their kids into a Chinese learning environment.
• Toddlers and early elementary school children who are learning animal names and number skills.
• Kids who like to color and make simple crafts.

Title: Daily Noodles My Fun Chinese Book: Numbers; Daily Noodles My Fun Chinese Book: Animals

ISBN: 978-0991466504 (Numbers), 978-0991466528 (Animals)

Authors: Andrea Chen Lin and Yalan Tsai

Publisher: DailyNoodles, Incorporated

Language: English, Simplified Chinese, and Pinyin

Where to Buy: Amazon (Numbers), Amazon (Animals)

Recommended age: 3-7 years

Daily Noodles My Fun Chinese Book: Numbers

The Chinese numbers book has 70+ colorful pages activities which include:

• Number recognition
• 1:1 correspondance
• Logic puzzles
• Sorting, comparison, and measuring
• Cut-and-paste matching
• Pattern recognition
• Basic addition to make recognizing and using simplified Chinese characters familiar and fun.

Here’s a peek at the inside of the book!  It starts with guide from the authors as well as a star sheet to keep track of your child’s progress.  At the top of each page is a spot for your child to write his or her name.

Inside the book are a variety of interactive activities.  The numbers book starts with basic Chinese number recognition and gradually becomes more advanced.  A few Sudoku games are included as a basic math problems.  In addition, the instructions are mostly in English with keys words in simplified Chinese and pinyin.

The last page of the book has a certificate!

Although these activities are aimed for older toddlers, we used the Daily Noodles Chinese Numbers activity book on and off over a month when my daughter was 2-3 years old.  My daughter would have phases where she would get really into the book and want to do several pages.  Then she become interested in something else, and then came back to enjoying the activities.  Here’s a peak of some of her work at age 2 (I helped her with the pink star below, but she did the other parts independently).

Daily Noodles My Fun Chinese Book: Animals

Like the Daily Noodles Numbers book, the Animals book has 70+ pages of American-style activities like matching games, dot-to-dot drawing, pattern recognition, and paper crafts. I really love the vibrant crafts!!  In addition, stroke order is introduced for the animal characters. My daughter really loved the crafts in this book!! She went through this book much more quickly than the numbers book.  Unfortunately, I do not have any photos of her finished products since we did them last year and have since recycled them.  The photos here are of a new book that I purchased and am saving for when my son is older!

Tips for using the DailyNoodles Chinese Activity Books

• For activities that don’t involve cutting and pasting, laminate for repeat use!  This way your child can repeat the dot-to-dot activities and math activities, for example.  I recommend this laminator and these laminating sheets.
• Please note that your children will not be experts at Sudoku, addition, or Chinese writing after using this book!  However, be familiar with Chinese numbers and common animal names.
• Speak to your child in Chinese while doing these activities.  This will help your children to associate fun activities for Chinese conversation!

Additional learning materials from DailyNoodles

• Food group placemat from DailyNoodles (photo below) – We have had this laminated placemat for 2 years and it is durable!  For a young child, I think the placemat is a bit too busy to learn how to read the Chinese characters.  However, for myself as an elementary Chinese speaker, I thought this was an extremely useful prompt for common dinner table words.
• Chinese Label Decals – We have these DailyNoodles labels out house.  The pack comes with 47 labels for household items (eg, wall, window, trashcan, microwave, fireplace).  I purchased these a few years ago and some are still up in their original position.  Others were easily removed, but they are not reusable.  I found the labels to be helpful for myself due to the large Chinese character and small pinyin.  However, I do not think they are helpful for young children because there is a picture which is distracting.  My daughter who normally memorizes characters quickly has not seemed to have retained many characters from these label decals.
• Chinese Numbers 1-10 Placemat – My friend has this placement and says it is fun for doing tracing the numbers with playdough, beans, and pasta.  This appears to be laminated and durable like our food group placemat!

In summary, I highly recommend these DailyNoodles Chinese Activity books as an introduction to Chinese for young children.  The books are fun, the activities are low prep, and perfect for busy families who want to ease their children into a fun Chinese learning environment!

To create a Chinese learning environment at home, I recommend these books and also great children’s music!  Also, check out my how-to guide for Chinese activities if you’re just starting out!

Please let me know if you have any questions in the comments section.  Happy learning, friends!