About
Hello, I’m April! I’m a Mandarin dual-immersion teacher and a new mom. Through my years of teaching, I’ve recognized the challenges of raising multilingual and multicultural children in an English dominant community. Now that I’m a mother myself, I’ve been thinking how to create a meaningful and purposeful environment for my daughter - not only to cultivate a love for the Mandarin language and Chinese culture, but also to include other languages and cultures as well.
As a teacher, I’m fully aware that Mandarin language resources designed for the non-native learner are scarce. If there were any, the text level would be too challenging or the content too rudimentary. Hence, for my daughter and for other little budding bilinguals, I was inspired to create language resources meticulously curated for non-native learners based on my teaching experience in the classroom.
I hope you will find the learning materials and resources fun, engaging, and most importantly meaningful to have a lasting impact on your child's language development!
The idea for Seedlingo came to me when I was pregnant with my daughter in 2020. From the very beginning, I knew I wanted to raise a multilingual child for two reasons:
- Inclusive Attitudes: I believe that learning multiple languages will help my daughter connect more deeply with others by broadening her mind and opening her heart to diverse people and cultures.
- Strong Self-Identity: I hope my daughter grows up feeling connected to our heritage and fearlessly embraces who she is no matter where she goes.
However, these goals soon felt like lofty aspirations once I recognized the reality of raising a multilingual child in a predominantly monolingual society. As a Mandarin dual-language immersion teacher, I was also aware of the limited resources available for families raising multilingual children in the U.S. These challenges inspired me to create practical, fun, and meaningful educational products to support our little budding bilinguals.
These flash cards are inspired by the Montessori three-part cards, providing a non-traditional approach to the use of flash cards.
The three parts (picture-only card, picture-text card, and text-only card) allow for tiered learning to suit each child’s level. Each flash card vocabulary also comes with a paired audio reading in Mandarin Chinese to help with pronunciation.
Included in this deck are also DIY cards, a Chinese-Pinyin-English reference card, and teaching guides for beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels.
One size does not fit all when it comes to learning. As a teacher with over 10+ years of experience, I have curated a total of 15 engaging activities for your children. These 15 activities are broken down among the three learning stages - beginning, intermediate, and advanced.
- Jan 2021 - Brainstormed teaching tool ideas on teaching multiple languages to children
- Summer 2021 - Developed flash card teaching methods
- Nov 2021 - Created cards and box designs with illustrators
- Jun 2022 - Submitted flash cards for printing and received product is in transit notice
- Aug 2022 - Launched Kickstarter
- Nov 2022 - Send cards and rewards to you! WOOHOO!