我的家人和朋友
Wǒ de jiārén hé péngyou — My Family and Friends
This is the year characters arrive. Not as homework — as pictures. Students meet their first 40 characters starting with the ones that still look like what they mean, and learn that writing Chinese has rules you can feel in your hand.
By the end of Grade 1…
- Speaking: introduce themselves and their family in 3–4 sentences
- Listening: follow two-step spoken instructions
- Reading: recognise 40 characters, including all ten number characters
- Writing: write 20 characters with correct stroke order
- Tones: produce all four tones accurately in familiar single words
Why we start with these characters
The first characters a child learns should earn their difficulty. These do:
一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十
Ten characters, three of which are literally just that many lines, and they unlock counting, age, dates and prices for the next eight years.
10 units
你好吗？ — Greetings Again
Nǐ hǎo ma? Kindergarten greetings return, now with a real question and answer.
一二三 — The Number Characters
Yī èr sān. The first ten characters students can actually read and write.
笔画 — Strokes & First Pictographs
Bǐhuà. The eight basic strokes, stroke order rules, and 人 大 小.
我的家 — My Family at Home
Wǒ de jiā. Family words become family sentences: 这是我的妈妈.
数到一百 — Counting to 100
Shŭ dào yìbǎi. The tidiest number system in any language — 11 is simply “ten one.”
我几岁？ — Age & Birthdays
Wǒ jǐ suì? Saying how old you are, and singing happy birthday in Mandarin.
我喜欢 — Likes & Dislikes
Wǒ xǐhuan. The first real opinion sentence, plus 不 for saying no.
我的朋友 — Describing My Friends
Wǒ de péngyou. Tall, short, kind, funny — talking about other people.
日月山水 — Nature Pictographs
Rì yuè shān shuǐ. Sun, moon, mountain, water — and the ancient drawings behind them.
春节 — Chinese New Year
Chūnjié. Red envelopes, the zodiac, festival words, and a full-year review.
Helping with character writing
Stroke order isn’t fussiness — it’s what makes characters legible and memorable, the way letter formation is in English. Two rules cover most of Grade 1:
- Top to bottom, left to right.
- Horizontal before vertical when strokes cross.
Every writing activity uses a 田-grid box so students can see how a character balances inside its square.
Where students usually wobble
Third tone. It rarely dips fully in real speech — encourage a low, creaky sound rather than a dramatic valley.
Mixing up 木 and 本. One extra line changes “tree” into “root.” Slow down and count strokes.
Writing too small. Big characters first. Shrinking comes later, on its own.