Stage 1 · about 6–9
Observe and Say
Look closely, say it clearly, ask why.
Interactive pages, hands-on activities, five minutes a day.
All subjects at this stage
C
Chinese
Why does this character look like this?
- Build a character: meaning part + sound part In a meaning–sound character, the radical tells you the area of meaning and the phonetic hints at the sound: 青 + 氵/日/目/讠/忄 gives 清 晴 睛 请 情. Try it
- Sentence blocks: find the skeleton Remove the describing words and a sentence still stands on 'who + does what (+ what)'; add them back and it says more, not something else. Try it
- Radical families: what the left side means A meaning radical names a category, often in an older form: 月 in 肚 脸 腿 is flesh (肉), not the moon; 王 in 玩 珠 球 is jade (玉); 衤 is clothing but 礻 is worship. Try it
- One character, two sounds: let the sentence decide Many characters have more than one reading, and each reading goes with its own meaning: 长 is cháng in 长江 (long) but zhǎng in 长大 (grow); the words around it tell you which. Try it
E
English
How do these letters sound?
- Change one letter, get a new word Letters stand for sounds; blend the sounds and you can read a word you have never seen. Try it
- One sound, several spellings The same sound can be written in more than one way: rain, play and cake share one vowel sound, and position helps choose — ay usually ends a word, ai sits inside. Try it
- Three sounds of -s The ending -s is said three ways, chosen by the word's last sound, not its last letter: /s/ after a quiet sound (cats), /z/ after a buzzing sound (dogs), /ɪz/ after a hissing sound (buses) — and the same rule works for he runs and Tom's. Try it
- 开 is not always open A Chinese word and an English word cover different patches of meaning: 开 is open the door, turn on the light, drive a car and hold a meeting, so learn a word together with the words it goes with. Try it
S
Science
How do we make the test fair?
- Sink or float? Whether something floats depends on how heavy it is for its size, not on how heavy it is. Try it
- Where does a shadow go? A shadow is where light is blocked, so it always points away from the light; moving the light changes the shadow's direction and length. Try it
- Light the bulb: why it needs a loop A bulb lights only when there is an unbroken loop from one end of the battery, through the bulb, and back to the other end. Try it
- What makes a sound? Every sound comes from something vibrating, and the vibration needs air, water or a solid to travel through; faster vibrations sound higher. Try it
G
Geography
Where am I?
C
Computing
How does the robot get there?
- Tell the robot exactly what to do A program is a list of exact steps run in order; when the same steps repeat, a loop says them once. Try it
- Find the bug To find a bug, run one step at a time and compare what happens with what you expected. Try it
- Send a picture with a few numbers A black-and-white picture can be sent as counts of same-colour squares in a row, so a picture with long runs needs far fewer numbers and still comes back exactly the same. Try it