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Montessori Mandarin Character Box – Teaching Strokes

In Mandarin, every character is made up of strokes, just like letters are made of lines. We start by learning the basic strokes one by one. Each stroke has a name and a direction. We trace the stroke with our finger first, then use a brush, pencil, or sand tray to practice. We always write from top to bottom, and left to right. The character box helps us see, touch, and build the strokes, so we can understand how they come together to make a whole character. Slowly, we combine strokes to form simple characters, and then more complex ones.