Below are additional resources you may find interesting and helpful.
Hanyu Pinyin for Mandarin Speakers.
To assist with the learning of pronunciation and to allow you to note down and keep track of language more easily, we teach, along with characters, the official phonetically based writing system known as Hanyu pinyin. Students with no knowledge of Hanyu Pinyin can visit Hanyu Pinyin for Mandarin Speakers learn it.
The differences between jianti and fanti characters are not as significant as might be imagined, so we will get used to reading both. For writing, you may choose either one.
MIT-China Program of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives.
Online Chinese-English Dictionary
Calligraphy Grid (PDF)