Thursday, February 18, 2010

My Father's Dragon Lapbook

Den and I both enjoyed My Father's Dragon (under Sonlight Read Aloud) very very much.To help Den to understand the story better (and because it is so fun!), we make a lapbook on the book. Most of the things we put in our lapbook are reproductions of the free templates at http://www.homeschoolshare.com/my_fathers_dragon.php. I did not use all the templates but only those I thougth Den would be interested in. I was right.



The story: It is a fantasy story about a boy - Elmer (author's father) who travels to Wild Island and saves a baby dragon. The baby dragon was enslaved by the wild animals in the island. Needless to say the wild animals are not too happy about the boy and try to catch him. The boy has a knack sack with him and inside there are lots of things that help him to escape the animals.

I decided not to make the usual lapbook. Because the size is too big and too hard for me to keep. Instead, I just used two slightly heavy (140gsm) A4 color papers and stapled them together.

This is the front page, I photostatted a page from the book and pasted it on the A4 paper. Den and I colored it together (she did 80% of the works).
For the title, I wrote it lightly on the page and then let Den trace on it. She can write them her self but it might be a bit ugly....so I decided to let her traced instead. Don't tell her I said that.






Behind the front page is page no 2:

At the bottom of page 2, I pasted a color map of Island of Tangerina and Wild Island. The one in our book was b&w. I found this at the internet.

The Green square on the Left said "How Many Tangerine?" at the front. Elmer took some tangerine when he first landed on the Island of Tangerina. Along the way, he ate some and then pick up some again. I thought that was a good opportunity to practice math.
So inside, I let Den recorded down the number of tangerines Elmer picked up minus the one that he ate and plus the ones he picked up again, etc etc. At the bottom, we had some space, so we also calculated how many lollipop he had.

This is how it looks like inside:



















The orange pocket on the top right of page 2 said "New Words" on it. Inside is a long strip of paper that can be fold together. I wrote some of the new words we learned from this book and their explanation.

This help me to use the new words in our daily conversation.












If you open up the white strip of paper in the middle that says "Crossing The River", you will see 17 crocodiles lining up. Den drew a lollipops on their tail. Why? This is one of the funniest part in the book. In order to cross the river, Elmer tricked the crocodiles. He stick a lollipop in the bank of the river and a crocodile swims up to lick it. Elmer then tied a lollipop to that crocodile's tail and another crocodile came to lick the lollipop tied to the first crocodile's tail. After all the 17 crocs lined up to lick lollipops, Elmer walks across the river on their backs.











Page 3:

The top is Elmer's knack sack. Den colored the knack sack. It can be flipped open up this way:

I printed and cut out all the stuffs he carried in his knack sack individually like this and put them into the sack. All the items can be taken out and then put back:


Every time we read the book, we take out the items that the boy used.











The white square on the bottom left says, "Seven Terrible Tigers" is another good way to practice math and for me to introduce the concept of multiplication. When you open it, there are 3 question inside. You can open up each question individually and write down the answer inside. For me, the most important thing is the calculation, not the answer..
For example, for the first question - how many mean green eyes that 7 tigers have?
This is what we wrote inside:
2+2+2+2+2+2+2
= 7x2
= (I let Den check her time table for answer) 14




It continued the same way for the other 2 questions.




I am not teaching multiplication yet but no harm in introducing the concept and let her realized how much it will helps to solve question like this. Hopefully this will motivate her to memorize the time tables when time comes.


The Red envelop on the bottom Right hold a small booklet called Mouse says...

There is a very silly mouse in the book that always mispronounces his words. Den loves the mouse and what he said. So I make this booklet for her and inside I wrote down what the mouse said in the book. For example:

"Queer, queer, what a dear little dock! I mean, dear dear, what a queer little rock!"



Den loves this booklet and carries it every where she goes. She even brought it to the reunion dinner!

That's all on our My Father's Dragon Lapbook. Hopefully this make it easier to understand!

For review & info --For K books - http://www.squidoo.com/booksforK
Pre K books- http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

18 Feb 2010

Den wakes up quite late in the recent few weeks, around 11am to Noon. But then she sleeps quite late at night, around midnight to 1am. It works well with out Chinese New Year schedule. I will have to slowly change it back to a more normal sleeping time later.

She woke up at around 1130am this morning. After hug hug and breakfast, we started our study at about 1215pm. We decided to finish the last chapter of My Father's Dragon (under Sonlight Read Aloud) because we just loved that book.

After the reading, Den answered 10 questions about the main character - Elmer (for questions, please check out my previous blog here), I wrote down her answer for her. After that we finished working on the lapbook we make for My Father's Dragon.

The last few times I mention lapbook in my blog seems to bring more questions to those who read my blog than answer them. So this time, I decided to blog about My Father's Dragon Lapbook in an individual page, so that I can give more detail. To view, please click here.

After that, I cooked fried rice and we ate lunch.

After cleaning up, we practiced week 7 verse. We actually started week 7 before CNY but when I looked back, I realized I did not blog about this. So let me fill you in. Week 7 verse is taken from 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in
Christ Jesus.

At first it was hard for Den to memorized this verse, but for the past 2 weeks or so, I have been using this verse in our daily prayers and today, she can said the whole verse without any help from me.

We also finished week 7 history before and during CNY. It focused on Medieval period. Since I'm going to do more about this with Den later this week or early next week, I will wait to tell you more about this.

Today, we read 3 pages of Mother Goose , 2 pages of The Llama Who Had No Pajama (both under Rhymes and Poems) and 1 painting from Come Look With Me (under Art)

After that we read 2 topics from week 7 Science. One on waves and one on current. I find them quite boring topics. We also did a simple activity to make waves - Get a 1.5 or 2 little clear bottle. Fill 2/3 with water and put in blue coloring (we only have green...so we had) green sea), then fill another 1/3 with mineral oil. Cover the tap. Put the bottle horizontal and tilt it back and forth and you have wave. Personally, I did not think it looks too much like wave but Den enjoyed it.

After that, I let Den worked on math worksheet. Before CNY, I taught her carrying and burrowing. She can understand both and she can do carrying worksheet without any help. However, she had a bit of problem with the burrowing. She cant work on the worksheet her self, I would have to stay with her, or else it took her forever to get done. After a few sitting with her, I realized her problem is not on the burrowing. She was not good in minus with anything more than 10. She was very slow and sometime lost track with what she was counting.

So I decided to backtrack. I will let her work on a lot of minus (more than 10, for example 12-7) worksheet before I will let her work on burrowing again.

Today she worked on 16 minus questions and she finished them in 20 mins and without making any mistakes. Good!

After that, we went back to my parents place to have dinner with them. We planned to study after dinner but Den decided last minute to follow my mom to church for choir practice. So I'm free to blog!



For review & info --For K books - http://www.squidoo.com/booksforK
Pre K books- http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

17 Feb 2010

Officially, Chinese New Year last for 15 days...but for us, it ended today when my DH went back to SG. It was hard to say good bye even though we know we are going to see each other again next week.

After he left, Den and I tried to get back to our daily routine. She practiced piano, read 2 pages of I Can Read It! Book 1 (under K Read Aloud), then watched a bit of GoodTV Chinese program.

Den saw a photo of someone writing Chinese calligraphy in the newspaper and asked me about it. So I took out my "four treasure of the study" ( 文房四宝)- Brush, Paper, Ink stone & Ink stick (yup, we are doing it the old fashion way) and Seal. She was my 书童 (study maid?), helping me to grind the ink while I wrote.

After that she tried her hand in writing. Not bad for the first timer! The attachment on the Left is her writing. The only problem is I my self are really bad in calligraphy! Haha! So it was like a blind leading a blind. May be I should learned it my self first.


While I cooked dinner, Den practice handwriting with 2 pages of Handwriting Without Tears. I planned to study with her after dinner but some how she decided to play keeping shop. So for the past 3 hours or so, she ran a cafe, a restaurant (with self made menu and top up discount card!), then finally a clothing shop. She was having so much fun that I decided study can wait til tomorrow!

This is her self made menu, from Left - Mixed Fruit at $10.00;

Middle - Hot dog with fruit juice at $12.02

Right - Japanese Tea at $5.10























For review & info --For K books - http://www.squidoo.com/booksforK
Pre K books- http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Chinese Lesson Song for Chinsese New Year

Just finished writing a new Chinese song for Chinese New Year. I have not come up with the lesson plan yet. Decided to put it in first, just in case any of you want to teach your kids to sing for CNY.

(Tune: 小小姑娘,清早起来)

新年好呀 新年好呀 祝福大家新年好(Good new year, may everyone have a good new year)
我们唱歌 我们跳舞 祝福大家新年好 (We sing, we dance, wish you a good new year)

大年除夕 大年除夕 每个人都回家 (New year eve, everyone goes home)
大年除夕 大年除夕 一家团圆吃晚饭 (New Year eve, we have reunion dinner)

大年初一 大年初一 穿上新衣上教堂 (1st day of NY, put on new clothes and go to church)
大年初一 大年初一 恭喜恭喜去拜年 (1st day of NY, visiting others)

大年初二 大年初二 舞龙舞狮真热闹 (2nd day of NY, dragon & lion dance)
小鼓咚咚 大鼓锵锵 大街小巷喜洋洋 (small dram dong dong, big dram chiang chiang, rejoicing)

Ok, thats all I have the time to do for now. Happy Chinese New Year, everyone!



For review & info --For K books - http://www.squidoo.com/booksforK
Pre K books- http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

Friday, February 5, 2010

first week of Feb 2010

We finished Sonlight week 6 yesterday and started week 7 today!

This week, our schedule was kind of in mess, so we have been studying whenever we can. Yet, we managed to finished everything. Very happy!

Week 6 history is focus on I Heard Good News Today (under Bible & Christian books). We read 5 Missionaries stories from 400AD to 1000AD. I used this stories to replace the usual Bible reading.

Science we studied Grassland, Rain forest and Ocean. For the Internet link, check this out:

1. See a short movie about grassland here http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/0511/quickflicks/

2. A few interesting sites for the rain forest:

3. See the seabed here http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/extreme2002/virtual/index.html

We also read about the 5 oceans. It was not easy to remember and I tried to review it with Den when we had the time (like stuck in the traffic jam). After a few review, she almost remember all the names except for Atlantic Ocean.

The Children Encyclopedia (under Science) actually mentioned Malaysia - "The 88 floor Petronas Towers in Malaysia are among the world's tallest buildings. Even 28 of them stood one on top of the other in the Mariana Trench (Pacific Ocean) wouldn't quite reach the water's surface."

So in Den's scrapbook, we took a long long piece of paper and draw 28 Twine Towers one on top of each other. It was really fun but it is too long for me to scan in for you to see.


Week 6 experiment continue to focus on plant. We collected different type of leaves, put them under a piece of white paper, then Den rubbed over the paper with crayon and viola! The study really help Den to notice all kind of plants. Before this she has never taken notice on the different texture of the leaves.






Besides this, Den was really into reading I Can Read Book 1 (under Sonlight Reader 1). She has been reading 2-4 pages everyday. Sometime without prompting. I usually bring it along with me when we go out and she can read it when we wait for food in the restaurant.

Since I applied some of the technique I learned from Read Right! (under Language Book), I notice a great improvement in her willingness to read. From Read Right! I learned not to focusing too much on sounding out the word but led her in guessing some of the words. Before this, she refused to read aloud any book unless it is phonic reader and she can sound out every words phonetically. After I applied the Read Right! principal for less than two weeks, today she actually picked up Where's My Teddy? (Under Non-Sonlight Read Aloud) and told me she was going to read a story for me!!! I was so happy. Even though I had to help her with most of the words, I am just so glad that she took the initiative to read books aloud.

We also started a new Sonlight Read Aloud book this week - My Father's Dragon (under Sonlight K Read Aloud). We both enjoyed it very very much. It is a fantasy story about a boy who travels to Wild Island and saves a dragon. The dragon was enslaved by the wild animals in the island. Needless to say the wild animals are not too happy about the boy and try to catch him. The boy has a knack sack with him and inside there are lots of things that help him to escape the animals.




To help Den to understand the story better (and because it is so fun!), I make a knack sack using a free template from http://www.homeschoolshare.com/my_fathers_dragon.php. Den colored the knack sack and I cut out all the items and she put them in. Every time we read the book, we take out the items that the boy used.







When we flip open the knack sack, we can see all the things the boy has in his bag. All the items can be taken out and then put back. I am still going to put a few more things together with the knack sack and make it into a mini lapbook.




I also taught her minus with burrowing since she had no problem in plus with carrying. However, this time, we had a problem. She got confused about the burrowing and carrying. Hmm...interesting. May be I was going too fast. For the next few weeks, we are going to concentrate in working on these two areas.

We also have a new Chinese Lesson this week. Topic- Ballet Dance Studio. Something she is very familiar with. She loved the song that I made for her:
(Tune: Skip To My Lou)
Verse 1
快来跳舞,来跳舞 (x3) (Faster come and dance, come and dance)
快来跳芭蕾舞 (Faster come and dance ballet)
Verse 2
穿上你的紧身衣 (x3) (Wear your leotard)
还有芭蕾舞鞋 (and wear your dance shoes)
Verse 3
踮起脚尖往前走 (Tiptoes to the front)
踮起脚尖往后走 (Tiptoes to the back)
踮起脚尖往左走 (Tiptoes to the left)
还要往右走 (tiptoes to the right)
Verse 4
找个舞伴道万福(x3) (Find a partner and curtsy)
转个圆圈道万福 (Turn around and curtsy)

We took turn to be the Ballet teacher and the other would the mommy bring along the new students (dolls, bears, etc) to the studio. The ballet teacher would register the new students and the students' mommy would pay for the school fees. After that the ballet teacher would teach the students to dance using the song above.

New Words:
• 登记表(Registration Form),
• 舞蹈(Dance),
• 教室(class room),
• 舞蹈员(dancer),
• 紧身衣(leotard),
• 芭蕾舞短裙(tutu),
• 月费(monthly fee)
• 左右 (Left, Right)
• 点名册 (Attendance list)
Den was very familiar with some of the ballet terminology in English but it was the first time she heard them in Chinese. For the next few weeks, I'm going to continue to use the Chinese words for her leotard, tutu etc. She loved this game and wanted me to play again and again and again.

For review & info --For K books - http://www.squidoo.com/booksforK (updated 6 Feb 2010)
Pre K books- http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Games that we play

We were kind of busy this week. Lots of going out, visitations, etc. May be everyone is already in Chinese New Year mood. We don't have much sitting down and study time, instead we tried to do a bit here and there and fully utilized the in between time. I thought we did not do much but when I sit down and recorded down what we did everyday, I was pleasantly surprised that we get quite a bit done.

A few friends asked me how do I keep track and planning the daily study. I am one of those people has to have list and plan. So I use MS word to plan out our daily study schedule (what I plan to do...the idea plan...usually we did not finish or we detoured...but still I need a basic plan) then every night I check and revise and record down what we actual did. Every Sunday I sum up all the things we did that whole week. For example, how many math worksheet Den did last week that kind of thing and making plan for the week to come.

Some of the things I will totally escape my notice unless it is in the plan, for example crafts and physical activities. When I did my weekly record two weeks ago, I realized we did not do any craft for the whole week. So I compensate it and did 4 crafts last week!!
Physical activities is the same, I have to set target and force my self to play ball, walking, swim and etc with Den.

I also have a column called game. I realized we have not been playing games for awhile. My DH used to play game s(like puzzles, UNO, etc) with Den every nite. Since he is away, I need to start playing game with her.

We went to the "Made In China" store at Atria and bought a few games:

1. Who Is It? (RM7.90) A very easy deductive game to play. Taking turn asking question and see who is the fastest to guess the person your opponent choose. Skill: Asking Question & Deductive power.








2. Monopoly Jr. (RM 26.90) Den played the normal monopoly game in SG and loved it. I decided to get the Jr. version so that she can play with her friends (without ME!!). Same concept but easier -- money is $1-$5, no extra property card, all the property price are written on board (property price also square to the fine when others landed in yours), chance cards come with pictures and pretty much self explanatory. While I am writing this, she is actually teaching W&W how to play the game.



3. Animal Chess (RM4.90 Popular) I remembered I used to play this when I was around 7 years old! Den played this in her friend's house once and loved it and so we bought it. I rather bad with game like this (cant plan more than 1 step ahead) so she can actually win when playing with me!





4. Hide & Seek (RM25.90) I bought that two years ago but it was too difficult for Den. Now I'm taking it out again. It is a logic game and it came with a book of 48 challenges.








I also want to start her on Master Mind and I am pretty sure we has two set of that somewhere but could not find them yet. =D


For review & info --For K books - http://www.squidoo.com/booksforK
Pre K books- http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel