First thing first, Atria is turning into another gold mine for kids' books and stuff just like Amcop Mall. So if you haven't checked it out, you should.
We went there last sat and came back with 12 new books for Den! Big bookstore warehouse in Atria was having a sale. Most of the kid books are 50% off! I have no idea when is the end of the sale.
I brought a series on Art appreciation for kids. It is called Adventures In Art. Some came with hard covers and some soft. I brought 6 of them. Big Bookstores have 8 topics. It is a great bargain! Amazon is selling at USD24 for one and I brought it at 50% RM4.50 - RM5 each!!! I can't believe it!
I also brought another 2 books in another series called Express Yourself!. I brought one on expressionism and one on surrealism. It is more for upper primary school kids. I'm using it as a reference. RM7.50 each ONLY!
Yes, as you can see I love art. I think everyone should learn to appreciate art. It is very sad that our school never teaches art appreciation. We teach craft, we teach painting but never teach kids how to appreciate art. I never enjoy art when I was younger. I like to draw even though I did not draw well (seriously, not being modest). But I never learn to appreciate any artwork.
Then when I was in Form 3, my art teacher passed away at the end of our school year. A replacement teacher just came back from overseas and took over the class for the last few lessons. He never taught us how to paint, instead, he showed us great art pieces and told us stories about them. That was my first art appreciation class. I fall in love with Van Gogh on that day.
I did not have the chance to attend art classes after that. Science student. :(
But I continue to educate myself with books. I hope I can help Den to appreciate art since young.
There is also a new bookstore selling Chinese books from Mainland China on the 2nd floor of Atria. Most are translated books. This is the store where I brought Katie's Picture Show series (read about the series in my previous post 15 June 2009).
This time I bought a series of 3 books called "双把儿铁锅-卡琦娅". It is translated from a very famous German children's novel. I am trying to find out its name in German and English from my friend in Germany.The setting is East Germany (communist time). A little girl call Ka Qi Ya moved from the city to stay with her grandma in the countryside because both her parents lost their jobs. She enjoyed the country very much because she loves animals.
Den loves this series because she loves animals too. I read one chapter for her in the bookstore to test the water so to speak. She liked it and so I bought it. It is a chapter book but each chapter is very short. Much shorter than Milly Molly Mandy. We already finished 4 chapters of the first book. I still need to paraphrase a lot...China's standard of Chinese language is very high plus Den's standard of Chinese is very slow! Haha!
Den loves these two series - Katie and KaQiYa. Tonight when I asked her what bedtime stories she want, "English or Chinese?" She said, "Chinese." That made me a very happy mom!
Back to what we did today.
Den woke up early at around 830am (I know, I know, but it is early for me!). I was very tired and wanted to sleep more. So I asked her to go and play and let me sleep in. She did. I slept for another hour. :) She was enjoying herself in her room - coloring.
We went down for roti canai today. We have not been eating that for quite some time. She chatted none stop throughout breakfast. She is definitely a girl.
We started school around 1130am. We practiced Bible verse and read 2 Bible stories - One on Nehemiah rebuilding the city wall and one on Archangel Gabriel announcing the good news to Mary. Yeah! We are in NT now.
After that, we practiced phonics. We did chapter 51 today! We celebrated because we finally finished half of the book! haha! Teaching your child to read in 100 lessons!:)
No new sound today and it was not a long lesson. She finished it really quick and earned 31-star stickers (for each word she read, she get a star sticker. Repeated words in the same lesson counted as one). We pasted the star stickers on cardboard, 12-15 star stickers per row. When she accumulates enough rows she can exchange them for Princess stickers.
After phonic, we read "A child's Book of Art". Today we looked at faces - one Egyptian painting, one Native American painting, one Aztec painting, one Japanese painting, and one from Picasso. :) It is like faces around the world.
After that, we read from "A First Word Bank" words that describe people. She knew almost all the words in there, so we went directly to practice. I asked her to describe me, ST, and herself. She did it quite well. I also reminded her to use descriptive language when she is referring to someone or something. She has this habit of saying things like, "you know the person/thing, you know, you know, you know...." As she continues to "you know", we continue to be clueless. Hopefully, she will learn from this lesson and be more descriptive.
There was no water supply in my place today (washing water tanks). So my mom brought us lunch. I was still tired. So I decided to let her watch Veggie Tales -Esther while I eat lunch. It is part of my plan to do with the Esther story anyway.
After lunch, we practiced Chinese flash cards. We have not been doing it for the past 3 weeks and she still remembered all the words that she remembered 3 weeks ago and not remembering words that she did not remember 3 weeks ago! haha! She still has problems with 很，这. Today, I taught her another 4 new words - 过，得，到，了. She did one page of worksheet on that and also practice writing 了。We read Odonate first 100 word book 6 -小花猫 together. She read most of it, I just need to supply one or two words.
After that we read 5 mother goose rhymes - 6 little mice, Queen Caroline, Little Boy Blue, Baa Baa Black sheep, and This is the house that Jack built. I also show her the pictures, music, and video I downloaded from the internet. Which means I need to do more research for next week's rhymes. :(
She also wrote a new rhyme acc to This is the house that Jack built. She said it and I wrote it down in her scrapbook. This is the rhymes:
This is the book Esther wrote.
This the mouse that ate the book that Esther wrote.
This is the cat that chased and ate the mouse that ate the book that Esther wrote.
This is the little boy that pet the cat that chased and ate the mouse that ate the book that Esther wrote.
This is the tiger that ate the boy that pet the cat that chased and ate the mouse that ate the book that Esther wrote.
This is the hunter that killed the tiger that ate the boy that pets the cat that chased and ate the mouse that ate the book that Esther wrote.
This is the fat wife that kissed the hunter that killed the tiger that ate the boy that pet the cat that chased and ate the mouse that ate the book that Esther wrote.
I did mention to her there are too many "ate" in the rhyme. However, that seems to be the reason she like the rhyme and refused to change it.
After the lesson, she did another 2 worksheets. One on addition and one on Developing the Early Learner Book 2. We finished book 2 and will start Book 3. She finished everything in record time, and actually have time to read before she watched Chinese cartoons on GoodTV. The other day, out of the blue, she said, "Dinosaur, 我爱恐龙." I was like WoW! Where did you learn this word 恐龙? She told me she learned it from her Chinese cartoons. I was so :)
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