5 Dec 2009

It was a rather eventful week - both of my brothers came back from overseas, then one left for China again, my dad had a heart operation, my grandpa is hospitalized and in the midst of all these, my DH, ST is busy packing for his job in SG starting middle of this month. We did not have any sit-down and study time until yesterday. However, Den did worksheets and read from Fun Tales (under Sonlight K Reader)(we are down to Book 25, two more to go) whenever she can.

Yesterday, finally, we had time to sit down and studied. We finished off Sonligh Week 2. We did the memory verse, listen to Bible reading (Rebbecca's twins), and did all the Science books for week 2.

We focused on the weather in week 2. The water cycle, windy weather, rainbows, snowflakes, storms, and floods. Other than the Children's Encyclopedia (Under Science), we also started a new book called Weather (under Science). It is a small book from Usborne as well. Colorful and interesting.

We can't do the experiments this week because they focus on the concept of hot air being lighter (don't think I know about that before this!). All the experiments require a heater!! haha! Can't find any heater (lots of AC though) so can't do it. We read about the experiments in the Usborne Science Activities Vol 2 (under Science) and also watched how they raise the hot air balloon in InquisiKids DVD (under Science). I think Den got the idea.

We also did the Science worksheets that come with Science Curriculum and read a Chinese storybook I bought from the Big Bad Book Sales. It is about a little mouse who thought he is not a mouse because he is fairer than all his friends and thus he begins his journey in search of his "true identity". At first, he thought he might be a white cat, then he thought maybe he is a polar bear. At last, he realizes he is truly a mouse and goes back to his home happily.

I bought almost 2 boxes full of books in the sales. It was really wonderful. I only paid RM3 for this book.

Today, we started on Week 3. We have a new Bible Verse that started with "C":

"Children, obey your parents for everything, for this pleases the Lord."~ Colossians 3:20

Den remembers we studied this verse in Pre-K. She was right, we did. In pre-K, we did a shorter version - "Children, obey your parent."

We read one history lesson from Living Long Ago (under History). It talks about the food that Ancient Egyptians eat (surprised to find out it was very similar to what we eat now!) and suddenly we felt like making bread because it talks about how the Egyptians made bread.

So we stop our lesson and proceeded to the kitchen. We ended up baking a coffee cake!=D Have not been baking and it felt good to bake again.

While waiting for the cake to bake, we did the read-aloud. We read 2 pages of mother goose and 3 wonderful modern poems from The Llama Who Had No Pajamas (under rhymes & poem) and we started a new book - James Herriot's Treasury for Children (under Sonlight K read aloud). While I prepared for the lesson this morning, before Den woke up, I already knew she is going to love this book. True enough, she fell in love with the book right away.

It is a collection of animal stories, told from a country vet's point of view. It is also wonderfully illustrated. Today we read a story of two dogs in Only One Woof. Gyp & Sweep were brothers and best friends. Sweep was sold by his owner and Gyp missed him. Gyp was a silent dog, he never ever bark, until one day - one year after Sweep was sold, he saw Sweep in a sheepdog competition and make one bark - "Woof!" when Sweep won the competition.

Sweep came over and the two rolled and played together as if they had never been apart. Den's eyes were filled with tears and she said she was too happy for the dogs.

I told her, real friends will always be friends even if we are separated by time and space....trying to prepare her for separating from her friends when we move down to SG.

After that, we did a chapter in Come and Look with Me: Enjoying Art With Children (under Art). It is actually not in the Sonlight K schedule, I bought it as an additional because we both enjoyed A Child's Book Of Art (under Art & Picture Dictionary) in pre-K very very much.

Come and Look with me is different from A Child's book of Art. We only look at one picture at one time (instead of a group of pictures that share the same theme in A Child's Book of Art). Besides the picture, it also listed discussion questions and the artist's background. So far, we enjoy it very much too.

For review & info --
For K books - http://www.squidoo.com/booksforK(updated 5 Dec 2009);
on Pre K books- http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel