School year winding down...

The three younger kids and I have enjoyed going to a once a month class this school year.  A different country is featured each time, and we learn more about their location and customs.  They are also treated a music experience, food, and an art experience from the country.

This month we did Thailand and our art was shadow puppets.  The concept is that you cut detailed designs in the puppet and stand behind a curtain through which a bright light is shining.  The light then shows the designs in the puppet onto the curtain. 

The kids first had to brainstorm a concept for a puppet show, then create the characters they needed to perform it.  Since Tikvah's birthday was this week birthdays were on their minds.  Many of the children ran with a cat as one of their characters since the staff's examples they had made included a cat.  So wallah.  Their story was that the cat was having a birthday party.

I had to help them behind the curtain, so unfortunately I didn't get a video of their performance.  It was a little song of "Happy Birthday" and that was it, but it was super sweet.

If you'd like to see the concept acted out, here is a Youtube video that shows a  Thailand shadow puppet demonstration.

As we near the end of our school year and reflect upon what we've learned I'm overall really happy about how the year went.  Homeschooling these kids is the right thing for them.  They are learning and thriving, and I'm so fortunate to be both their Mama and their teacher.

Five in a Row Curriculum - Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

* Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel  

This is the story of Mike and his steam shovel Mary Ann who put in many, many productive busy working days.  But new technology has sent most of the steam machines to the trash heap.  Mike's determination and ingenuity saved both of them from unemployment.

Having spent much of their lives in an institution, my kids didn't know a lot about different types of power or even different vehicles.  And it seemed a challenge to find out much about steam power.  One book we liked was Inventions That Shaped the World: The Steam Engine by Tamra Orr.  You will also find a few things about steam by searching on YouTube.

The FoldnLearn from the FIAR BLOG had some information on steam machines as well.

We made our own steam power which seemed to get the point across better than any book or movie we could find.  The plain ole tea kettle released steam and as Isaac held his pinwheel near to the steam it turned the wheel.

I have been thankful many times this school year when the book we were studying
gave us a natural setting for discussing life values.  This time it was stewardship.  Mike took such good care of Mary Anne that she was in great working condition long after machines of her type had been junked.  A challenge that is fairly common with institutionally raised kids is teaching them the value of their belongings and the need to take care of them.  And more yet, they must be taught to respect other people's belongings.  Good discussion.

We talked about the elements of a good story

and also what "personification" is in literature.  But I think only Isaac was able to understand these concepts.

 Most of the units in FIAR have art incorporated too, centering around either the illustrations in the book or a concept mentioned in the story.  In Mike Mulligan our attention is drawn to the countryside and the different way trees are drawn, whether they are aerial views or seen from close up.  

And for those more advanced try out this link. Guide to Tree Sketching  I only printed that one for Isaac who is actually a pretty advanced artist.

In the story the cellar is completed "four corners... neat and square."  We looked for things in magazines that were square.

 My younger kids are still grasping the terms for shapes so we did a hunt around the house for things that are square shaped also.

Looking at the bookshelf for square things.

Hunting in the living room for squares.

On the final day of our unit study, instead of reading the book again, we found a "movie" version of it on YouTube.  It was the book being read plus some songs, and was about a half an hour long.  My kids loved it!  You can find it AT THIS LINK HERE!

Fun book enjoyed by the girls as well as by the boys.

*Amazon affiliate link to book

Country Class - Israel

Once a month the younger kids get together with a group to learn about a country.  This month the country was Israel.  After hearing about it and watching a slide presentation it was time for hands-on!

Cooking time was up first.  Their table made falafel, while others made hummus still others chopped ingredients to go along with the dish. While the falafel was cooking, they learned a "nonsense" song that children play in Israel.  This was complete with lots of hand action.  I wish I had pictures, but I was too busy keeping Jen upright!  LOL!

Our art project was mosaics.  Jen chose a vase, and Pat and Abigail chose a trivet.

At this point the falafel was done.  They ate it along with flat bread and hummus.  All three liked the falafel they had made.  I thought Jen would be the one not to like the hummus since she has the tendency towards texture issues, but she and Pat ate it all.  Poor Miss A, in spite of LOOKING like she is really going to chow down on it, ended up gagging - literally. 

They have such fun at these classes and the staff at Greenacres Foundation are just the best!

Five in a Row Curriculum - The Story About Ping

I was especially excited to do The Story About Ping.  Not only was it a personal favorite from when I was a little girl, but it takes place in China on the Yangtze River.  What a fun way to incorporate some Chinese history and culture into our school day!

When I asked for a volunteer to point out China on our world map, I expected Isaac (the thirteen year old) to volunteer.  Nope!  Abigail - the youngest - hopped up and pointed it right out!  Wow, was I surprised, and she was thrilled that she got to put the FIAR story disk on the map!

We looked at how large the country is.  There are only two countries larger and Isaac was able to name them. (Canada and Russia).  They colored flags of China for their lapbooks.  Sources for this unit were from the FoldNLearn which is a free download from the Five in a Row publisher's blog and searches for Ping on the Internet.  There are all sorts of things available for this one.

It is the story of a young duck who, in order to avoid a spank as the last to return to the boat, decided instead to HIDE.  He faced all sorts of danger because of that decision.  I loved how the serious discussions that I NEED to have with my kids happened so naturally as we talked about the characters in the story.  A new vocabulary word was DISCERNMENT, something that children raised in an orphanage are really lacking.  We had a nice discussion about how one has to think all the way through an idea to what will happen as the end result.  The idea may NOT be such a good one after all!

We found it a little funny that part of our "school work" was to eat a Chinese meal.  So I made some super easy fried rice for lunch.  This is something we actually eat frequently in our house.

After lunch we had an easy afternoon of movies, starting with two episodes of Wild China on Netflix. I had originally intended to watch just the first one because it shows the fishermen and their cormorant fishing birds (as was mentioned in our book) but we found it so fascinating that we went on to watch another episode. (We ended up watching all six episodes by the time we finished with this study!)

Bill Nye the Science Guy's episode (library DVD) simply titled, "Buoyancy fit in well with this unit."  The kids liked it so much that they asked to watch it twice.

I introduced the kids "tally marks; and we used them to add up Ping's family members.  Then using a photo of our family that was taken at Christmastime.  We compared how many were in Ping's family to how many were at our family Christmas celebration.

30

68

Then we helped get Ping to his boat just for fun.

 Another new vocabulary word was HYPOTHESIS.  Each child (plus one this particular day as a grandson was with us!) gathered three things and made their scientific guess as to whether the object would float or sink.

Then they put it to the test.

There are a lot of supplemental lapbook/worksheets for Ping.  We did various math and language arts activities with Ping or duck based worksheets. Search online or see Pinterest. You will find many available to print for free.

While we could have spent a lot more time on studying about ducks or floating properties, I chose to focus more on Chinese history and geography in this study.  Whatever you choose, Ping is fun!


Other resources:

BOOKS:

My First Book About China by Christina Calkins
Ducks! by Gail Gibbons
Goodnight, My Duckling by Nancy Tafuri
Whose Chick are You? by Nancy Tafuri
Backyard Wildlife: Ducks by Derek Zobel
Ducks Don't Get Wet by Augusta Goldin
Baby Animals: Ducks by Alice Twine
Little Quack by Lauren Thompson

MOVIES:

Wild China set of 6 episodes by BBC
Listen to the story being read on YouTube

Globe Trekker China. This is a two disc travel guide DVD.

HEADS - UP!  I got a dvd from the library called "Up the Yangtze" a Yung Chang Film thinking it would give a good tour of the Yangtze River and some of the culture around it today.  Please don't make the same mistake! The subject matter, the language, alcohol, and disrespect towards the parents made this a big NO in our family.  We didn't get far into it before stopping it and moving on to something else.

Five in a Row Curriculum -- Owl Moon

Owl Moon* is a delightful story of a little boy who has waited to be "big enough" to go out after bedtime with his dad to look for an owl.  This unit unfortunately fell between Thanksgiving and Christmas so I did a poor job of remembering to take photos or notes, sorry!

An especially good conversation starter for our family was talking about the rules the little boy had to follow in order for the owling experience to be successful.  That led into why WE have certain rules in our household that must be followed for everyone to stay safe and provide a calm and neat atmosphere in our home.

We also discussed flexibility - the father was flexible in allowing the little boy to stay up late -- and how sometimes we are flexible to allow for special events.  With the holidays upon us this was a good discussion!  Our children (who spent years in an orphanage) really depend on routine, but holidays call for being flexible!

It was actually a warm (for winter) sunny day so we went out to investigate shadows.  Here is where I say "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" because I know I took photos and they are just gone.  They had a good time chasing their shadow and guessing what other shadows were from -- ie the van, the house, etc.

Another thing my children really enjoyed was learning about the tracks that different animals make in the snow.  One can find several books along this subject line and here are a few that we enjoyed:

After learning about different types of tracks they worked on pictures where they stamped the foot print of various woodland animals and stamped and/or drew their habitat.

 

We studied a little about the moon itself and its different phases.  For a sensory experience in learning about it check out episode 9 of The Treeschoolers (from Signing Time) "In this episode, Simon gets worried when he sees the moon slowly disappearing! As Rachel and the TreeSchoolers set out to solve “The Mystery of the Missing Moon,” they learn about the sun, moon, stars, planets and the scientists whose questions and curiosity led to important discoveries about our universe."

We read several books about various types of owls (and I regret not getting the titles written down before returning them to the library!)  But probably the most favorite thing about this unit was watching a movie called  Owl Power on Netflix  It was so fascinating that the kids asked to watch it a second time - when it wasn't school time, just for fun!

I hope you won't let my holiday neglect of record keeping give the impression that this book was a dud.  Give it a try!  There is a lot of fun learning to be had!


*Affiliate Link

Five in a Row Curriculum: Night of the Moonjellies

This book tells the story of a little boy who takes a walk on the beach.  He stops to pick up some things that he has found such as sea glass and then something that he doesn't even recognize.  He takes it to his grandmother to show her what he has in his bag.  We follow the day through the work that happens at his family's restaurant.  When the restaurant closes for they day, his grandmother takes him on an amazing adventure on the "Periwinkle"

After reading the book MY kids were amazed, and even more so when they saw the real things in action on the short video Moonjellies at Georgia Aquarium on YouTube

As usual, we followed up the reading with some work on a FoldNLearn project.  These lapbooks are wonderful resources for FIAR and available free when you subscribe to the publisher's blog.  
You can also find some free supplements here:  Night of the Moonjellies lapbook.

We continued to learn about these amazing creatures through various library books.  (See list at the end of this post.)  Our craft project was making a jellyfish from styrofoam bowls and ribbons:

We finished the school day by eating "jellyfish" for lunch.  In reality these were sausages that I precooked, then stuck raw spaghetti noodles through.  After boiling they had "reaching arms" just like the moonjellies!

Moonjellies for lunch!

 Day 2

Our story takes place near the Atlantic Ocean, so we talked about the New England states.  Since my kids were obviously not taught American History in their Chinese orphanage, we talked very briefly about the Pilgrims and WHY these particular states are called "New England" states.  When we finish this book we will be spending a couple of weeks on the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving, so today was just an introduction.

Isaac placed our story disc in the New England states on the USA map.

Some work in our lapbooks.

We watched an IMAX movie about life in the ocean.  They were very wowed!

While lacing cards may not be an obvious choice to many with 9 - 10 year old kids, our kids weren't given a lot of fine motor opportunities when they were growing up, and this is actually a challenge for them.  It is also really good occupational therapy for the two with Cerebral Palsy.

Our friend Beth brought us a box of shells, sand dollars, star fish, etc. that she and her children collected on the beach.  I've had them put aside for hands on learning, and today was the day!  They were so fascinated to be able to handle these things that we don't see in Ohio!

One thing mentioned as popular in the family's restaurant in Night of the Moonjellies  is onion rings.  We tried making some.

Our unit study for this day ended happily with eating onion rings and lobster bisque for lunch!

 Day 3

After reading the book today we discussed WHY the family would have a restaurant, and why in our house Baba goes to work every day.  This introduced a money theme.  None of them knows American money, of course, so we talked about the coins today.  We looked at exactly what is on each one (search on the Internet for printables - there are many) talked briefly about the president on each coin, and watched a short video about how coins are made.  A video about minting coins HERE on YouTube.

This led to a discussion about what type of work they would like to do for a living.  Each child chose something and we figured out what their responsibility would be, where they would do the job, and what supplies they would need. 

Pat chose walking dogs as his job (which is hilarious since he is afraid of any kind of animal) but everyone was surprised that if they walked dogs as a job, one of their responsibilities would be carrying a little plastic bag and cleaning up after the dogs!  Ewwww!

We finished out the morning with a movie about Al Gidding, a pioneer in underwater photography.  This gave a double whammy of further exploring jobs that people can do plus giving some amazing views of sea life.  It was a little slow paced for the younger three kids.

Day 4 - We worked on coloring underwater life for a diorama.  Isaac used reference books to make his realistic,

while the younger kids went more by their imagination.

We had shrimp for lunch

And dessert was ocean"water" (blue jellow) and gummy fish.

 Right about now several of us came down with bad colds and ick!  Regular school just wasn't going to work for us.  That is the beauty of homeschooling though.... learning continued (along with the coughs and nose blowing!) as we spent a day watching educational movies about life under the sea.

I was feeling better the following day, but my voice was scratchy and hoarse.  My sweet daughter-in-law read the book to them this time.

We finished up the dioramas.

  We used watercolor paints to create jellyfish.

Abigail's and Isaac's painted jellyfish.

And continued to work in our Fold'N Learn/lapbooks.  This page reviewed vocabulary of life around the sea.

Isaac is so very, very curious about life -- all of it!  He is a great learner, and has lots of intelligent questions about the things we study.

A view inside Abigail's lapbook after her painting was added.

We decided to attempt making "sea glass" candy.  The kids all LOVE to work in the kitchen.

After boiling for a long time (seriously it took about 30 minutes to reach 310 degrees!) we poured it into a greased cake pan and placed it in the refrigerator to cool.  This was the result once we smashed it into glass.

Do note that some of the pieces can be very sharp -- realistic glass right here!  Be cautious in letting the kids help themselves before you check how the pieces turned out.  Another note:  my kids didn't like the feeling when this candy got stuck in their teeth.  It was tasty, but hard to eat.

And then we ended our unit with clam chowder for dinner.  They all loved it and took multiple helpings.

We all enjoyed studying Night of the Moonjellies.  Hope you do too!

Supplemental Books used:

A Jellyfish is Not a Fish by John F. Waters
Jellyfish by David C. King
Sea Jellies, Rainbows in the Sea by Elizabeth Tayntor Gowell
Naturebooks - Jellyfish by Sharon Sharth

DVDs

IMAX Under the Sea
Under the Sea with Al Giddings (great for exploring unusual jobs too!)
Oceans - Exploring the Secrets of our Underwater World (BBC)
Jewels of the Caribbean Sea - National Geographic
The Blue Planet - BBC
The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That -- episode about the coral reef on Netflix
Finding Nemo - Disney -- ok not educational but the kids enjoyed seeing the creatures in a fun type setting that they had become familiar with during this unit.