Happy Valentine's Day!

A week ago showed the kids making their  Valentine Boxes for the parties.  First up was the celebration held by our homeschool co-op.

 

And then the big family party!

Yes, that is a punch bowl full of cheese!  Our tradition is for each person to make their own heart-shaped pizza.  Thing is, there are a LOT of us now!  We invited a few friends so this party had close to forty people!

  

We hope you had a great weekend celebrating those whom you love!

Good news!

The rough draft of our home study was received by our placement agency today.  Here's hoping they approve it quickly!

Party Time!

Valentine's Day is a big deal in our family. It is one of those "must do's" kind of like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Our big family party is this coming Saturday, but even before that is our homeschool co-op party which is Wednesday! We ditched our Five in a Row curriculum this week to study about WHO St. Valentine was and the history of the holiday. Then the kids spent a few happy hours signing cards and making boxes to take to tomorrow's party. Fun! 

Tikvah was the late comer to the creating party and is still working on hers.  I know what she is doing and it is going to be quite the masterpiece!

So here is Pat's box, but where is Pat?

Winter arrived in Ohio this week and this boy is FASCINATED with the snow!  He couldn't be bothered with sticking around for a picture!  

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!

Mission Accomplished!

And its a wrap!  Today's mission was to collect the last document that we are responsible for - the rabies shot certificate from the vet.  Pat was my helper, and showed how strong he was by carrying Marshmallow - she is the white cat in the carrier on top. 

Just because WE are done, doesn't mean the home study is finished.  We are still waiting on the Ohio state clearances (it will be SIX WEEKS on Tuesday), some references, and the social worker's report.  Please pray with us that those all come in very, very soon. 

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.

Valentine's/Chinese New Year Auction

We've launched an auction on Facebook to help raise funds for Susy's adoption expenses.  It has a Valentine's and Chinese New Year theme.  You'll find an assortment of jewelry.

And a good selection of Chinese silks in children's sizes 2 - 20.   There are two piece sets for  boys.

And silk dresses for girls.

You can see them all and bid HERE!

The auction will end at 9pm EST on Wednesday, February 3, 2016.  Thanks for looking, and please share with anyone you think may be interested!