A unit on China

Because my oldest daughter is so fascinated with China, I have decided to put together a unit on the country.

Map work:
- locate China on the map or on the globe.
- China is the 4th largest country in the world.
- The capital is Beijing.
- Population of 1 330 044 600.

China flag:

Make your own flag/ Printa page and color it: http://www.crayola.com/free-coloring-pages/print/china-coloring-page/

Books on China:

The Story About Ping (Marjorie Flack ISBN: 0140502416)
Pi-Shu, the Little Panda (John Butler ISBN: 1408303612)
A Grain of Rice (Helena Clare Pittman ISBN: 044041301X)
Chinese Children's Favorite Stories (Mingmei Yip ISBN: 0804835896)
First Thousand Words in Chinese (Usborne ISBN: 0794515509)
The Great Wall of China (Leonard Everett Fisher ISBN: 0689801785)
Good Morning China (Hu Yong Yi ISBN: 1596432403)

And one on chinese writing:



Natural Study: Silk Worms

Legend has it that Lady Xi Ling Shi, the 14 year old bride of the Emperor Huang Ti, the so-called 'Yellow Emperor' first discovered silk in 2640 BC.

According to Confucius, as she sat drinking tea under a mulberry tree, a silk cocoon fell from above. She noticed the delicate fibres start to unravel in the tea and so has been credited as the first person to 'reel' or unravel a silk cocoon and use the filament to create a yarn for weaving.

The mulberry silk moth is indigenous to China and the Chinese, realizing the value of the beautiful material they were able to produce by weaving silk thread, kept its secret safe from the rest of the world for more than 30 centuries.

- Make a drawing of the silk worm and its life cycle.

Chinese Food:

In the chinese kitchen, you will find:

in the pantry: baby corn, bamboo shoots, noodles (made with wheat, rice, beans, tapioca, soybeans or seaweeds), rice, sesame seeds, water chestnuts

in the fridge: chicken, pork, shrimp, tofu, won ton wrappers

fresh produce: bell peppers, broccoli, chilies, cilantro, garlic, ginger

Prepare a chinese meal; rice, steamed vegetables, sweet and sour pork, ... Do not forget to eat with chopsticks!

A few recipes:

Asian Peanut Beef & Noodles: http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/asian-peanut-beef-noodles-88888.aspx

Chinese-Style Fried Rice: http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/chinese-style-fried-rice-86901.aspx

Pork Lo Mein: http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/pork-lo-mein-107769.aspx

Sweet & Sour Pork: http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/slow-cooker-sweet-sour-pork-87605.aspx

Egg rolls, won ton soup, beef with peppers, steamed rice, sticky rice, chinese good fortune cookies... so many recipes to chose from.

Make a chinese lantern:

http://www.crayola.com/free-coloring-pages/print/chinese-lantern-coloring-page/

Have fun with origami!

Listen to chinese music:

http://www.amazon.ca/Masterpieces-Chinese-Traditional-Instrumental-Ensemble/dp/B000005ARL/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1246325634&sr=8-5

This is a short unit, as we will be studying Ancient China in dept with SOTW soon.

Keeping busy

I have been printing things most of the afternoon. I have the winter pages and apple pages all done, I only need to wait for my study to be all done to start laminating and organizing all those games and pages. Alexandra is going to love those.

Next, I will print activity pages for the alphabet and maybe the crayon theme.

A change in my plans... I have decided to not move the school room in what is the kitchen now. I am moving it into what is the living room instead. I cannot seem to find a good way to get the living room to look good but know exactly how I would in what is the kitchen. So, the living room is going in the kitchen, the kitchen is going in the school room and the school room is going in the living room. Did you catch all that? lol The foyer is still the foyer, although I am thinking of making a place for the piano in there. The dining room will be in between the kitchen and living room. The basement staircase will become the laundry room and pantry. The bathroom and toilet room will become one, finally. The playroom is almost our bedroom now. And our bedroom will be my study in a few days. The basement will still be for the furnases, although we are moving them both to the other chimney and making a room around them. We are also making a bigger and more efficient cold room. The rest of the basement will hold place for a small toilet room, a small home gym with a wall that will have a long mirror on it so the girls can practice their ballet. The rest will be a playroom for the kids, wich means about half the basement. Everyone here loves this new idea, except for Patrick who only sees all the work involved, lol. Obviously, not everything will get done this year but we will do as much as we can. Next year, we concentrate on the yard, movig the garage, building a new fence and front and back porch, landscaping and maybe even a pool.

Yep, keeping busy. Oh, I got all the geography pages done today too. Yay me!

New educational dvds

Yet again, I have found the perfect dvds to help answer some of my kids' questions:





Those two dvds answer question about under the sea, like How do fishes sleep? Do mermaids relaly exist? What is a clown fish? to What are the nastiest fishes? Is coral alive? Is the dolphin clever? or What is a tarpon?

My kids love love love those dvds and are already asking when the next ones are coming out, lol.

A Unit on Winter

I have been keeping busy, putting together new and fun units for the kids. Since it has been so hot here these past few days,I decided to skip over planning the Fall unit and move directly to Winter, hoping it would cool me down. It did not happen.

Here is the unit. I am sure some things will be changed and some will be added, as usual.

WINTER unit

Book list:

The Snowflake; Kenneth Libbrecht ISBN: 0896586308
Snowflakes for all Seasons; Cindy Higham ISBN: 158685528x
Le plus beau des bonhommes ISBN: 274591880x
Cher Ours Polaire ISBN: 2700017552
Nanuq, les Mille Vies d'un Inuit ISBN: 2841812952
Ouki ISBN: 2354810261
La Grande Ourse d'Ikomo ISBN: 2081634457
Three Snow Bears ISBN: 0399247920
Le Voyage au Pays des Glaces ISBN: 2700017048
Tadlak, entre Chien et Loup ISBN: 2842776437
Snow Le Petit Esquimau; Françoise Bobé ISBN: 2081614456
Samik et l'Ours Blanc ISBN: 2211065503
The Long Winter; Laura Ingalls Wilder ISBN: 00600581859
A Prairie Boy's Winter; William Kurelek ISBN: 0887766102x
Katy and the Big Snow; Virginia Lee Burton ISBN: 0395185629
The Snowy Day; Ezra Jack Keats ISBN: 0140501827
Magic School Bus in the Arctic; 0590187244
Découvre la Neige et la Glace; Stephen Krensky ISBN: 0439986214



Printed Activities:

http://www.childcareland.com/wintertheme.html

http://www.childcareland.com/wlf.html

http://www.pomverte.com/Hiver.htm


Coloring Pages:

http://www.coloring.ws/winter.htm

http://www.coloring.ws/sports.htm


Crafts:

http://www.dltk-holidays.com/winter/mtpsnowman.html

http://www.dltk-holidays.com/winter/msnowman.html


DVD:

Planet Earth

The Blue Planet

Mighty Machines: Winter Blast

National Gegraphic: Extreme Alaska

National Geographic: Masters of the Artic Ice

National Geographic: Emperors of the Ice

National Gepgraphic: Tigers of the Snow

La Marche des Empereurs


Activities:

Buy a bag of fake snow and make some

Make a glacier (Planet Earth has a kit to make those)


Recipes:

Snow pancakes

Kraft Cheese Igloo http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/kraft-cheese-igloo-84750.aspx

Snow Capped Cookies http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/snow-capped-cookies-87794.aspx

Great Snow Castle http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/great-snow-castle-87836.aspx

Snow-Covered Almond Crescents http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/snow-covered-almond-crescents-82753.aspx

Jell-O Igloo

Snowman cake

Snowman cupcakes http://www.wilton.com/idea/A-Warm-Smile

Falling Snowflakes Cupcakes http://www.wilton.com/idea/Falling-Snowflakes-Cupcakes

Great Ice-scape http://www.wilton.com/idea/Great-Ice-scape

Let is Snow, Man cookies http://www.wilton.com/idea/Let-it-Snow-Man-cookie

Special cake pans: http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=E9935CDE-802D-F658-072A7AE8ED8F12CD&fid=E9935CED-802D-F658-07832170F43A93AA

http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=E99595D6-802D-F658-044AD3391B6E510A&fid=E9959605-802D-F658-036206453781E812

A history timeline

Someone on my provincial homeschool support group shared a great link with us. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was what I had been looking for! A history timeline, yay. Last night, I printed it and now, I only have to laminate it then put it all together. It will be a great addition to our school room. And, best of all, the kids will be able to add to it. Like when we studied pyramids or Rome, they will find a picture or make a drawing and we will add it to the timeline.

The link:

http://mad43.free.fr/spip.php?article608#

Obviously, it is in French :)

Sharing a great link

I have been wanting to put together some fun games and more for Alexandra. While looking online, I found this site:

http://www.childcareland.com/

Oh, what a dream for a homeschooling mom! There are so many free printables, I do not know where to start. Of course, the site is having a sale, which is making me wonder if I should not just buy the cd and get almost all the activities then I could chose and print complete sets.

I am thinking, I am thinking. To tell you the truth, I love the idea of putting together a complete set for every month, every special day.

A few of the themes available:

Christmas
Winter
Crayons
Easter
Butterflies
Flowers
Ice Cream Cones
Under the Sea
Autumn
Apples
Bears
Dinosaurs
Cars

And some of the activities:

File Folder Games
Forms
Lacing Cards
Shapes
Matching Mats
Letters and Numbers
Awards

The only thing that cd does not have are the learning centers, but they are also on sale.

The teaching ideas are really great. I need more ink for my printer now, lol. But, I am getting so much things put together for my kids. See, my oldest daughter says she is homeschooling HER little sister. But she says, the games we have are not for homeschooling. They are just to have fun. We need some homeschooling games. That means games on paper, just like the ones I am putting together.

A few things I am happy about: I have my own printer and laminator. I have a glue gun. And I have a $ store not far from here, lol. I love buying all the glitter for the snowmen, the ribbon for the gifts, the little white stuff for the stockings, the stickers for everything I feel needs them and so much more. And the total price is not bad at all. While I put things together, the kids can do crafts, which is one of their favorite activities.

I hope you will check out that site. I know I would have missed out on so much without it.

Thinking of changing math curriculums

We have used Singapore Math since the very beginning. It is a great curriculum and I enver thought we would use anything else. But, as Catherine moves from grade to grade, she is hating the solving problems. Solving math problems is not always easy but solving them when they are in another language is even harder. So, I think it is time to use something in French. I already bought grade 1-6 of Défi-Math and I think that, even though I would want my daughter to start from grade 1, she would enjoy it much more. The first grades would be like practice so she would move quickly through them. I know it would mean a lot of math work at first but the end result would be worth it. She could still work on her Singapore Math books when she feels like it, because she really loved them (as long as there are no solving problems).

I have a few weeks to think about it and, obviously, I will talk to her about it too.

Books, computer desk and more

We went garage saling this morning and were quite lucky. I was able to get a small computer desk with chair for the kids'. They were quite happy and now, have been asking Daddy to get their computer on it AND install of the games on it, lol.

I also got several books for them:





I got a very old book titled Catherine à la ferme. I could not not buy it for my daughter Catherine. I got a Star Wars book for the boys and a few more but most were old titles so no pictures online. I also got several Archie comics and sone canning supply, which are always needed around here.