Its Spring in Singapore!

Our 3 weeks topic on trees have reaped some wonderful result… Recently, Ethan, who is more keen on train than anything else, started to gain interest whenever we talk and observe the trees in Singapore.

Just few weeks back, we noticed that Spring arrived in Singapore with many trees around the island blooming.  It was such a fantastic sight, which unfortunately I couldn’t take nice picture of it… BUT, thank God that coincidentally The Straits Time on 15 April had a feature in the Life! section!! What perfect timing!!!

And recently we noticed the rambutan trees around our estate are also blooming. 

Rambutan blossoms

I have been living here for about 4 years, but this is the 1st time I noticed the blossoms!!! Think I’m the one who benefit most from schooling my children.  Which I’m sure many seasoned homeschoolers will agree with me.

Bees are buzzing, flowers are blooming, its Spring time in Singapore!!!

Lesson 9: Katy No-Pocket

Here are the highlights from last week’s lesson:

Zoo we go… In search for Mummy and baby pair

Where else would be a good classroom for such a animal filled book right?!! So off to zoo we go… (yet again!)

Was hoping to spot some animal mother and baby pairs, esp Kangaroo and Joey… But all the kangaroos are so small!

But we were not disappointed, cos we found some monkey (can’t remember their actual name) mother and baby pair.  The monkey infant was riding on the mummy’s back while she moved around the branches swiftly to get food… Nice sight, and so inline with the story…

Can see the baby being piggy-backed by the mummy?

Kangaroo… The main character in the book

Counting in 2s…

With so many animals being introduced, from legless ones like snakes, to millipede, this is certainly a great chance to learn counting in 2s…

I first used simple props, like stones.  Placed it on the number mat, and always add 2, and you will find that the stones landed on the 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc…

That set the background… Once he had gotten the concept, we practiced counting in 2s on the animals mentioned in the book… which was quite a few…

Graph

To reinforce counting in 2s, and to introduce graphing, I have a graph drawn, with “number of animals” against “2, 4, 6, 8, 10, more than 10″

As we counted the number of legs on the animals, we added 1 count to the appropriate box… by the end, walla… we had a nice graph…

God can say “Wait, No, or Yes”

The kangaroo in the book was trying to find a solution to her problem… So for bible teaching, I used this opportunity to teach on how God helps us.  And why sometimes he may not say “Yes” immediately…

The fun part is this:

I got him to pray for a pack of cookie…

And I have a bag of folded papers written “wait”, “no” and “yes”… In between the lesson, Ethan would pick up a piece from the bag and see what’s “God’s answer” to his prayer…  If the answer is “wait” and “no”, he will have to pray for it again… It taught him on perseverance when praying in a very fun way…

Bible story : Hannah Prayed for a Baby

Source :

http://www.kidssundayschool.com/Preschool/Lessons/1prayer02.php (FOC for this lesson plan)

http://www.daniellesplace.com/rroom/html/hannawaitspre.cfm (subscription required)

Looking forward… Let’s find out about Down Under

Ethan seems to fell in love with kangaroo, and I did mention that many kangaroos are from Australia… That got him interested in Australia… So I have decided that the next lesson we gonna touch on will not be any B4FIAR book, but on Australia…

I have already found a cool website that have the full lesson plan… Saved me all the planning… Will share soon…

Lesson 8: Prayer For A Child

B4FIAR Book : “Prayer For A Child”

High Frequency Words : from, look, they

Alpha : ‘S s’

Numbers : 6 – Six

Maths : Similar and Differences

Chinese : Me and My Body

Bible : Creation – Easter

Thoughts

Finally went back to B4FIAR… Doing B4 means there are very very much lesser prep work on my end… but if I use only the suggested activities, there are really not enough ‘fun’ stuffs…  Well, I been really busy, so think for this and a few more weeks, I will do mainly whatever is suggested, and add 1 or 2 things that can ’spice’ up the lesson.  Hopefully can later find a little time to add more fun stuffs to the lesson.

“Prayer For A Child” is a FANTASTIC book… 1 of my favorites in the B4 list of books… Love it so much that I will be buying a copy, but think I have to get it from Amazon, which means high shipping cost…

(For those of you who requested for my weekly lesson plan, sorry that now my lesson plan is mainly taken from curriculum, which is copyright. So I can’t email them out anymore…)

Let’s bake a bread!

The 1st page of the story wrote “Bless this milk and bless this bread”… well, let’s bake a bread than!!!

I stopped baking bread ever since my breadmachine broke down… This time, was my 1st attempt baking from scratch… Got the recipe from Allrecipes, simple to do and easy enough for Ethan to help.  Some of the things that he did:

Sifting flour (got the sift from Ikea, very child friendly)

 

Warming milk (adult supervision required PLEASE)

 

 

Kneading the dough – oh well, not really, more like ‘playing’ the dough!

Result:

A bit too dense, but generally, quite tasty.  Need to find out where did I go wrong… But will definitely try again, afterall, Ethan enjoyed doing it, especially watching and anticipating the dough rise!!!

RAZ

RAZ have activities that does a simple introduction to spelling… and 1 way I found that can make spelling fun is using fridge magnet alphabets… Ethan kept asking for more spelling when I use that!!!

Chinese

We finally serious about it… Did simple nursery song, “Liang3 Zhi1 Lao2 Hu3″, read some Chinese story books, and play Simon says in chinese… pretty good outcome, he had fun w/ the Simon says, and on and off, during leisure time, he will play that on his own… Good that he enjoyed…

Its here!!!

YES… My FIAR manual (vol 3) and the books has arrived… This pile cost me $175.90… But thanks to Angie, else it could have cost me much more if I purchase from other sources… Can’t wait to start this, but will wait till we have finish our B4FIAR…

Angie is a great lady to get great classic children story books from… email her at thehomelibrary@gmail.com if you want to get some good books…

Lesson 7: Our 3 weeks on trees!!!

That’s long time right??? kee kee, finally, rounded up today!

Theme : Trees

High Frequency Words : from, with, at, are

Numbers : 5 – five

Maths : Tree shapes 

Aim

Ethan doesn’t fancy such theme, so my only aim is to get him interested… In the midst of it, it will be a bonus to introduce seasons, shapes of trees and conservation.

Best classroom

What can beat the great outdoor right?  A few of our impromptu lessons on this were held outside… MacRitchie, Lower, Upper Pierce, Zoo and even just near our estates are all great places for this topic… I’m really thankful that our government did lots of measures to make the great outdoor more accessible.

Seasons - The Season of Arnold’s Apple tree by Gail Gibbon

This is a great book to introduce seasons.  And what makes it even better is an online lesson plan that makes it so convenient . (btw, don’t buy, its available in the library, that’s what I did, borrow)

For the craft, I did some modification, and here’s what we got…

  

Hmmm, the blossoms, green and red apples are not very obvious… anyway…

I use lots of glitter glue.  For the blossoms in Spring, we have silver and gold glitter, green for green apples in Summer, red glitter for the red apples in Autumn… And for the snow in winter… none other than liquid paper!!! And the best part is… Ethan enjoyed the glitter and the liquid paper tremendously…

When the child enjoys, I’m sure they will appreciate the craft better, and remember the facts better…

Shapes, Conservation, etc…

This website on tree is a great place…  The best part, its on PC, so could definitely catch Ethan’s attention…

So much more…

I prepared soooo much more stuffs, but didn’t have chances to finish withing the 3 weeks!!! (:P, plain lazy)… Nevermind, target met, let’s move on, I’m tired of the same topic…