Lesson – Lentil and USA, Ohio

FIAR Book 1: Lentil

General theme : Musical Instruments, Orchestra

Chinese : 5 senses

Literature :

Phonics : The Reading Lesson’s Lesson 3 – Covered the alphabets ‘e’, ‘g’ & ‘th’

Vocabulary : lentil, whittle, indignant, chuckle, pennies

Science : High and low pitches in music

Math FIAR : Followed FIAR’s manual – Fractions

World : USA, Ohio – The famous people from Ohio

Bible : David and Goliath (From Danielle’s Place)

Food : Lime Juice and Pizza Baking

Outing : Look at monuments in Singapore, good to bring to some outdoor free concerts organised by SSO

This entry is actually 80% done, but didn’t complete it due to my Hong Kong Trip.

What I listed in this blog is in addition to the suggested lessons in FIAR.  For copyright issue, I will be safe, and will not list out topics covered in the curriculum manuals.

Another note: we only have 3 schooling weeks per week, and I usually try to complete within 2 weeks to complete my lessons.

Science – Music

Setup: Harmonica, bottles, different types of containers for the maraca, different types of materials for the maracas.

Play the Harmonica

Ethan (and Zoe) had fun playing with the harmonica

Musical instruments in an Orchestra

I happened to have a chart with all the musical instruments in an orchestra. That certainly comes in handy

Following Tempo

Had Ethan followed the beat via clapping.  First started with simple clap, and he followed.  Gradually increased to 2-beat, etc.

Glass Bottle Music

Ethan with his bottle music

I filled 4 glass bottles (actually bought it from Ikea for this purpose) up to different water levels.  Ethan had fun exploring the different pitch from each of the bottle.

First, he was left to free play with it with the bottles lined up from low to high sound.  I got him to noticed which bottle has high and which has low pitch.

Next, I jumbled the bottles and his task was to align them from low to high, or high to low pitch.

Last, I blindfolded him (eh, the blindfolding took quite a bit of convincing), I hit 2 (and subsequently all 4 bottles), he had to guess which bottle has the lowest/hghest pitch purely using his hearing.  Challenging but fun 🙂

Generally, this part of the lesson is a big success.  Cause he was subsequently able to tell him about high and low pitch when he hears sounds.

Surprise! Surprise! He actually allowed me to blindfold him!

Homemade Maracas/Rattles (1)

Siblings making ‘maracas’

Used different materials for the inside of the ‘maracas’.  The purpose was to have Ethan observed how the materials affect the sound from the ‘maracas’.

Anything can be used.  For us, the materials that we used : cut papers, shallots/garlic and rice/beans/macaroni.

Homemade Maracas/Rattle (2)

Had 2 same bottles, filled it with same type of materials, BUT different amount. Had Ethan observed how the amount of materials can also affect the sound.

Preferably use transparent bottles so that the child can see the amount clearly.

Chinese – 5 senses

The following song was sung to the tune of “Where is Thumbkin”, and modified according to the sense that we were doing.

 

口 在 那 里，口 在 那 里

在 这 里，在这 里

我 用 口 吃东 西，

我 用 口 吃东 西，

真 好 吃，真好 吃。

Song modified for the following.

耳  – 听 ，  鼻  – 闻 ，  眼 – 看 ，  手  – 摸

We also did some worksheets from those assesment books easily purchased from the bookshops.

Sense of taste – 口

Setup: Food with different types of taste, lime for making lime juice

Sang the above song.

Prepared a few things for Ethan to taste without looking at the item.

We did this activity last year in English, but back than, he wasn’t that adventurous to try.  I’m glad that when we re-visit this activity again, he was game to try all the different tastes.  We used food with various taste, ie, sweet, salty, bitter and sour.

Learn to write 口 using this:

Writing 口

Couldn’t find a worksheet for him to practise, so did one myself.

Made lime juice as part of the Chinese lesson.

Made limejuice

Sense of Hearing – 耳

Sing song.

Played guess the sound of animal game.  Good chance to revise the name of the animals learnt in the previous farm animals theme. 

Sense of Sight

Sing song.

Using a binocular, play I spy.

Sense of Touch

Sing song.

Touch various objects in a bag, describe how it felt.

Sense of Smell

Sing song.

Prepare 5 items (fried shallots, sour plum, sugar, macaroni, blachan).  Blindfolded Ethan, he had to use his sense of smell to guess what was the item.  Items like sugar and macaroni basically has no smell, encouraged him to use other ways like shaking, touching, and even tasting.

Highlighted that most times, we use more than 1 sense at a time.

Math – Fractions

Using thick cardboards from carton boxes, and construction papers, I made these:

“Pizza”, “Cake” & “Cookie”  for fraction

1/4 – Pizza

I introduced the lesson by saying;

“Hei Ethan, today we are having pizza for lunch!”

And I brought out the ‘pizza’.  Of course looking and hearing it, he was already all excited about it.  I next said:

“Hei, there are 4 of us, Aunty, you, Zoe and mummy, how should we cut?”

He subsequently said to cut into 4 pieces.  We moved on to talk about making sure that the 4 pieces are of equal sizes, and that each piece is 1/4 pc of pizza.

I was pretty surprise that he could actually tell me that each piece is “one-quarter” without me first telling him.  He told me he knew about it because of the 1/4 baking cups.  Hmmm… the baking time with him seems to be great teaching time too!

1/3 – Cookie

Continued the lesson saying:

“Hei, you know what, I prepared desert!”

Brought out the cookie.  Told him, Aunty was already full, so, only Zoe, he and me were sharing.  This led to introduction to 1/3.

1/2 – Cake

Lastly, brought out the ‘cake’ saying:

“Today we are going to celebrate Zoe’s (or anybody’s) birthday again!”

Sang “Happy Birthday” song, and went on telling him mummy is full, so he and Zoe could share the cake.

This led to 1/2.  He is definitely familiar with half cause I use this term a lot when getting him to drink water, ie, I would pour half cup and tell him, to drink ‘half cup/bottle/etc”.

Extension
(1) Can continue with fractions by talking about telling time, ie, quarter to X, half pass X, quarter pass X.

World – USA, Ohio

Was wondering what I can do with Ohio, USA, surprise surprise! Found some interesting facts about Ohio!

– Many Presidents comes from Ohio

– Some great inventors from Ohio, Thomas Edison, 1 of the Wright Brothers

– Birth Place of Aviation, Wright Brothers, 1st man to rotate the earth, 1st man to land on moon, they are all from Ohio!

This homeschooling is really more of a learning time for me than my kiddos!

Anyway, we made a book on all the interesting things and facts about Ohio, State map, state flag, emblem, famous people, Birth Place of Aviation, State flower, mammal, reptile, insect, etc…

Ohio, USA Book

Did a simple craft from : http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/space/mspace.html 

Space craft 

Bible : David and Goliath

The lesson plan from Danielle really did well to catch Ethan’s attention.  Made a nearly 9ft drawing of Goliath and hung at our school!

Besides the crafts suggested, I use air-dry clay to allow Ethan to make 5 pebbles.  Once dried, we painted it.  I wrote the memory verse on the pebbles, and that will serve as our memory verse game.

5 pebbles with memory verse written

Great links

Orchestra : http://www.sfskids.org//templates/home.asp?pageid=1

Ohio, USA : http://www.discoverohio.com/kids/homework.asp

Orbiting Earth craft from DLTK : http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/space/morbit.htm

Astronauts (Great web by Nasa for kids) : http://edspace.nasa.gov/astroschool/

Coming Up Next…