Lesson 14: Little Nino’s Pizzeria (+ Italy)

FIAR Book 3: Little Nino’s Pizzeria

Extended Theme : Italy

Social Science : Italy’s Famous food, artist, landmark, Venice,

Science : Yeast, Sense of Smell

Maths Concept : Fraction

Vocabulary : knead, grate, oregano, basil

Chinese : “二” character, vegetable nursery song

Bible : The Good Samaritan – “Love Your Neighbour as Yourself” Matt 22:39 

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

“Little Ethan’s Pizzeria”

This book gave us a good opportunity to look into what having a restaurant can be like, and also how to make pizza.

Ingredients shopping 

Pizza’s list of ingredients.  There are more on the other side. (Excuse my ugly and bad drawing.)

1st day of lesson, went shopping for the ingredients needed for our pizza making.  Make a list, and laminated it, so that it can be kept for future used.  Laminating make it easy for us to use a whiteboard marker to tick the items.

Next… the pizza making

Ethan in his ‘chef hat’ kneading the pizza dough

Things that a 4yo can do include:

1. kneading (the early part when the dough is still soft)
2. cutting ingredients like ham, pineapple, etc
3. put own ingredients on the pizza

The pizzas before baking… forgot to have a pic of the baked product, cos we were alllll too hungry!!!

The ‘restaurant’

 

Ethan insisted on setting up the restaurant… okie, be it!!! He had fun!

The pizza… yummy…. As I’m updating this, my tummy is rumbling!!!

Science – Food Pyramid  

Our previous lesson on food pyramid set the foundation for this.  Have Ethan fit in where all the ingredients supposed to go on the food pyramid.  Emphasized that on top of the food shown in the pyramid, we need at least 6 cups of water a day to stay healthy.

Science – Sense of Smell

Have a few of the ingredients in an opague cup, blindfolded Ethan to have him guess which ingredient is it. 

 

FIAR : Yeast Science (from FIAR message board)

Have three small bowls of water: cold, warm and hot. We placed a little sugar in each bowl of water to “feed” the yeast, and then put about a teaspoon of yeast in each bowl. We are observing to see which temperature is more condusive to yeast.

Do leave the mixture for a few hours.  At first, the yeast has no reastion to the cold water.  But few hours later, we observed that it did get frosty, but not as much as the warm water.  Zero reaction to hot water… Guess the hot water ‘killed’ the yeast!

Art – Painting of Vegetable

 

Pepperoni and tomato painting

The key to this lesson is to have him notice how the basic red paints can be mixed with a little black, yellow, etc, to make it into different shades and color.

I also want him to notice the shines on the pepperoni and tomato, which explained the white patches on the painting.

Detail – is the key…

And… Ethan is still not drawing match. By drawing simple shaped objects, I hope to awaken the tiny creativity within him.

Chinese – Days of the Week Song

I love to use simple song to help Ethan remember stuff.  It was through songs that he could remember days of week in English easily.  Likewise, I did the same for Chinese. 

Here’s the song we use, to the tune of “我的朋友在哪里”

一个星期有七天

一二三四五六七

一个星期有七天

那么今天是哪一天
今天今天是星期____

Now we sing this song daily when we do the Chinese calendar.

We also sang the song, 拔萝卜. At first, he was reluctant, but after few days of singing, Ethan now love the song!!!

Chinese – Name of Pizza Ingredients

  

Made a pizza collage, and while he did it, introduced the name of the ingredients in Chinese.

Maths – Fraction

Use the pizza collage made during Chinese lesson to teach about fraction.  I focused only on 1/2 and 1/4.

Italy

Italy – General Knowledge

Ask where is pizza most widely eaten. Ans : Italy

Where is Italy? Ans : Europe, show map

What are the other famous food in Italy? Spaghetti, Risotto

What other thing is Italy famous for? Leaning Tower of Pisa, and Colosseum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa

How does Italy’s flag look like?

Italy Flag

Italy ‘flag’ made by pasting colored pastas on paper

Ethan surprise me when he put in great efforts to make sure the pastas were nicely laid.  This is the first time I see him doing a craft so neatly.

Gondola

Sang the following song to the tune of “Row Row Row Your Boat”

Row Row Gondola

Row Row Gondola

I’m a Gondolier

Row Row Gondola

I’m an Italian

Italy – Famous Artist

Who are the famous people in italy? Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo

Leonardo da Vinci: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/vinci/

Have Ethan try to draw Mona Lisa

Michelangel http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/michelangelo/

Show website : http://www.k12.hi.us/%7Eelake/italy/italy.html

Bible Theme – The Good Samaritan

This link requires subscription.  But there are other bible activity that comes free at the web.

http://www.kidssundayschool.com/Preschool/index.php

Lesson 12 & 13: Andy and The Lion, Circus

B4FIAR Book : Andy and The Lion

Extended Theme : Circus

Science : Lion

Vocabulary : Carnivores, Big Top, Ringmaster, Tightrope walker, trapeze, juggler

Chinese : “一” character, shapes, circus animals

From the basic FIAR recommended activities and lessons, I extended the lesson to touch on Circus.  This was really more fun than ‘proper’ school, ie, learn through fun, which is really the reason why I enjoy homeschooling (I hope Ethan enjoy too.)  Afterall, circus is meant to be fun right?!

Additional stuffs done with the “Andy and the Lion” lesson week:

Record roar

With “Andy and The Lion”, we did most of the lessons suggested in the FIAR text.  I actually wanted to record our lion roar, so Ethan can hear his own roar, but both my tape recorder didn’t work… sigh… He was looking forward to doing so.

About Lion : Male, Female, Carnivores

Wanted to introduce the term: carnivores, and also the fact that male lions are the one with manes.  This is done via the craft from http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/melion.html .

Had Ethan did the male while I did the female.  Told him that Ethan is a boy, so he will do the ‘boy lion’, ie, the one with mane.  While doing, especially when he was painting the mane, kept reinforcing to him that he is a male lion.

Did the African chant that we did for our very 1st lesson.  Not too bad, cos Ethan could remember most part of it still.

Lesson 13 : Circus

Animals in the circus

No circus in town now, so the next closest is the shows at the zoo.  Started the Circus theme at the zoo to catch the “Elephant At Work And Play” and “Wonders of the Wild”.  Walked around a little to have Ethan ‘guess’ which are the animals that we can usually see at the circus.  Read “Little Monkey Says Good Night” by Ann Whitford Paul to introduce the various acts in the circus.

Clown pancake

Back home, the following day started with:

Clown Pancakes… Made pancakes, dig out the colored chocolate rice, coin chocolate, butter, jam, syrup, raisins, all just to make the pancake a little like a clown…

Next:

Big Top at home

  

Dug out our unused mosquito net, pulled some ribbons, set it up, and here it is, our very own ‘Big Top’… oh well, not that BIG, more like ‘Small Top’, but it was  the experience of having animals within, and plain fun…

This pic was taken on one of our lesson days when we invited our neighbour’s daughter over to play.

Other ‘hands-on’

Animal Training : Bring out hula hoops and let the kids train their ‘animals’ to go through the hoops

Juggler : Have the children juggle with one bean bag. (throw up and catch) If they master that. see if they can do two.

Tight Rope Walking : Place a skipping robe onto the floor for the children to walk along, pretending to be a tight rope walker.

Play “Ringmaster Says” : Played just like “Simon Say” except the teacher says “Ringmaster Says.” (also made a Ringmaster’s top hat.)

Science - Static Balloons : Learn about static electricity by rubbing a balloons on a childs head, then stick it onto the wall. Use crepe paper, paper snake, etc…

Chinese

I spent one of the nights thinking about how am I going to teach Chinese to Ethan without ‘killing’ it… have some plans in mind, will try it out, test it out, and blog it down here sometimes soon…

Circus Animals

Sang “两 只 老 虎”.  Sang a few rounds, substituting the tiger with other circus animals.

Number : ”一“

Introduced the number character “一”。  My approach for the number recognition is similar to how we did it for the numeric … Drew a huge “一”. and have Ethan decorate it according to the theme. Since we were doing circus, have him put stickers of “一 只 ____“，ie, only 1 of each kind of animal.  While he paste, have him says “一 只 ____“。

Shapes : A Sad 小丑?

Did the clown craft from http://www.first-school.ws/activities/firststeps/clown.htm

Instead of conducting the lesson in English, I did it in Mandarin.  The end result:

Why a sad clown!!!

I got a shock, 1st thought in my mind was: is my son having some trouble, depressed or some ‘disorder’ or ????.  Was tempted to get him to change it into a happy clown, instead, asked him why is his clown sad…

Well, here’s why: while he was working on the clown, I accidentally step on something at home, which caused my sole to bleed.  I was lying on the floor, nearly speechless and to tears due to the pain. 

So, back to why is Ethan’s clown sad, this is what he said:

“Just now mummy hurt and was sad, so the clown is very sad too …”

I was sooooo touched… What a sweet boy… He is really someone with not much empathy, but I’m starting to see some slight change in this area… really glad…

After thought

I’m making myself really busy with all these extended theme that sprung from the basic FIAR lesson… FIAR is not bad, but I find depending on it alone seems a little boring.  And I’m still very used to working base on theme.  Find my direction seems aimless without a theme…