Home-SU-Cool

We started school on July 16th 2012, took a month off for Baby Sister's birth and rest and we completed the school year on May 10th 2013. This year we tackled 2nd Grade and IT. WAS. A. BLAST. This is for breakfast today. We're eating America. =) This is for a little celebration (layered Strawberry crumb cake with cream cheese frosting) BIBLE This is what I appreciate most about MFW. I REALLY, REALLY love the bible component. We learnt about the names of Jesus and memorized 15 verses VERY well at heart. Because we put the verses under the table plastic (since halfway through the school year we "lost" our board), the kids get to revise the verses EVERY TIME they were at the table (which is A LOT of the day). Even the girls memorized most of the verses! Near the end of the year, I used the Fighter Verse App that I got for myself (I LOVE THIS APP!) to put in these verses for boy to practice. He had so much fun with it he asked me to put in extra v...

We finally did the Butterfly garden in the summer. It was really cool. But I'm SUPER sensitive to critters. They give me LOTS of goosebumps. I'm trying to be brave for the sake of education. =) Here are the photos  journal-ling the "transformation". And here's the video of when we let the butterflies go.

Cannot believe I actually MISSED the plan for the LAST unit. =) Didn't finish "that well". But I'm not a perfectionist, so I'm ok. =) So, here's the plan AND report for Y-Yellow. We had a BLAST. Colors are just so fun. We did: *Making playdoh (recipe below) in primary colors and then mixing into colors of the rainbow *Rainbow cookies. Oh my, SO PRETTY!!! It was hard work. (recipe below) I want to make this cookie again without the colors, for the more you work on it, the harder it is. It really was. AND, I really want to try it with REAL butter one day. I'm sure it's DELICIOUS. *Science Experiment (I found online here ) It was too funny. I didn't know what to expect and don't even know if this was supposed to be the result. *Mixing colors (food coloring) *Mixing colors for paints (painted mouse paint. Wksheet here *Flower color mini book (well, I made it mini) *Crayons sight words coloring *Color by numbers ( here , under "Y...

I realized I just didn't take much of Q-Quail unit! Also we didn't do much more than the curriculum, but we did go in depth of the bible story and learning to not grumble and be content! This is especially so because we had a WHOLE week of gloomy skies, grey and rainy. But Day 6 finally we had some sun and I decided to give the kids a surprise to the park. They LOVED it.

My son, when thinking about the Q unit, said "Queens!" (where we live) ha. Here is our plan : *Reading in depth the story of the complaning Israelites *Color quails *Bible Memory in progression (like X-Fox) *Object lesson on the oil on feathers Booklist Don't fidget a feather Feathers for lunch Yertle the turtle and other stories The biggest house in the world Count their blessings (Berenstain Bears) Bible Do everything without complaining or arguing (Philippians 2:14)

V-Vegetable got us really thinking about how much vegetable we eat and we attempted to eat more this week. We even made vegetable soup together (the kids helped me cut) Here are what we did besides vegetable soup *planted carrots (success!) *Planted beans (sprouting today) *Planted cilantro (got those little kits from Target for $1) *Did vegetable printing and used them as wrapping paper for Mothers' Day present for Grandma *Learnt about the food pyramid *Read wonderful books *Watched some really cute videos of vegetable and gardens from Sesame Street

V-Vegetable Unit is great for us for our kids really need some "push" in eating vegetables! (though I recently found the magic Spinach...it's versatile and doesn't have a strong taste, so I can put in many dishes and the kids will gladly eat it). Here is our plan: *Teach about the food pyramid, emphasizing on Vegetables (they are GREAT in grains, fruits and dairy). Wonderful resources, posters, games, worksheets here * from the site I printed off a "fruit and vegetable diary" and plan to do a charting at the end of the unit *Vegetable printing (using okra, potato, carrots or other veg) *We happen to have nice vegetable posters and reusable stickers that I put on the windows * Vv tracing for the preschooler *GREAT WONDERFUL Vegetable/garden videos on Sesame Street. Games too! *Make Vegetable Soup *Sprout carrots/beans Booklist The ugly vegetable How Groundhog's garden grew Food for Thought Rabbit Food Mrs Spitzer's garden The tale ...

We didn't have a lot of activities for X-FoX, but I'm very glad that Ian managed to memorize the verse, including the spelling by the last day. (we did a progressive filling in the blanks) We baked gingerbread man(without ginger cos the kids didn't like the taste) and had so much fun reading "Fox in Socks". Ian also found that the new word "enemies" turn up in many instances (in worship songs, in bible reading...) Nowadays I give him Math sums that he needed practice in in his little note book.I think this give him practice at his pace and also in his context. We also found a REALLY funny (and amazing) pbs short clip video of the fox hunting in the snow. He (and his siblings) loved it!

Frog...We have been waiting for this unit! Because... Frog and Toad Together is THE book that helped my son read (sorry, MFW). Seriously. This was how it begun. His dear friend (an auntie) gave him the book. First we read to him. WE fell in love with the most humorous book!!! Then we found some videos online!! Oh my. This really started him on the book. Then he watched so many times (and we read so many times...I can't count) that he started memorizing the stories. Then he started to relate to the words. And he started reading. As in REAL reading. Not like a couple words reading. He can read every single word in that book after a couple weeks. Then we got him the Treasury (used one from Amazon). We read again, he read and again he could read everything. From there, he started reading other words from other places. And the phonetic stuff we have been teaching him started to make sense. I remember the days (actually it's just a few months back) Ian would meticulously wr...

We don't have that many activities for X-FoX but we have lots of books so I intend to read a book every day. Here are our activities *Bible Memory Challenge. I made a series of worksheets to help memorize the verse Ps 119:98 (Ultimately he'll have to write all the words) *I did a tracer using this cool program on this site for my preschooler *we'll do a comparison of fox and dog *We'll do the rhyming game *We'll read Gingerbread Boy and bake gingerbread Booklist Wild Fox, A true Story by Cherie Mason Fox In Socks by Dr. Seuss The Gingerbread Boy " the author is Paul Galdone Chanticleer and the Fox by Barbara Cooney Three Aesop fox fables Dr de soto Hattie and the Fox by Mem Fox Bible Your commands makes me wiser than my enemies because your commands are always in my heart. Ps 119:98

We have been WAITING for this unit!! Just because "Frog and Toad" books are our very very favorites. They are the books that "taught" my son to read and spell. SERIOUSLY. I'll have to write a post JUST on these two FUNNY amphibians. Anyhows, because of that I've decided to put up THEIR pictures instead of the real frogs (they look so much cuter anyways). For our unit, here's the plan *Lots of frog and toad stuff (reading and videos) *Frog Lapbook (get ideas here ) and a pop up card here - Difference between frog and toad *Caterpillar and polliwog video *Easy paper frog craft for the preschooler * Origami *Play leapfrog Some fun online games * Frogmania (eating dragonflies) * madlibs (if your K'ner can write this will be so fun) * tic tac toe Snacks/food * Cookies * Frog egg pops * Frog bread (OH MY GOODNESS, this is SOOOO cute. My hubby said "This is getting out of hand") * Frog fruit Booklist From Tadpole to...

B-Butterfly unit was so much fun!! We had tons of crafts, activities and our preschooler was REALLY involved. Well, mostly because she loves crafts. We had great fun with the food too! Here are what we did: *Pasta life cycle ( I REALLY like this...thank you to my friends for giving me the different pastas!) I ended up buying bowties, so we made a lunch out of it. *Dramatizing life cycles. The kids love it too. And Colleen painted the wings beforehand. Can you see we used grocery bags? Got the ingenious idea from the forum *sun-catchers. OOOH...these are so beautitful! *Drop paints using eye dropper and then fold into half for a love symmetry effect *Ian read Hungry Caterpillar and used props from here *For Math this week we made our own weigh balance (such a creative idea!!! I found on the web) and did some weighing. It was fun. *I think we had too many books of the same idea...so it was redundant. *We watched a DK DVD on butterfly . It was fun.

B-Butterfly is an amazing week!! We have so much to do I think we might do more than 6 days. We'll see. Here are some of the things I gleaned from all the great ideas I've seen from the forum and the internet Crafts Grocery bag wings (use grocery bags to make butterfly wings) tissue butterfly caterpillar becomes butterfly craft Paint a butterfly Sun catcher (thanks to a gift from a friend) Life Cycle Nice photos here Other info of the butterfly and here Make cards and a poster Activity (from the manual) Pasta poster (got from the forum)   -egg (rice)   -caterpillar (rotini)   -chrysalis (shell)   -butterfly (bowtie) Snacks Flutter-By Franks (got this from the forum) 1 tube (8 oz) refrigerated crescent rolls 4 hot dogs (or turkey dogs, if you prefer) Ketchup & mustard Unroll crescent dough & separate into eight triangles; cut each triangle in half. Roll each piece into a ball; flatten to 1/2-inch thickness. For wings, place f...

For J-Jewel, we had SOOO much fun with our acrylic jewels. We did a lot of stuff with them *Jewel patterning *Jewel Hunt (Which was a hilarious story, read from pics) *Jeweled cross *Jeweled crown *the toddler played with them, putting them in containers and dumping out Other things we did *Ian (and me. cos I only know the simplified version)learn to write the Chinese character "Bao" (precious). Not an easy word. We write it everyday. *Made necklaces adn bracelets. The kids LOVE them!! *We really like Diamonds and Toads. *baked these really yummy Thumbprint cookies

We've already started on the unit and we enjoy the fun with the "jewels". We LOVE the books too! I'm glad many years back I bought this pack of acrylic jewels ...for fun. I thought I'll be able to do something for the kids in therapy. I didn't do much. So, we are going to have lots of fun with them! Plan for this unit: *Jewels on cross (using popsicle sticks) *Jewels on crown (using the template here ) *Make necklaces/bracelets from pony beads (we already did them and the kids LOVE it!) *Use the acrylic jewels for patterning *Do a jewel hunt   *Learn the songs "Jesus You are more precious than silver" and maybe " When He cometh " *Coloring for J (I used the J is for Jesus on this site *Make a thumprint cookie? (with raspberry jam filling) Book list: * The girl who wore too much (great book, good learning!) * Moon Lake * Benjamin's Treasure * Diamonds and Toads (our kids REALLY like this one) Bible Nothing is a...

Here are the things we did for R-Rock *Volcano Experiment (It was fun for the kids!) Check out the video on the next post *Watched some videos of volcanos on youtube *Read and talked extensively on the parable of the House on the Rock/Sand. *Did a coloring of that *We also played a game. I would say certain scenarios and the kids would run to the Foolish chair or Wise chair accordingly *Sang "Wise Men build his house upon the rock" (Chinese) *Used legos to build two houses (one well built, one not) and put them on the Bible (Rock) or "sand" (pony beads) Talking about pony beads, I had a "smack in the head" moment. I let the girls sit at the table during school and they REALLY like to play with the beads. Who wouldn't? But it was getting a pain for they would drop the beads and it would be difficult to find them. Today I decided to put them on a clean and plain carpet. OF COURSE, that's MUCH better!!!! easier to clean up. Of course it sti...

This is a less-activity week I suppose. Not much to find to do about rocks. Or rather...they might enjoy it more when they are older (like learning about minerals and sort). Anyhows, here are what we'll do: * collect rocks (hopefully we'll find some around...) Or I might have to buy some. * learning about the Wise man/foolish man (and review the song?) * what floats? experiment * make a volcano (baking soda and red vinegar our of clay mountain) or lavalite * Make Rock cookies and talk about minerals. A good resource and recipe here Books  we have (not much too) Let's Go Rock Collecting by Roma Gans I Love Rocks by Cari Meister Pebble, Susan Milord Stone Soup, Marcia Brown Bible He alone is my rock. He is the One who saves me. He is like a fort to me. I will always be secure. Ps 62:2 惟 獨 他 是 我 的 磐 石 、 我 的 拯 救 ． 他 是 我 的 高 臺 ． 我 必 不 很 動 搖 詩篇62:2