One Child Policy Homeschool - Homeschool Blogger

The Curriculum Choice

Thu, 28 May 2009 09:08:00 -0500

If you want to read some curriculum reviews at a very classy site, come visit The Curriculum Choice!

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Sat, 3 Oct 2009 07:01:00 -0500

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Mother's Day Gift

Sun, 17 May 2009 09:34:00 -0500

My sweet Sprite make me some adorable slippers. Because my feet are big (9 1/2), I usually have to wear boring navy blue or brown slippers -- the men's colors. But we happened to find a larger size of PINK! Woo hoo! I get pretty slippers this year!

It's LUV from Mom and LUM to MOM, Sprite explained.

In China, usually people wear slippers (like these) inside and regular shoes outside. Of course, you'd never wear your outside shoes in the house!

Hydrogen and the Hindenberg

Mon, 18 May 2009 03:05:00 -0500

In our Chemistry study, we were studying hydrogen and came across the story of the Hindenburg. So we did the Disaster Diorama of the Hindenberg! (Not an easy model, BTW.)

Then Sprite added hydrogen and all of the noble gases to a large periodic table that we're making. I'll blog more on that later.

Fun Grammar

Mon, 18 May 2009 03:18:00 -0500

Some of you, like me, probably downloaded many of the free Mother's Day gifts from CurClick. I really liked the Silly Snail grammar game, but it only covered a few parts of speech. I suggested that Sprite make her own board game about the parts of speech. And here it is!

The game involves answering questions in the quiz books and pulling cards from the Grammar Chest. We had a great time playing it, and it was a fantastic overall review of the parts of speech.

Making a board game and playing it is a great hands-on way to show what you've learned. Try it!

Hands-on Estimating

Thu, 14 May 2009 01:50:00 -0500

Estimation is a very valuable skill in real life, so I tried to make the study of it somewhat real by staging a shopping experience. We used some of Sprite's Sculpey clay foods, loosely taped onto blank business cards. Then we gave each item a price. (It's not dollars but just some unknown unit, so the prices didn't have to be realistic in any specific economy.)

We used monopoly money as our currency. (Perfect! I finally didn't have to cut little slips of paper for this living math activity!) And then we just played around -- not really a game per se with a winner and loser, but just experimenting with the foods.

We each chose a meal and then compared -- who had the most expensive meal?

I planned a day's worth of meals, and gave Sprite 200 units of money. Did she have enough to pay for it? She used estimation to solve the problem. Then she gave me problems to solve.

Then we reversed the process. I have her an amount of money and had her use estimation to plan three meals for one day and stay within budget.

Why is this fun to Sprite? The math skills are identical to solving problems in a workbook, but she adores doing these kinds of role plays. Is it the toys? The play money? The silliness? Yes, it's certainly the silliness. We made some funny meals -- spaghetti, a pumpkin, and an ice cream cake, for example. We laughed about wanting pie for dinner!

It took a small amount of prep time to set up, but the pay off is so worth it. Excitement towards math is a wonderful reward for a few minutes of making tape loops!

A New Snack from Potatoes

Sun, 10 May 2009 06:00:00 -0500

I saw a new snack being sold from streetside vendors -- potato chips on a stick. Aren't they fun? Only about 25 cents for a stick. We were considering trying it when we realized that you get your choice of toppings.

You can have the spicy coating (the red powder).

Or your choice of strawberry, blueberry or lemon gel. Yeah, hard to choose, huh? One boy had a rainbow stick -- he got a bit of each flavor.

After we saw the toppings, for some reason we just didn't want to buy one anymore. Not too hungry.

IV nutrients for trees

Thu, 7 May 2009 01:29:00 -0500

I've seen trees with IVs attached to them all over my city lately! I was happy to see some up close as we walked home from the river. Why? Well, to photograph, of course!

I'm not much on plants, trees, and landscaping although I love the benefits of them. But I've never seen such a practice is USA.

Have any of you seen this before?

Tea Shop Under the Bridge

Wed, 6 May 2009 01:17:00 -0500

The sun was bright and the skies were clear when we set out on our last river exploration. So after some wading, we stopped under the bridge at a makeshift tea house to have a drink. This is the view from where I sat at my table, looking toward the riverbank. You can see the shopkeeper walking toward her little hut where she stores the hot water, tea, and glasses.

This is what we ordered -- flower tea. Isn't it pretty? The white "rocks" are sugar. There's not much flavor, just hot water with a bit of a sweet taste. But it's refreshing when you're thirsty.

Yes, drinks in China are traditionally served hot. The main reason is simply because tap water must be boiled before it's safe to drink. And there is also a fear in Chinese medicine that iced beverages are bad for your body.

We buy 5 gallon drums of drinking water at home, but many people still boil their water rather than pay a higher price for water delivery. (A five gallon drum is about $1.50.) For anything that will be boiled such as cooking pasta, soups, gravies, I always use tap water.

Another Walk at the River

Mon, 4 May 2009 22:28:00 -0500

Highlights from our Sunday afternoon at the river.

We found a perfect shrimp exoskeleton on a rock.

We love our Chaco sandals! You can wade right into the water with them but still have firm footing. When you get out of the water, the straps dry quickly.

An eel was nosing around the bank. I almost stepped on it! (If you click on the photo, you'll go to Flickr where the photo has some explanatory notes to help you see it better.)

And a flock of ducks that gave Sprite a lot of amusement, chasing and catching.

Sprite did some journaling in her nature notebook when we returned home. It's so good to be back into nature study again. The river is such a fun place to explore!