Our day

I had planned to blog about form drawing but blogger is having some trouble and I can't upload any picture except one while you will see below.

So I thought I'd share a little of our day.

J recalled an Enki 1st grade story to me before breakfast prior to W waking up. Both kids are pretty good at recalling and does it pretty easily. J tends to tell me the whole story. After breakfast, we sang a few of Enki 1st grade spring songs and then did Sing Song yoga. This is the first time I did it with the kids. It was nice getting some stretches. Being that it spring (though it doesn't feel like it today), we read Princess Spring from Enki K nature story collection. The kids also took turns reading the story. I think every year we read it, we understand the descriptions a little better.

Then it was time for a snack break. While the kids ate, I read them Enki math story Grandfather's family(fact family). This is mainly for W as he hasn't heard it , but it is good for J to hear it again.

After that, the kids started doing form drawings from Enki 1st grade. The kids really enjoys doing the form drawing for the most part. Sometimes, W have a little frustration over how his forms look. But with a little imagination (i.e (me) what does the shape look like? Looks like lobster claws to me. (W) looks like scissor to me), he is doing really well.

Then while I tend to the laundry and leave them be, they wrap up form drawing and move to free drawing. My kids love to draw, esp. W. But J is not far behind either.

Then we ate lunch and the kids are playing. Later, we are going to go to the library and then to playground for the afternoon. J also have dance class in the afternoon. She is loving to dance now.

This is J's work from yesterday. She used Lyra fantasy stencils and painted it with watercolor pencils.

Enki curriculum links

This is from Beth. I thought I'll post it here to remind myself and for anyone else who might be interested in this or in Enki education.

If you look at the curriculum and skill development charts on the main web site
you can see the basics of what is covered every year
(http://www.enkieducation.org/html/arts_integrated_ed_4.htm and
http://www.enkieducation.org/html/sensory_integration_2.htm). If you have a look
at the curriculum descriptions (The Grades -
http://www.enkieducation.org/html/arts_integrated_ed_1.htm) on the main site,
you will see something of why we have made these choices.

Enki song and craft

Today is a beautiful day so the kids headed out after breakfast. First they played soccer (Prime loves his soccer class and always can't wait to go back for his next class), then the kids said they are hunting for birds. We filled our bird house with seeds and they went out again. They also made a bird nest using grass yesterday. :)

Then as I was cleaning up, I hear the kids first making bird sounds, then they were singing one of our circle songs. We haven't done our circle for some time so I was little surprised when they sang this Enki 1st grade song. It has a fun movement to go along but you will need at least 3 people to do it.

Anyway, share a clip...


J also tells me she petted a robin this morning. She said the robin wasn't scared of her. So she petted it from "head to body, then the robing started walking away and then flew away. " Lucky girl.

I also tried to make an Enki 1st grade doll yesterday. This is like my teaching prep work. It didn't turn out exactly right, as my yarn is different but I get the idea of how to make one. I also didn't do the 2nd part which is to make a cape for the doll but I think we are good for now. J says when she is done with playing (dolls and panda castle, etc, etc) and eating, she will make one. So I'm not exactly sure when that will be. In the mean time, share few pictures of the one I made.

J is really loving her and carries her around the whole time (for now).

Making Improvements (J)

J made improvement in her copy work today. I asked her how it feels to write slower but neater and she said she feels, "happy!" She went on to say she does not want to write sloppy anymore and wants to write g00000ood."

The verse she copied is from Enki Education. This story was in K fairytales (marked as "older") and is one of the K fairytale she loved and asked to read it again and again when she was just 5. This is also in Enki 1st grade material but I just realized the ending is little different (changed to suit 1st grade developmentally, I believe).
In case you can't see ( the picture will be larger if you click on it, in case anyone doesn't know), below is the actual verse.

The Waterfall of Whitehair (Chinese fairytale- adapted by Enki Education)

Rippling, roaring, rolling down,
River runs along the ground,
Rhyme and rhythm in its song,
Rippling, rolling, running down.

In Enki 1st grade, this is one of the stories one can use to introduce the letter "R". You hear the effect of R through out the verse. My kids loved to figure out the mystery letter upon hearing only the verse.

After we wrote this Enki fairytale story verse, we also acted it out though we did our individual version of it. And after a few times with our movements, we can both recite the verse easily.

Never Eat Sour Watermellon

Today, we read the American Indian story called, "Coyote's rain song" from Enki education again (This a K folk story). Again, J read to Prime. This was a story about a silly coyote who wanted to feast on prairie dogs. The coyote asked the rain clouds to rain north, east, south, west around the prairie dog town but never on the prairie dog town. In the end he got soaked by the rain himself and never ate the prairie dogs as they stayed dry in their home and laughed at the coyote.

We tried to act the story out by having an egg filled with candy (for prairie town with prairie dog; that's what I could grab fast to illustrate the point) and poured water through a sieve around the egg in a flat plate in all 4 directions but never on the egg. The kids saw for themselves the egg and especially the candy inside the egg never got wet. They also wanted to pour water through a sieve and took turns doing that. Then the kids learned the directions in their body. Later, I give them the direction (i.e North) and they pointed. They were a little confused in the beginning, one of them always had trouble, but after 2 minutes of practice, they were pros.


Here, J and Prime learning about the 4 directions (Never Eat Sour Watermellon) in their body.

We then moved on to paper and I mixed up the order for them, giving them the directions at different part of the plus sign. J caught on fast and after few minuets, Prime also got it. I think I will test them tomorrow and after a while to see if they still remember or not. :)

Sorry for the not so great picture, but I think you get the idea. We also put J and W. W is Prime's.

I also wanted to show the mexican primrose I got yesterday at a nursery. Where I live the primrose won't be available until early April. These are suppose to be pink primrose and should bloom in mid-May; that is if the kids and I don't kill it first. J said the dirt is so soft. We read a fabulous book on dirt and hope to play more with dirt. Perhaps we will develop a green thumb eventually.

Relaxing day (and observations )

Today, we had a relaxing day. J still did her morning work and we still listened to an Enki story. The kids are listening to Bimwili, an Enki adapted African kindergarten fairy tale story. Both kids really liked this one although Prime wanted to listen to Miss Many More again. I think he feels he didn't understand the whole story yet.

But since that is a 1st grade math story, I told him to wait until its his time. J have already heard the story and done the summary/drawing for that story. Later today, we are actually going to bake a blueberry pie together. This is will be our first time making blueberry pie, so we are all excited.

I have noticed J seem to be more taken with Bimwili than the Enki 1st grade fairy tale so maybe I will try more kindergarten-type fairy tale stories with her. Perhaps it is the length of the story. I feel Enki 1st grade fairy tale story tend to be long; maybe it is because they don't speak to me and don't speak to J. I don't know. I talked to Beth Sutton, who is the founder of Enki Education, and she suggested that I use the Enki method but use stories that J really likes and try the 1st grade fairy tale once in a while and see if they speak to her or mirror her development.

For Chinese culture today, I let the kids have "sweet water chestnut". This is a candy which is eaten only during Chinese new year. J really like it while Prime not so much. I think he was not hungry at the time so food held no appeal to him.

The Chinese character on the package is upside down and is done purposely so that the lucky will "come". In Chinese, "come" and "down" is similar therefore the up-side-down character of LUCK.

We have also been watching Chinese drama, mostly me. But the kids like to watch too, especially Prime. He understands the least Chinese in our family but laughs the hardest during the movie. He likes to watch people's faces and there is a servant in the movie who always makes funny faces at the bad guys and say funny things.

We also got new books from the library and I will update the list of books Prime and J reads.

Exotic animals

Today we looked up some animals on the web from the Enki story "Tiddelick the Frog". Animals like wombat, dingo, frilled lizzard, cuscus, bandicoot. I thought wombat is some sort of bat but ofcourse it is not. W boy really liked wombat and says he is a baby wombat. There are also interesting baby wombat video clips on YouTube if anyone is interested.

The coolest one we found was the hero in the story, (Noyang) the eel. We saw electric eel light up the Christmas tree and eel swallowing 3 fishes on YouTube. W boy also liked how a Japanese man held the eel using 3 fingers on YouTube. He tried to imitate the finger lock. :)

And here is something I did not know. The Enki stories are multi-cultural so "Tiddelick the Frog" is under the section "Folk Tales of Aborigine" and I was not sure what it meant. I thought it was more like native American stories. But I knew that was not right from the story and that it is related to Australia since that was the common thread in the exotic animals I mentioned above. Anyway,

as Merriam-Webster defined, it is "of or relating to the indigenous peoples of Australia" and

Wikipedia says,

"Indigenous Australians are the first human inhabitants of the Australian continent and its nearby islands and their descendants.^[2] Indigenous Australians are distinguished as either Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, who currently together make up about 2.6% of Australia's population."

Anyway, then I showed W boy on a globe where Australia is and where we are. So we really got a lot out of that one story. We love Enki and I am glad I chose it for our family. :-)

W rocking on belly ("Tug Boat") video

This is from Enki Kindergarten called "Tug Boats". The kids have both been getting good at rocking at their belly.

W is really rocking in this one!

playing "cards"

These last two days, W boy have developed a love for cards. We have been playing a Chinese card game called "Fight for top hand". Its a kinda of like poker, but pairs can only top pairs unless you have a "bomb" which is 4 of a kind. Anyway, for W, it has been a sorting game for him since he has to put the cards in order. The cards start with "3" ends with "2", then joker being the highest card. But it has also been good to train his eyes to spot the pairs, or 3 of a kind. Anyway, he's been loving it.



We read "Tiddelick the Frog" from Enki Kindergarten. I think I enjoy it more than W boy. But he did like the "comprehension verse" and was really good at the rhyming words that are in it. He liked the story but when I read it, his mind was on the "Power Ranger" series book. At least it's good we are reading and rarely watch the program on TV. After I read his "Power Ranger" series, he wanted me to read "T.T.F" again and we will-- tomorrow. :-)

Adventure Circle (Enki-K)

This post if for my fellow Enki parents.

Here is our adventure circle. We usually don't have a formal adventure circle/story line. The story line posted below is as elaborate as we go. We just learn a song, usually the songs are short enough we memorize it in 5-10 minutes. If not, we practice it for a few days. Then we find some fun activity from each of the sections (usually seasonal) to do.

We normally start with learning a new song and its movement after a call to circle song. Then go into the verses from the different sections. Sometimes W boy picks and choose. Like today, I wanted to show him "Star Fairies" but he wanted to do more of the tugging movements found in "woodcutters" (p 108-K) so we did "Tug Boat" instead. We also adapt the movements to fit our own needs but will try it by the book at least 1 time. This works really well with J especially with the songs as she likes to watch how I do the movement (1st time is by the book) then we do our movement as we feel is right for the song. We challenge each other on how many different ways we can come up with for the movement to the song.

Usually, I give W a heads up like we are going to do our Enki movement next. If he is playing like he was today, then I ask him how long he wants to play. He said 9 minutes and I said, I will give you 10 minutes. Then I bring him to the clock, show him what time it is, then ask him to count up 10 for the minutes. I let him know when it that particular time, we will do our "exercise".

Round and Round 3x

"It is winter. Look outside. The Evergreens are beautiful. Let's sing about Evergreen."
Oh Evergreen (p116-K) Midline 3x (we would sing this normally about a week, a week and half then learn a new song.)

"Let's go find little dwarfs and see what they are doing."
Little Dwarves (p120-K) Midline 3x
(carry a real sack- bag filled with blanket; hack with pretend Axe)

Oh, that was lot of work. Let's pretend we are little tug boats and put our bags on the ship.
Tug Boat (p145-K) Base Sense 3x

I also want to mention we don't do adventure circle everyday. Some days we opt for other exercises or park etc. But the kids normally are willing participants. Sometimes, the timing is a little off or they are tired and we just skip for the day or try a different time. I have found usually first thing after breakfast does not work well for us so we do it more mid-day. But there is really no set time per say. With J still in school, her circle is usually in the evening but W boy joins in even he had already done it earlier in the day. :) Material for her circle is normally from Enki-1st grade.

The turnip

"Dedoushka pulled at the turnip,

Baboushka pulled at Dedoushka,
Mashenka pulled a t Baboushka,
Geouchaka pulled at Mashenka,
Keska pulled at Geouchka,
the little field mouse pulled at Keska.
They pulled and pulled and pulled....
And out the turnip popped!"

W boy and I have been reading "The Turnip", an eastern European story adapted for Enki Education. Today we drew a picture for the story.

This is W boy's drawing.