How to summarize

Today, J tried to summarize "The Holly and the Evergreen", an Enki nature story and once again, she was retelling me the story. She was doing a good job with that but she was not "summarizing" the story.

A light bulb came on for me as I realized she probably need an example of what I mean by "summarize". Anyway, I told her how I would summarize the story and then she got frustrated and said that she can't summarize.

More light bulbs came on for me; the story is too long and I really need to break it down for her. As I was just thinking about this, Prime wants me to read him "Best Friends for Frances". He loves Frances books and I 'm grateful that Enki recommended this series of books. Anyway, I read them the first page and I asked J to summarize and she was doing the same thing-"retelling me what she heard". She insisted on trying couple times to "summarize" but still not quite right.

I give her an example and told her when I say "summarize", I mean tell me "the gist of what is being said or what is it really saying." I give her a few examples and then J tried again with another couple of pages from the Frances book.

This time, she "summarized" every time! She put it in her own words and give me the gist of what she heard! YEAH!

J said she is glad I demonstrated and showed her and that I'm a good "home school teacher". :-)

So I think we had a break through on this. We will try again with a short story tomorrow and see how it goes.

Funny HS song from You Tube

This is funny! I found this through viewing another mom's blog. Below is the direct link to you tube:

14 days of Home schooling

I have not figured out how they post the actual video from You tube directly on Blogger.....hmmm...anyone?

J's good manners

Today, the kids were excited as I told them earlier their friend will come over to play. Before they came over, J girl asked how I would address her friend's mom in English (as I taught her the proper greeting in Chinese) and what would be something nice to say to Mrs. H. So I give her an example like asking them if they would like something to drink when they come.

So anyway, when our friends came, she was greeting Mrs. H like a well mannered child and asking if she would like anything to drink. When J finished eating, she put her dishes away and then asked Mrs. H if she would like her to take her plate away. I was pleasantly surprised by that. J was also acting like a kind big "sister" to her friend, A, who is 3.5 years old and offering her drinks and snacks. She was also protective of A on the swing and just really taking good care of her. :-)


Ava loved the regular swing and she also enjoyed being in this "cocoon" swing with J. PRIME was also very nice and he was pushing / spinning the girls.
Later, Milan also joined in the fun.

From our morning- organizing many photos and putting them in their own album. The kids loved doing that and they each had a whole stack of photos to put away.

J's friends write about J

Due to the "wicked" temperature, J's school was closed last Friday. Today after school hours, she went to attend Girl Scott and later we picked up all her stuff from school. Amongst pile of stuff, there is a binder named "My First Grade Friends 2008-2009". Her classmates write every week a little something about the "star of the week" after the "star of week" brings in photos and tells the class a little bit about him/her self. Last week J got bumped up in the line-up since it was her last week.

Anyway, J's favorite out of her 25 fellow classmate is the one written by Gargi:

Gargi writes, " Julie's favorite food is dumplings. Her favorite color is yellow. Her favorite book is Junie B. Her favorite toy is power rangers."

Some other samples:

Kesha writes," Julie is a nice friend because she has lots of friends. Julie is a nice friend because she is nice. She is very friendly."

James writes, " Julie is a good friend because she like to play with a lot of pepel. Julie like power rangers I like them too Julie is a really really really good friend."

Muaaz writes," I am giveing flower baloon to Julie when you live take the baloon. I a rainbow flower. Her favorite book is Jooni b Jones."

Cute, eh?

schedule

Today is our first official day of homeschooling both J and Prime. I'm in the process of observing our natural rhythm now that J is also home.

But here is some of the things I plan on doing daily with them:

1. Reading and discussing the Bible (NLT) with them (currently on Proverbs, ch19)
2. Listening to an Enki story (today The Holly and the Evergreen)
3. Play games (it was Mancala today) -1st time J and I were even, 2nd time, J won. I better be careful next time. :-)
4. Free play (they are really good at this one! LOL)
5. Physical Activity (J invented a balloon game and they were having a blast and getting lots of exercise)
6. Math Lesson for J (today it was "halves", extended out of Mancala and also out of what she learned at school) and some worksheets for practice
7. Journal writing for J (this was something established at her school and something she automatically does by herself)
8. Independent reading for J (she is reading couple books at a time)
9. Reading aloud practice for J (and PRIME if he is so inclined)
10. Chores (PRIME practiced cutting apples again)
11. Chinese immersion (this is something I need to remind myself: to speak in Chinese with them)
*** After I consult with Beth Sutton, founder of Enki Education, hopefully I will have more ideas what to do with J girl language arts wise. But my current thought is working with her to write simple summaries and book reports.

I was guided by the Holy Spirit and found a wonderful website for book reports as well as a really good resource for a host of other things:

http://www.donnayoung.org/index.htm

Thank you, God!

MLK and a walk in history

Today is MLK day, we went to our local museum and took a walk in history. Below are some of the highlights.

The kids had a blast! Prime was already asking when we can go back there again. :-)


The question: What if Dr. King were alive today?
Prime wrote: Change People; J girl wrote: Thank you for being nice to the black people.


Here is THE bus Rosa Parks rode on. Prime holding the paper bus that Parks rode on. Notice the bus # and person in the bus- that is R. Parks.
Prime "driving" a classic car.


Looking at houses from a different era, complete with all the furniture and dolls.
J/Prime with their cousins.

PRIME is a "hot dog" in Oscar Mayer sandwich; PRIME in front of a classic car.
Looking at the car of the future.


The kids loved flying the paper airplanes. J's was flying far away. Prime and daddy had a good time make their own automobiles and testing it out. The "President" train.


Taking a peek inside the train. Prime made the "castle" (in the back of him) for his cousin. He was so proud.

Snow tunnels

Today is relatively "mild" compared to the last couple days but we got a lot of snows. Daddy went out to shovel the snow and look what J/Prime did. They dug a snow tunnel and they are not done yet. Gotta admire kid's creativity... this is definitely not something I would have thought of to do. My idea would be stay inside and cozy up with some hot tea and a book or watch a little bit of my Chinese drama. :-)


See the tunnel? They have just started. See J in the tunnel. 20 seconds later, the tunnel is wee bit bigger and J is bit more "cozy" in there.

Here is picture from our Sat. breakfast. J with Devin and Kayla. I think PRIME took this picture or maybe it was a different one he took?