Well I have to say it didn’t take reflection to realize that THIS January was a much easier month for the adults and disappointing for the kids. Of course, I am talking about the weather, no Arctic chill, but also not much in the way of truly useful (for play) substantial snow! At least getting to “Jesus School” on Sundays was much easier on the family. Frigid rides in the van in the early morning is never a blast.

But I get ahead of myself – We ran in the new year (well partied until the evening) with Renee’s family and friends at her folks’ hobby farm. There was kids to play with, amazing snacks to munch on and entertaining adult company. Absolutely no complaints here! Though we did not make midnight. It may be another year or two before Miss Echo can handle being out and about and HAPPY at midnight.

Jeffrey!

Our first weekend AFTER New Years was of course Home Depot… Echo starts up after August if you believe it! If you have NOT checked into this free activity (on both sides of the border no less) please do! Ages for this one are suggested 5-12. Such cute little sleds!

Sleds!

We had visitors in our new year… notably Cousin Robbie who is always willing for a quick game with the kids before settling down to playing adults only.

Enjoyed our gingerbread houses as decoration well past season…

Crafted and drew for fun and all…

And found the time to learn something about the world through Little Passports!

SPAIN

And a Wild Kratts!

Under the Frozen Pond!

I think 2015 was well begun with creativity on all sides!

by Emanuel

Cross stitch by Gavin for his God Mommy back home!

With January also came our revisit of all things China and Chinese New Year. You can see our China resource page for this year’s studies HERE. I am going to have to think this through to really find a way to make a whole new unit for next year!!!

We had origami…

And costume time…

And a book completion for our littlest learner!And FIVE perfect sets of teeth!

Swimming continues to entertain all!

Definitely a different winter from last year when we had mountains of snow followed by biting cold!!

Yup fast forward through January… onto February… but first… check out the picture over flow HERE for this month with more silly goodness.

 We really do enjoy celebrating Chinese New Year and this year was no exception. This is our first big unit in months as our work on Thanksgiving and Christmas was much more worksheets and stories than actual research. This is also our first unit trying a more Notebooking sort of theme. Though after working with the twins I definitely want to try and put more lapbook aspects into our notebooks – the folded little booklets and the like – to add to the look and the ease of use.

So in 2015 I am trying to over view a month which was working with the blog when I got behind instead of daily reflection. But with big units I still want to make these individual blog entries to share our resources and the like. Bear with me we LOVE covering China and Chinese New Year so there is a lot to share!!!

Links of Specific Interest:

• We had Zander choose two famous Chinese people and write a few sentences… he used a general list HERE thanks to Buzzle, and then to further our knowledge about the more contemporary individual used Wiki to learn more about basketball player Yao Ming HERE.
• 10 Good Luck Foods thanks to Chow HERE. I admit it, we did do some Wiki peeking when we found things we were not totally familiar with but I am sure you can figure that out!
• Something on the more traditional side I was assured by my experts… The Kitchen God HERE thanks to about.com. For a picture to include in our notebook we used Activity Village’s picture HERE.
• Learn more about the Lion Dance (sometimes mistakenly… ok OFTEN… called the dragon dance) with HelloKids.com HERE, and on Wiki HERE.
• We learned all about the meaning and history of the Chinese flag on the site A China Family Adventure HERE. With a little additional information HERE thanks to Facts.co.
• We get TONS of information from Activity Village. Their printables are amazing… HERE.
• For interesting landmarks we used the top 10 attractions listed on ChinaHighlights.com HERE.
• China’s phyisical geography thanks to About.com HERE.
• General country facts on Science Kids HERE.
• An excellent map on iLibrarion HERE.
• When you think of animals you inevitably come to the Giant Panda. Science Kids has a fact page HERE.
• We discussed tea and China… totally Gavin’s idea on that one! You can find 10 interesting facts about tea at the Food Network HERE. For its history and cultural connotations in regards to China you can read China Highlights HERE.
• Zander researched the couplets you put around doors during Chinese New Year. There is a great example (that we copied into our notebook) HERE thanks to China Page. And a bit more of a description and a way to purchase some for yourself HERE thanks to China Sprout.
• Of course we did a page on goats… I basically looked up goat facts and let the twins at it. You can read up on what we found HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE. Thanks to Lively Run Goat Dairy, Edelweiss Acres, One Kind and Animals by Pawnation.
• Of course we had to cover some animals found in China. Each child chose an animal and wrote a few facts for us to include along with an illustration. Trinity chose the Chinese Pink Dolphin. We used the WWF page HERE for hers. Gavin chose the Golden Monkey (Golden Snub-Nosed  Monkey) and while he just sort of wandered the zoo and such sites this is the one I found that I liked thanks to Konica Minolta HERE.
• While watching Wild China I heard mention of an amazing bridge… so of course I had to find the way to spell it and look up some OTHER bridges. Check out 4 HERE on Vision Times.
• Introduction to Buddhism for kids thanks to World Religions HERE.
• A good topography map thanks to Ilibrarian.net HERE.

Craft Ideas:

• Dragon Parade Puppet thanks to Crayola HERE.
• New Year’s Dragon paperbag puppet thanks to TeacherVision HERE.

Resources to Purchase:

• Teachers Pay Teachers has a great mini unit for K-3 gr. You can find that HERE. Super thanks to creator Emily Nutt Bynum for an amazing file that both Trinity and Emanuel enjoyed and learned from.

Books:

• The Runaway Rice Cake by Ying Chang Compestine
• The Runaway Wok by Ying Chang Compestine (this is a family favourite)
• A to Z Mysteries: The New Year Dragon Dilemma by Ron Roy
• Chinese New Year (Cultural Holidays) by Katie Marsico
• Chinese New Year (Holidays, Festivals and Celebrations) by Ann Heinrichs
• Sam and the Lucky Money by Karen Chinn (another family favourite with a great message about compassion)
• Max Celebrates Chinese New Year by Adria F. Klein (a great level reader)
• Kai-Lan’s Great Trip to China by Mickie Matheis (from the show Ni hao, Kai-Lan)
• Bringing in the New Year by Grace Lin
• A Gift by Yong Chen (great art and a wonderful story about love from a distance)
• The Dragon New Year (A Chinese Legend) by David Bouchard
• Ms. Frizzle’s Adventures: Imperial China by Joanna Cole
• New Year Traditions Around the World by Ann Malaspina
• When the Circus Came to Town by Laurence Yep
• Chinese New Year Crafts by Karen E. Bledsoe (this was our go to book for crafts this year)
• Night Sky Dragons by Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham

Animal Books (We did not use many and was mostly online with our looking but here are the ones we used):

• Pandas by Donna K. Grosvenor
• Goat (Farm Animals) by Katie Dicker
• Life on a Goat Farm by Judy Wolfman
• The Summer of Stanley by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock (a story about a family that is given a goat. Gorgeous pictures and good story)

We covered Origami this year. While commonly known as a Japanese art, it originated in China! You can check out our informational links HERE and HERE thanks to Origami with Rachel Katz and About.com and also check out the books we got to play around with:

• Folding for Fun by Didier Boursin 
• Uber Origami by Duy Nguyen
• Paper-Folding Fun by Ginger Johnson
• Dinosaur Origami by Duy Nguyen
• Easy Origami by Dokuohtei Nakano

Movies and TV Shows:

• Celebrate with Kai-Lan! a Nickelodeon Show
• Wild China Mini Series. We watched this series on Netflix. There are listings where you can purchase it. Though not new it is AMAZING in images and cultural history. A must watch if not for anything but the imagery.

Not so much because the kids needed it, but I decided to make dividers for each of the sections of sheets we had to go with our notebook project. I have confirmed these are the correct words… enjoy

• China HERE thanks to NamesOnline.org
• Book HERE thanks to a dictionary site
• Schoolwork HERE thanks to the same dictionary site
• Drawing or picture HERE thanks to above dictionary site

Hopefully I have included most of the resources we used. It was a lot of fun to take our usual China and Chinese New Year study a little further than we have in the past! Here are some pictures of our Notebook! Enjoy!

April 22-23

Well, with the ongoing battle of spring VS snow planting our Earth Day tree ON Earth Day simply couldn’t happen. So instead we made do with what we could do inside… starting with TWO books… the first Earth Day by Mir Tamim Ansary. The second a chapter out of our chapter book: Ready Freddy! #25… Save the Earth by Abby Klein.

Earth Day

We started our chatting about it with what we already knew about what we should do on Earth Day… plant a tree, turn things off… and then went on to write out what we learned from our books. The beginnings of Earth Day, what we could do… and then… we did! We looked at our lunch and saw what we could recycle if we took a few seconds and rinsed it out (yogurt cups)… we turned off more lights (like I like to anyway) and opened the blinds in the basement, we had short showers at night (again if only they would be so efficient usually).

Our Earth Week friendly world

The twins spent their afternoon crafting out of the craft bucket using at least ONE item that is recycled. Gavin used yarn bits for his person and a Kleenex box for its home with cardboard for the bed. Zander used a  toilet paper roll judiciously decorated and sparkly to make a lantern for his sister that he then tried to convince his Nana to give him a candle to REALLY light it up.

Clothespin girl

Lantern WITHOUT candle

We talked about how important it was to walk away from the tv and computers… how playing outside uses up their excess energy and doesn’t use excessive household energy. So of course I pitched them outside TWICE to run around and enjoy the almost gone snow… that is now coming BACK. SERIOUSLY!!!

22nd of APRIL

We have collected some worksheets as well… of course after we finish our week long unit (or before), we will flip the sheets over and scratch paper, colour, give to Echo to create on… where ever the fancy takes us. Let’s see… Trinity enjoyed Recycling at the Beach HERE. We had to put a reminder poster over our recycling containers from an Activity Village poster HERE. I made the K worksheet a little more difficult by giving it to the twins and telling them to read it themselves and go from there HERE.

Recycle!

Ending our day with games with daddy!

GAMES

The next day we had our SECOND crafting day… more creativity but adding in the younger kiddos also meant more whining and confusion. It took Trinity most of our crafting time to come up with her idea… a little house for her small My Little Ponies (Kleenex box). Emanuel was first out the gate with his marble slide (Kleenex box, candy box, toilet paper rolls and Easter eggs), Gavin made a McDonalds for yesterday’s yarn people (toilet paper rolls, tops of a happy meal box, cardboard and paper from their spelling practices), Zander made himself a portable table with caster type things (box and Easter eggs). All very creative and rather amazing!!

Trinity’s house

Marble toy

Gavin’s restaurant

Zander’s table

We had a second craft that was a little more complicated for the twins and I to accomplish over naptime. Origami no less! Using newspaper to make garbage bins! You can follow Activity Village’s instructions HERE.

Garbage bins

We also discussed what is recyclable. The kids are are rather aware of what is and isn’t as here in our area the Recycling is only picked up every 2nd week. Unlike up in Alberta where we had it every week when we lived on our own. You can find an easy list pirintable HERE. Though I am sure areas differ.

We found some Dirty Jobs (a family favourite) episodes showing various ways to recycle. There is the episode Maple Syrup Maker (Season 4, Episode 17) that includes a trip to a paint recycling location. You can watch it on Amazon HERE. (free if  you have Prime) Our second episode was Toilet Crusher (Season 4, Episode 9… I know, out of order) where toilets are removed and recycled. Again you can watch it for free on Amazon HERE (with Prime). I am sure we will watch another one the next day…

We are keeping it minor in the worksheets but I found an adorable tree related one with some facts about how wonderful they are for the world HERE. We were tipped off about an amazing math colouring printables site by our friend and now teacher Steven. Check out Coloring Squared HERE for a series of them with two difficulties. We did  the Lion and the Monkey. It was a little simple for the twins but a good practice of addition and I saw improvement in speed of correctly answering the calculations.

We also snuck in a Wild Kratts – Sloth and the Sloth Moth.

Sloth and Sloth Moth

Add in a tea party and I think we did a good two days of learning and fun!

Tea Party!!!