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!

Do you have a yearning to learn more about this rare, unique and amazing mammal? Well, here are all the resources, links, etc that we used to learn about this Australian animal!!

The lapbook:

• Platypus Animal Study and Lapbook by Homeschool Share. Really the only one out there and very helpful.

Books:

• Platypuses by Sara Louise Kras
• Electric Animals by Natalie Lunis (this has a two page piece on the platypus’ ability to use electroreceptors to find food)
• Platypus by Chris Riddell (a story book not a non fiction book)
• A Platypus, Probably by Sneed B. Collard III
• Platypus, A Century-long Mystery by William Caper

Crafty Bits:

• Make your own Platypus on Learn Create Love by using their instructions HERE. We put our legs on with brads and went without the googly eyes.
• Make your own Platypus paperbag puppet using instructions by Danielle’s Place HERE. The cutting is a little advanced on the feet for true preschoolers but we managed!
• We didn’t make it to this craft but it looks fun, make your own Perry the Platypus out of felt and foam HERE.

Colouring Pages

• P is for Platypus HERE.
• Flag of Australia HERE.
• A random Platypus HERE.
• Mommy and baby with eggs HERE. Though the eggs are bigger than they should be etc etc.

Worksheets

• Compare the tracks of various Australian animals HERE.
• Learn a bit about the Platypus and colour one as well HERE.
• Wordsearch for the older kids HERE.
• All about platypus colouring page and fill in the blank riddle HERE.
• Duck Billed Platypus Anatomy HERE.
• Platypus mini book to fill in yourself HERE.
• Platypus notebooking pages with colour image of a swimming platypus HERE.
• Templates that we used for our end of book facts of interest HERE.
• Not so much a worksheet but a POEM!! 4-40 has a great platypus poem HERE.

We have an amazing picture of platypus babies thanks to Facebook via Dr. Carin Bondar – Biologist with a Twist. Keep in mind her Facebook profile HERE does have some more mature content this picture is certainly worth it! The tagline with this picture when it made its way to my timeline is as follows:

Here’s your daily dose of adorable – baby platypuses! There’s no official name for baby platypuses, but they’re often referred to as puggles or platypups.
Platypuses are one of the five extant species of monotreme, meaning that they are mammals that lay eggs. It’s also one of the very few venomous mammals – the male has a “spur” that’s capable of delivering enough venom to kill a small dog.

Babies

Videos:

I will for the most part embed, but some do not allow it. Hopefully these will remain valid videos for some time! Our first video is from youTube subscriber 911TRUTHINATOR and is a longer educational piece on the “World’s Strangest Animal.”

National Geographic and their dangerous hunter themed video. I will warn you, they pump up the platypus to seem scary (??) the kids did NOT approve.

A short video of the Senior Platypus Keeper Ian Elton with Ember the 6 month old platypus.

In Australia, Go Paddling With the Platypus. Seriously… we live on the wrong continent. This video gives a bit of a close look to a playful platypus.

Check out the video below to see a platypus doing platypus things at Mount Field National Park.

Of course there are all the moments of Perry the Platypus on Phineas and Ferb. We specifically borrowed The Perry Files from the library. Wild Kratts also have a platypus focused episode called Platypus Cafe that you can purchase on Amazon.com.

Helpful links:

• Wonder how the platypus got its name? Well Wiki Answers knows right HERE.
• National Geographic Kids Creature Feature platypus HERE.
• KidsBiology.com has a brief page on the platypus HERE.
• Squuidoo has a great fact page HERE.

Part of the lapbook calls for looking at the Echidna who is the other mammal in the Monotreme family. So here are our links that we used to supplement what tiny bit of information we had in our library books!

• EnchantedLearning has a page with an anatomy picture HERE.
• Activity Village has a mini book we used to record what we learned HERE. We took the little file folder shape from the lapbook and made it into a pocket to put our mini book in.
• Kids.net.au has a great Echidna page HERE.

We used two videos with our Echidna. I am warning you now, youTube seems to carry a lot of information on the male reproductive organs of the Echidna. The two videos I have below do NOT cover this aspect as I did not feel that the… uniqueness of this portion of the animal was necessary to our learning.

First a National Geographic Video – World’s Weirdest.

And our second video about an Echidna Puggle at Taronga Zoo. Unlike the platypus, the echidna has an official name for its babies – the puggle.

And that is that! Here are a few of our pages! I hope this comes in helpful. If it does, please send me a message, leave a comment… etc.

Platypus cover

A couple sample pages

And two more

FOR PLATYPUS RESOURCES PLEASE GO TO “PLATYPUS IN DEPTH”

February 21-22

We watched a rather lengthy video on the Platypus today! So of course I need to share it here!

The resulting mini book

Trinity and Emanuel made their very own paperbag puppet today of the Platypus. Just add googly eyes to the bag and template and you are golden. You can find the version we did HERE.

Hard at work

Zander and Gavin finished a book with me from our advance reading list… Kid in Chief! You can read their review of it HERE. Just keep in mind that there ARE some spoilers with their review. It was a fun book that deals with the job of being President.

We had TWO books to share! The first was a story called Platypus by Chris Riddell, it was fun to have Trinity involved in this one!

Gavin and Trinity

Our second book had a section on the platypus. One of the very unique animals about to use or see the electricity in other animals! Electric Animals by Natalie Lunis.

Zander with our little book

We also brought out the tracing paper, Trinity wanted a Hello Kitty picture and I figured it would be a good addition to our lapbooks if the boys traced not only a platypus out of one of our library books but also an Echidna, the other animal in this tiny family.

Hello Kitty

Echidna and Platypus, hopefully they will show better in the lapbook

We had a family trip out to the store as well. We needed it… time out in the van and the store doing a little shopping and getting some fresh air!

Babies in the sun

Friday brought with it MORE snow! We have some very happy boys with their fresh snow to dig in! Of course we had to continue with the platypus and two more videos. The first is a National Geographic one where really they TRIED to make the platypus scary. The boys were thoroughly unimpressed!

The second a quick video of a platypus handler with a 6 month old platypus, basically useful for the cuteness factor and a bit of a show on how they feel around with their bills.

Emanuel did a riddle style worksheet from TeacherVision. We read the information at the top and then worked together to fill in the riddle. It is amazing how many of the facts they remember. Although not totally surprising as it is hard to forget that it has a bill, webbed feet, beaver tail, venom AND lays eggs but is a mammal!!

Emanuel’s worksheet

We had a rather fun book called A Platypus, Probably by Sneed B. Collard III for our book of the day.

All of my boys

It amazes me how the structure the boys have created in the backyard with all that snow that keeps falling is looking more and more like a burrow. We have our own little home in the backyard! 

So quiet

Miss Trinity and Miss Echo got in some quality girly play time themselves!

Purty

I finished a scarf that is either an August birthday present or a Christmas present done super early. You can find the pattern for sale for this on CrochetSpot HERE. I used the Caron simply soft yarn and it is so soft and shimmery!

Toilet Paper Scarf

 Ending the day with the kids watching some Minecraft videos on youTube I think we did good! I know that we are having some quality family time around the learning and the work and some of the family time IS learning… 

the joys of youTube

So hopefully I will get the rest of the platypus blog entries up in good time! And then there is that pesky resource one to include as well! We are loving our time on the platypus!

Bit of an 80’s retro baby