Chinese Booklist

I benefited from the Chinese book list posted by a fellow homeschooling mother in her blog. I had checked out some of her books and really liked them. So I thought it would be useful to list here, some of the Chinese picture books we have enjoyed recently. They might not be hot from the press, just what caught our eyes: [library reference code]

• 五个小怪物 [JP DYE] -
  
• 在森林里[JP ETS] - translated from In The Forrest by Marie Hall Ets
  
• 爷爷的天使 - my personal favourite
• 布朗家的天才宝宝 - comical
  
• 布朗家的超级明星
• 岩石上的小蝌蚪 [JP XEH]
• 鲸鱼 [JP GOM] - reminds us of the Nazca drawings we read about in our history
  
• 两个好朋友 [J ESC]
• 两个好朋友的争吵 [J ESC]
• 院子里的小岛
• 我不想生气 [JP MOR] - short book about anger management (will want to look at others in the series)
  

I just want to make special note that we really love 爷爷的天使. It is a living book due to its wonderfully thougth-provoking illustrations. This book is about a grandfather's reflection of his whole life on his death bed. He spoke with pride about his bravery when he was young and how nothing terrible seem to ever happen to him; even through the war years. But as you read, you see pictures of his guardian angel protecting him time and time again. Then you will realize that he really had nothing to boast about at all.

Here is a picture of him falling down a tree but was not hurt because he was cushioned by his angel...


Other pages showed him boasting about how he dared to walk along dangerous deserted paths. At a corner, his guardian angel puts her hands over the eyes of his potential attacker...

This book brings to light how we often take God for granted.

My boys love to scrutinize the drawings. It became especially relevant one day. Their grandparents brought them to cycle so that I could have a "break". It was an exceptionally challenging trip for them. They cycled along the park connectors from Bedok to Changi AND BACK! Well, that is not all that impressive...

Along the way, D lost control and cycled into a HUGE drain. It was so deep, if Grandma had not been cycling behind him, nobody would have known where he had gone. His bike and him just disappeared completed. He was eventually fished out of the drain with minimal scratches! I was told, the drain was DRY and had LOTS of dried leaves in there to cushion his fall. This is clearly God's hand of protection!

Horse Unit Study (part 5) - Drawing Horses

For Art, we were broke away from our usual and galloped off on horses! Let me explain...

We were in the mood to draw horses since we have been reading so much about them. But horses aren't exactly the easiest animal to draw. So I pulled out some of my art books to see what I could put together. I read from How to Draw Animals by Jack Hamm. This book is published in the 1960s but yet the clarity of its instructions far surpasses that of more recent how-to books on the same subject.

What started out as a simple copying of horses unfolded into many successive sessions on animal drawing!

We started working from the beginning of the book where we learned about the shapes found in a generalized animal. We then learn how to put those basic shapes together when we look at an animal.

Here are some outlines we copied from the book. Notice the shoulder muscles, hip muscles and rib cage. These outlines are supposed to help in later shading and rendering of other surface details.

Shading of a generalized animal body was the emphasis for the next few sessions. It really gives the drawing depth and perspective.

Here's an attempt at applying the above concepts. I let my boys try outlining the animals from looking at photographs of animals. I wanted to see if they understood the concept. This is what they produced. Here is my boy's drawing of the basic outline of a donkey. He looked at a photograph in our Apologia Zoology 3 book.


The later part of Hamm's book focuses on different animal types and the usual challenges of drawing these animals. We jumped ahead to the section on Horses. (Couldn't wait!) We copied some of the horse drawings in that section.

Then each of us selected a picture of a horse from one of our other books to copy. Here are my boy's outlines. This was B's sketch from James Herriot's Treasury for Children.


This is D's mustang sketched from Album of Horses by Marguerite Henry.

Drawing and colouring are two separate skills. In the past, I noticed that my boys will be very discouraged when their colouring "ruined" their nicely drawn pictures. This time, I decided to make photocopies of their drawing for them to colour on. This is so that credit can be given to the drawing as well as the colouring; and each having something to show for. We used oil pastels. I joined in the fun too using my boys' drawings.


Drawing animals is indeed very challenging. A mistake in proportion can make a deer look like a dog, or a horse like a cow! For a long time, I myself have shied away from drawing animals. I am now glad I overcome my own phobia and gave it a try because I am pleasantly surprised at my boys' enthusiasm. I guess children just have a natural affinity for animals. I now wished I had done this little off tangent project sooner when we still had our zoo membership!

Art : Jan van Eyck : Read Aloud

We are currently reading through Looking at Pictures: An Introduction to Art for Young People by Joy Richardson . My plan is let the chapter on "Hidden Meanings" coincide with our picture study of Jan van Eyck's painting "The Arnolfini Portrait".

This particular painting is also featured in Art Fraud Detective by Anna Nilsen. This book will be next in line in my boys' assigned reading list to heighten interest. Readers are supposed to pretend to be detectives to find out who painted the fakes in a gallery of paintings and hopefully learn a thing or two. Looks like fun to me!


Visit Rumphius Webpage Art to find out about how we approach Art in our homeschool.

Horse Unit Study (part 2) - Picture Book Study

We did a Five-in-a-Row styled book study of a picture book Mrs. Mack by Patricia Polacco.

I chanced upon this book while I was searching for free lapbook templates on horses. I got all my teaching ideas from this page in homeschool share. I used most of the suggestions there and we learned loads! (More lessons plans for other books in this site! A treasure trove! We used most of the lapbook templates from the links on this page. I will post more about that in a separate post.)

I think this story is not one that will appeal to all readers. The subject matter is a serious one but written from the heart. It is an autobiography of the author's first experience learning how to ride a horse and the special relationship she shared with a horse, her riding coach and her riding friends. We read this book with great interest because our first riding experience was still fresh in our minds. I remembered being told to "keep my hands soft" and "don't hang on to the saddle horn!"- familiar words Mrs. Mack reiterated.

Art : Limbourg Brothers III - Illuminated Letter

Our latest Picture Study was Psalms XXVI of the Les Tres Riches Heures.

Upon the death of the Limbourg brothers, Jean Colombe was commissioned to complete their works. He intentionally retain the style of the Limbourg brothers. In this manuscript page, Colombe illuminated the verse and beautifully illustrated it. We followed this Picture Study up with delving into illuminated letters.

We flipped through a book about illuminations called the Illuminated Alphabet by Patricia Seligman and Timothy Noad. I bought this book at a book sale many years ago. (I am now thankful I did!) I was attracted to illuminated manuscripts in general after visiting the British Museum where I was spell-bound by all the richly illustrated and decorated manuscripts. The pictures and words just seem to jump up at you!

This book takes you through the history of the illuminated alphabet and has projects that exemplify various styles of illumination. We browsed through to get ideas for our own letter designs.

Since we were preparing for the boys' medieval birthday party, I decided we would make illuminated letters as decorations for the instructions to our Dragon Hunt (a game we were planning to have in the party). These are the letters we decorated.


Credits :
"D" and "S" by D
"I" and "H" by B
"T" by me :-)

We tried to design the letters with the text in mind. I will be posting pictures of how these were used in a later post.


Visit Rumphius Webpage Art to find out about how we approach Art in our homeschool.

Getting into the Medieval Mood

This pass week was a mad week for us. We were in the thick of preparing for my boys' 8th birthday celebration.

Knights and castles. Swords and armour. Bows and arrows. Horses and dragons. My boys just LOVE everything about the middle ages.

So when I agreed to have their first ever birthday party, I decided we'll have a medieval themed one. (I have always heard about or read about people having themed parties but have never had or attended one! And they sounded so fun. I just have to try one!). I was at first a bit hung up about not timing it with our History studies. Should I do it next year instead? That's the perfectionist in me speaking. But I decided to be spontaneous about it. I just want to let my boys have fun!!!

We have shied away from having any parties previously because I wasn't sure I could handle the logistics of one. How to feed so many people? What to do with the children? Oh no! Have to plan games? How to entertain everybody?! ... So much work!!!

Then recently, I read about the wonderful birthday party a good friend of mine planned for her son. I was amazed at her dedication and creativity! I was really put to shame. Haha... in a good sense because I was all inspired after that. She spoke about making memories for her children and that set me thinking... It is just this few years really, may be between the ages of 6 to 12. I don't think a teenager would fancy one at all. It would be too "childish" for them then.

So here I am, going to give it a try ... starting really small with inviting only 3 families. Just don't think I could cope with more... :-b (Have already exceeded the rule of "number of friends to invite equals age of child" rule.)

I hope to do a crash course on History in the Middle Ages (just for this two weeks) ... just a bit of this and that. This would serve as an introduction for later studies. I just couldn't resist it. :-b

In order to get the boys into the mood (Like they needed help!?), I chose a book that is set in the middle ages for our read aloud. It is King of Ireland's Son by Padraic Colum. Reviews of the book revealed that some clever story-telling is exhibited in the weaving of stories within a story. I have been saving this book for when we are "there" for History, but have decided now is good enough! This book has been a page-turner so far. More a fun and fantasy type book rather than one that gives detailed introduction to that period in history. Nevertheless an enjoyable read.

These were the books I assigned for independent reading this week:
Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges
The Kitchen Knight by Margaret Hodges
A Medieval Feast by Aliki
If You Live in the Days of the Knights by Ann McGoverit

There are many more of such books. I just chose those I could get my hands on.

Poem Fever

My boys simply love poems. Every time I finish reading one, they will be begging for more. So we can seldom just read ONE poem (as recommended by Ambleside Online).

I have to confess that I have not been reading poems as regularly as planned. But I think not much "harm" was done. We will take it from wherever we are and start from there! I am now resolved to read at least 2 before our chapter book read alouds. This is just to ensure it doesn't get forgotten :-b

So here is what we are reading now. A wonderful book of poems arranged by subjects called Read-Aloud Poems for Young People: Readings from the Worlds Best Loved Verses by Glorya Hale. (Similar to the better known Favorite Poems Old and New by Helen Ferris.) I appreciated the extra biographical sketches provided about the poets which often heightened interest somewhat.

In fact, my boys have recently took to liking poetry so much that they have even started composing some themselves. They unabashedly claim to be "poets". (Well, if you write, you are a writer. If you draw, you are an artist. So in the same line of reasoning, since they write poems, they are poets! :-D I decided I didn't want to "burst their bubble"...)

I sometimes speak to them in rhymes just to show them that it really isn't that difficult to compose rhyming verses off the top of our heads. They are always very tickled whenever I do that and would be challenged to respond in similar rhyming verses! Sometimes we may end up with something nonsensical and have a good laugh.

I see value simply in their wanting to compose. In my efforts to encourage them, I felt I needed them to know that there is a place for nonsensical poems. This is where I found our collection of Edward Lear's Nonsense Poems useful. Read-Aloud Poems for Young People also has a section called Laughing Lyrics that my boys especially enjoy.

Do you have any poetry books to recommend?

I think this "poem" fever
is here to stay.
And will get hotter
and hotter each day! :-)

Art : Limbourg Brothers II - Book of Hours

One of the Limbourg brother's most famous work is the Book of Hours (Tres Riches Hueres) commissioned by the Duke of Berry. This book of prayer has prayers for certain times of the year, month, day or hour. The Limbourg brothers were responsible for richly illustrating the book. In it is a calender that had 12 pictures depicting various events within the year occurring in and around the Duke of Berry's castle vicinity.

I chose to conduct detailed Picture Study for the months of January, March, May and August in the Book of Hours. We viewed the rest of the paintings of the other months in this site just for fun.

These studies were followed by a creation of our own "Book of Hours". Basically, I just told my boys to draw a picture that is a representative event of the month of January or February this year. We added the semicircular outline on the top of our paintings to mimic the template used by the Limbourg brothers.

Here is B's January.


He wanted to remember the day when we went visiting during Chinese New Year. He brought our Rubik's cube along and was playing with it. He had then already been able to solve the cube without referring to the solution sheet. (Memorized the solution. I didn't think anybody could do that.) An uncle of mine was impressed and insisted on timing him. B solved the Rubik's cube within a staggering time of 1 minute 30 seconds!!! (D's best time was 1 minute 37 seconds.)


Here is D's February.


He wanted to remember the fun he had at the zoo when we first visited Kidzworld. This picture is of him pulling the rope on the raft.


I want to make a note here that my boys had really come a long way with respect to their painting. They still have lots of room for improvement, of course! I am just glad that they have more control of the brush now so at least they can get most of the paint within the lines. I attribute this improvement solely to the natural development of their fine motor skills. I have seen other little girls being able to colour or paint neatly at a younger age, and have always wondered why my boys can't seem to do that! :-( I have to constantly remind myself that every child is unique and they all have different developmental clocks.

I am also glad to see that they have applied what they have learnt from the lessons in Draw Squad to their drawing.:-) See the 3D cube and raft!

As an aside, ... ... ...

In the preschool years, I had tended to plan my lessons thematically. It worked then, but is a little too tedious for me at this stage when I have more specific topics to cover. However, selecting a few related poems or books was no trouble at all.

This is my attempt at riding on the theme of Calenders/Seasons.

We revisited the poem A Calendar by Sara Coleridge. This is a lovely poem that we seem to not get sick of relearning every year! We have a few versions of this poem in some of our poetry books but our favourite is from this book Eloise Wilkin's Poems to Read to the Very Young. This is a board book that I read to my boys since they were toddlers. The illustrations are lovely. In fact I caught my boys devouring it all over again during their free time.

For Chinese, I selected the book 春天的兔子 for our read aloud. The story tells of a rabbit's impatient wait for the arrival of his little siblings through the different seasons. A rare Chinese Living Book :-)


Visit Rumphius Webpage Art to learn more about how we approach Art in our homeschool.

Hippocrates and the Caduceus

At the moment, I am using Story of the World (SOTW) vol. 1 as my core text book for history. I also have in mind to cover some well-known people as listed and recommended in The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Buer Wise and Jessie Wise. So whenever those people are not mentioned in SOTW, I would have to research and find material to work on myself.

I found a new History curriculum called Mystery of History (MOH) by Linda Lacour Hobar. The first volume in this series is titled Creation to the Resurrection. I was attracted to this curriculum because it attempts to weave Bible History into World History. The sample pages showed a wide coverage. I know because I saw that MOH included many of the extras that I added into my History curriculum. I was thrilled so I went ahead to get MOH.

This is where I am now. Having already started on SOTW, with the boys enjoying it. Yet attracted to another curriculum that is sequenced quite differently. I am torn between the two!!

I haven't yet decided what to do. My plan for now is to continue with SOTW as my core and use only those lessons from MOH as and when I need them. This will give me some time to try MOH out and hopefully I will get a better idea of what I should do next.


The next Great Men of Greece that is on my list was Hippocrates. We learned about his contribution to society by first drafting out the Hippocratic oath that is now still taken by every practicing physician. I read the relevant lesson from MOH and let my boys narrate the passage. They begged to make the Caduceus, another craft project they saw in Spend the Day in Ancient Greece by Linda Honan. I was not too keen initially, but have not the heart to object especially since they were so eager. Because this was quite unplanned, I did not have much information about the Caduceus to share with my boys. My boys are now getting the hang of searching for information from the Internet, so that is what we did!


Visit Rumphius History Webpage to find out more about how we approach History in our homeschool.

Lessons From and On the Harvestman

One of our read aloud chapter this week was The Cheerful Harvestman from Among the Meadow People by Clara Dillingham. I really love how Dillingham weaves in moral issues in each of her chapters that also gives accurate information about the animal she is writing about. Her a"not-so-modern" phrases are a delight to my ears.

In this chapter on the harvestman, we learned the benefits of being good-natured even when teased by other, not to look down on others, how clever it is to "look dull" when others are gossiping, and be cheerful despite misfortune. The harvestman is really MY kind of guy!

For our "English lesson", this read aloud was followed by an oral narration and copywork.

And since we haven't any idea what a harvestman was, we went on the Internet to check it out. We learned that a harvestman is also known as a "Daddy-Long-Legs". Many people mistakenly consider them to be spiders. They are in fact not true spiders. Their head, thorax and abdomen are grown together; having no "waist". They are not venomous. They neither spin webs nor build nests. Instead, they lay their eggs in the soil or under rotting wood. Unlike spiders, they can feed on dead or living prey. Vegetable matter and even juices are also part of their natural diet.

I found a website that gave information that is simple enough for my boys to understand. (Many others had too many scientific jargon.) We read this webpage together and created a table that shows the differences between a harvestman and a spider.

Tabulating information from a given narrative is in my humble opinion a very important and necessary study skill to hone. As such, this little exercise, although quite unrelated to our other studies (We have not gone into zoology yet!), was nevertheless a valuable one.

At the very least, we SHOULD be able to tell a harvestman from a spider... IF we ever encounter one in the future.

Rethinking Nature Study

I was inspired to start Wild Days (nature study days) after reading the book Wild Days by Karen Skidmore Rackliffe some years back. However, with the demands of school; trying to keep our core subjects on track... we have been neglecting nature study.

For a long time, our occasional outings with our friends were passed off as our Wild Day. Deep inside me, I know I am deceiving myself! Worst still "cheating" my boys of the benefits of nature study.

After some evaluation, I decided to restart nature study by taking smaller steps. Scaling down our former Wild Day to a Wild Hour seems like a more realistic goal.

For sometime, I have been perusing this site by a homeschooling mother, Barb-Harmony Art Mom. She started this blog to challenge homeschoolers to start nature study, as described by Charlotte Mason, using the book Nature Study Handbook by Anna Botsford Comstork. (eText available here.)

I had this books for years. It is a thick book of about 2 and a half inches. It was written in the 1930s by the founder of the Department of Nature Studies at Cornell University. It aims to provide possible observational points for those who are attempting nature studies. One can tell by thumbing through that this can be a very useful book. But the big question, at least for me, is "HOW do I use it?". This is where Barb-Harmony Art Mom comes into the picture. She has kindly provided a framework to use this book. It is the kind of "guide you by the hand" help I need now.

Enough said. I will begin by following her weekly Outdoor Challenges starting from Outdoor Challenge #1 which was posted in February last year. (Her latest is #45!) I will try to follow through the challenges as closely as is possible. At least until I am comfortable enough to stray off and use HNS confidently on my own.

I like it that she even provided a way for people like us to blog about what we did for the respective Challenges and link it back on her site. This not only serves to make me accountable, but also gives me a chance to take a peek at what others are doing. She is simply ingenious! (We really need more of such helpful homeschooling mothers!)

I am so excited! Can't wait to start!!


Visit Rumphius Wild Days Webpage to get an idea of what my original plan for Wild Days was.

Chinese Science Picture Books

I just discovered a set of Chinese Science picture books that is just right for my boys. I like the illustrations that are done in watercolor. Sentences are not too long. And all the facts are weaved into a cohesive narrative that reminds me very much of the English Science picture book series I love, Let-Read-And-Find-Out Science. There are snippets of interesting facts here and there, like in Osborne books. A perfect way to introduce Science terminologies (in Chinese) in a gentle way.
This set is recommended for children aged 2 and above. But don't be deceived, they are advanced even for my 7- year-olds! :-p

Here is the link for this set. You can search the titles of all 8 books to view the sample pages.

This is another set that is recommended for children 4 and above. Here is the link.
(I am somehow more attracted to the former.)

I was delighted to find them ALL available at our public library. :-) Go check them out!

However, I may just buy them anyway because I will need to check the dictionary to know how to read many of the words :-p and I can't possibly write all that hanyupinyin on the library books. Can I?... ... ...Excuses!... Imho, these books are keepers.


Visit Rumphius Chinese Webpage to see more Chinese book recommendations.

English - Copywork & Dictation : Skylar

I found an interesting book that would have tied in nicely with a unit study on birds (or read with Zoology 1 of the Apologia Series) ....accept that I am not currently having a unit study on birds. :-1 Oh well! A good book is always welcomed.

The book is Skylar by Mary Cuffe-Perez. This book is hot from the press; released in 2008! It is about a small group of pond geese who have never migrated before, watching wild Canada geese making their migration journey southward. By some chanced event, they were challenged to make their first attempt. The rest of the story tells the engaing tale of their adventure.

The style of writing reminds me of E.B. White's Charlotte's Web. Simply captivating.


Here is the paragraph I have selected for copywork:

Skylar, looking like a plump, feathered general, marched up and down in front of his small flock, inspecting, nodding and making curious clucking sounds. The announcement has been made: Skylar would lead the heron to Lost Pond, and he expected the four pond geese, as his flock, to follow. Now he waited for the excuses, complaints, refusal, which he was sure would come. He stared hard at each goose as if he meant to find a weakness and expose it.


These are the words my boys were to check the meanings of:
1. urban
2. peril
3. flamboyant
4. flouder
5. commotion
6. lurch
7. plummet
8. glower
9. flail
10. strode
11. intently
12. careen
13. strut

I used to let my boys check our big fat dictionary and copy the definitions. To save time, I am now trying out letting them cut and paste from an online dictionary, then print these vocabulary words out for them to study from. I found one at this site which suited my purpose.


Visit Rumphius English Webpage to find out more about how we approach English in our homeschool.

Homer's The Iliad

We have read about Homer and his two famous works The Iliad and The Odyssey. I had planned to read a retelling of these two stories. We own the book Children's Homer by Padraic Colum so it just seemed natural to start with that. However, I was disappointed that my boys couldn't quite understand it as it was pitched at a higher reading level. I decided to put the book aside for now and try another. I checked my classical book lists and selected another retelling called Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff.

I was glad to see several copied of this book in the library. This is helpful because we usually read a chapter or two a week and will normally take longer than 3 weeks (that's the library loan period) to complete the book. In this case, we can borrow the other copies when our first loan period expires.

Black Ships Before Troy is our current "on-the-go" book. That means I bring it wherever we go and read to my boys whenever we have time. This normally happens during our commute in trains or when we are early for classes and have some time to kill (I hate to say that especially when I always feel I am so short on time!).

We are enjoying it thoroughly. My boys are always begging for more. In fact, I like it so much I might consider reading The Wanderings of Odysseus by the same author at a later date. This is a re-telling of The Odyssey by Homer.

I am not sure if this is an overkill since my boys have just started reading a series about The Odyssey by their favourite author Mary Pope Osborne (author of the Magic Tree House Series). We'll see...


Visit Rumphius English Webpage and History Webpage to find out more about how we approach English and History in our homeschool.