Tagalog lesson: counting to 10

 Here are the worksheets I made up to try out...It was pretty fun for Miss K.

Tagalog number word find

Practicing the numbers by making a poster chart

Nature Study of the Community gardens

I was inspired by several books and blogs, to make more time for Nature study. We don't have much of a garden but we do have two amazing community gardens nearby.
This weeks we visited one of the gardens. I let the Piwis led the way, they touched and smelled and asked so many questions (,many of which I was able to answer because my parents and grandparents passed so much of their knowledge about nature to me).. They showed me plants they wanted to take pictures of. We are planning to go back and sketch and complete rubbings.

Looking at raspberries ripening on the vine

Smelling lemon balm

Exploring the veggie patches

The piwis were so excited to see onions growing

spot the butterfly!

looking at peas and beans

To find a Community Garden near you visit the American Community  Garden Association to do a quick search!

The book I was reading...

 

"Join the ranks of Legendary Learners – big thinkers, creators, leaders and achievers who earned success on their own terms. Read about famous homeschoolers such as:

• Andrew Carnegie
• Thomas Edison
• Agatha Christie
• Robert Frost
• Louis Armstrong
• John Muir
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Walt Whitman

Find out what these legends had in common, how they were raised and how they found success. Their fascinating stories will inspire you to think about homeschooling in a whole new way – beyond curriculum, test scores and “keeping up with the school kids.” from their website:

I had no idea so many of these great minds were educated at home, How about you?

Mermaid book report

Miss K loves Mermaids and checks out any mermaid book she can find at our library. I surprised her with a folder for her to put all her book reports and a set of worksheets to fill out for them. I made this myself by cutting and pasting a bunch of sheets from Evan moor and adding some of my doodles and some tracings of mermaid pics. For some reason no one has come up with a Mermaid themed book report printable yet...if I get the time (haha) I might try to make one in word or publisher.

 The first book report to go into it was on Melody and the Sea Dragon by Katy Kit

This was the first folder I started on but it was taken over by Mini Piwi who decided she wanted to make one too

Manook (Chicken) soup for the soul

Daddy Piwi has come down with Miss K's cold. To make him feel better we attempted to make the Filipino version of the great cure, chicken soup. It was pretty successful and super easy! It is similar to a congee or chowder. I can feel my throat getting scratchy too so I better track down a vegan version soon...
update...see here the vegan recipe on standby

Chicken Arroz Caldo (Filipino Chicken Rice Porridge)

Daddy piwi prefers to eat it like this but for the piwis I cut the chicken off the bone.

Ingredients

Serves: 4

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large  onion, diced
• 6 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 (5cm) piece fresh root ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1.25 lb drumsticks
• 5 cups water
• 1 cup uncooked rice
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce (or 1 teaspoon kosher salt)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 spring onion, chopped
• 1 lemon, sliced

Preparation method

Prep: 20 mins | Cook: 30 mins

1.

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat; cook and stir the onion, garlic and ginger in the hot oil until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add the rice; cook and stir together for 2 minutes.

2.

Pour the water into the pot.Bring the mixture to the boil; and add chicken. Cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally to assure the rice is not sticking to the bottom of the pot. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish with the spring onion, and serve with lemon slices and additional fish sauce, if desired.

Beginning Tagalog lessons

We had planned on waiting until the new school year to begin Tagalog lessons. But then I got thinking again, there's no time like the present right? All along we were told we should be speaking Tagalog to our kids from birth. It would have been more convenient if I had of learn' t it earlier and been speaking to them I could have been speaking it to them. What can I say? Life was busy and here we are 6 years on.
I was feeling super guilty, until I realized that our was not a unique situation. There are a lot of parents out there looking for Tagalog lessons. There are even schools/classes in the US to teach Filipino language and culture.
Here are some I found in a Google search...
Filipino Community of Seattle
Bay area kids Tagalog lessons
NY/NJ Tagalog classes

We couldn't find a nearby class or curriculum that suited our needs. Piwi Daddy didnt know where to start I( and super busy) so I have been putting lessons together myself. Talk about student teaching the student! My present Tagalog (I am ashamed to say) is limited to greetings, slang, various Filipino foods and animals and the word for armpits (as you do).

I am basing it on the way that Miss K has been learning Spanish this year. She really loved her classes and has picked up a lot of vocab this year. Each lesson we will be doing will involve some puzzle/game type worksheets I have made up (by hand only at this stage, to save time), some listening and watching of online videos of Tagalog conversations and lessons. Finally we will have Piwi Daddy go over things in the evenings with us and reinforce pronunciation.

wish us luck! First up is counting to 10...

Crayon chemistry...colors, recyling and matter

 It's not everyday the Piwi's can learn so much from one experiment or activity...color sorting, team work, recycling, States of matter...it was all here.

Playing with the new circle crayons

very hot!! liquid wax

Like most households with kids, we end up with a lot of neglected, broken crayons. I had saved them up for this project I had planned to do for earth day (recycling). The week of earth day also coincided with Miss K's chemistry unit.

I lined a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and set the oven to 200 degrees F, The  Piwis peeled off any remaining paper on the crayon pieces. After some debate, it was agreed that they would make multi colored crayons in different shades. So similar colors got sorted together into a cupcake liner. I just sat back and watched in wonder as Miss K helped Mini Piwi with her colors.
While we ate our dinner, the crayons melted down (I checked them every few minutes) and then popped the the freezer to cool.

When they were ready to use, Miss K went off and used them to draw and label and illustration of the solid wax turning to liquid (with heat) and then back again to solid (by cooling it). I had a diagram/flowchart worksheet ready to go but Miss K's idea was much better (and no doubt better learning for her!).