Book recommendation - The Mitten by Jan Brett

I've always loved children books. They contain wonderful insights and honest truths embedded in simple faith and innocence. We need a world like that. A storybook world that sweeps us off our feet from the harsh reality to another world which can help us make our current reality better.

One thing I love about MFW (My Father's World) K curriculum is the book list for every unit. Because of this book list, I find myself in the library every week searching for the recommended books, only to find uncover more treasures in the midst of my search. I usually need at least 3 library cards to check out the books.

Last week as Zech was learning about foxes, I discovered a gem of a book. When I taught the lower primary, I used to download lots of stuff from this website -http://www.janbrett.com/index.html. That was how I learned about the author Jan Brett. It wasn't until recently that I read a Jan Brett book to Zech.

'The Mitten' is a very heartwarming story about a boy who wanted white mittens badly. His grandmother made a pair for the boy and one day, while playing, he lost a mitten in the snow. It was cold and one by one, the animals managed to squeeze themselves inside the mitten.

 

I love the ending. Just a picture which tells a thousand words.

In the book pack, I included a tangram activity which I printed from http://filefolderfun.com/TangramGame. Printed out one with shapes outline and one without. The one with shapes outline was a back up in case Zech found it hard to complete the other one. He needed a more challenging activity so decided to let him try the one without the shapes outline. He could manage with some help from me.

Another activity in the book pack was some props for retelling. Printed the props from Jan Brett website. Previously, Zech had tried his hand at show and tell. He did a really funny one about his rock. This time, I wanted to increase the challenge and let him try retelling which was really not easy.

I read the story to him twice and modeled the retelling for him. He caught on quite fast though he wasn't that confident. We tried a second time with me modeling the retelling again before he did it. After practicing a few times, he got better.

When he was ready, I got him to retell the story to his papa and brother.

This activity is challenging for young children. But Zech enjoyed it even though there's lots of room for improvement be it diction, clarity or holding of props.

I highly recommend  'The Mitten' to all young kids who love reading like Zech. Try retelling with this story or other simple stories with  a repetitive style. Eric Carle's books are good choices too. Reading has been the most enjoyable activity in our home. I hope yours too.

Frogs are cute but are they really?

The unit on the frog was surprisingly fun. We had some fun activities to mellow down the disgusting nature of frogs. Yes. I dislike frogs and once even killed a toad using a stone. Anyway, I discovered the adorable side of frogs this time and I'm beginning to be able to appreciate the 'beauty' of poison dart frogs and tree frogs but only in pictures. Here are some of the fun things we have done for the unit.

Froggy burger for dinner.

It was the first time Zech ate and finished a home-made burger.

 

My little froggy hopping and learning to count in 2s. That was an effective method for Zech.

Copywork with froggy craft.

Mini book making on frogs.

 

For book time, I chose a story from the book 'Frog and Toad Storybook Treasury'. I didn't think the stories were that appealing but they have a very classic feel so I thought I'd expose Zech to these stories.

I read 'The Letter' to him and soon, he was asking me to read the rest of the stories in the book.
Prepared a book pack to go along with 'The Letter'. There were some word cards, frog craft together with a letter writing pad and envelope.

Zech assembled the froggy pieces to make a frog. Cute right? I got the idea from pinterest.

I have written a letter to Zech so I told him to check the mailbox with me.

It was meant as a surprise. After giving him the letter, I asked him to check on the envelope for the sender's name. He could read Mummy so he knew almost at once the letter was from me. I read to him the contents of the letter and he was beaming all the way. Zech also wrote a letter to a friend and posted it himself.

I enjoyed this unit. Pity we didn't get to visit the frog farm as Papa wasn't for it. Instead, we went hunting for little frogs in pet shops at Serangoon North. Now Zech is asking to try frog legs!

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Teaching idea #2

Zech does number drills every day using the place value chart. Besides using the base-10 blocks to represent numbers, I find it useful for Zech to count in tens with the 10s rods. He has learnt to count in tens since last year but I thought using the rods while he counts in tens would help him to grasp the concept more clearly. I needed to ensure he knew the concept of tens rather than mere memorisation. After reaching 100, we moved on to the hundreds using the blocks. Concrete learning like this helps young kids to understand the concept better.

Zech loves 10 hundreds as he can take out the 1000 cuboid.

For numbers greater than 100, it's clearer to use the base-ten blocks. Check this link out for printable ones -  http://www.havefunteaching.com/tools/paper-cut-outs/printable-base-10-blocks