Shakespeare's Scribe

If you haven't read the Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood, you need to.  It's great historical fiction and writing.  My husband liked it so much that he stayed up so he could finish reading it and then asked for the sequel!  This is actually a triology.  My daughter read the first book already so I had her read the second one, Shakespeare's Scribe.

Here is a handout of what I had her work on while she read the book.  These kind of activities help her to reflect more on the book and makes reading more exciting.

Shakespeare’s Scribe

Scavenger Hunt-See if you can find all these clues!

Setting:  Where does this book take place and what time period?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Characters:  List the main characters and describe them.  (personality, appearance, etc.)

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What do you learn about the Globe Theater and plays during Shakespeare’s time?  List some interesting facts.

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Write 6 new words that you didn’t know before and their definitions

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What was the mystery and/or problem in this book?

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List any clues that you find in the book that would solve the mystery.

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Make a book cover for your book.

Do research on Shakespeare and write a short biography on his life.

Copy your favorite quote or sentence from the book.

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The Second Mrs. Giaconda

I am trying to be more creative this year and not just stick to having my daughter just answer reading comprehension questions or do summaries on the books she has read.

Here is my simple idea for a unit study on The Second Mrs. Giaconda by E.L. Konigsburg.  Hope this is helpful!

The Second Mrs. Giaconda Activities (Complete all by Wednesday Sept. 13)

Do this in your reading notebook and/or write it on the computer.

Write 8 new vocabulary words and their definitions in your notebook.  After you are finished writing all vocabulary words, test yourself on quizlet.com  

Do research on the background of the Mona Lisa and write a paper on your findings.

Print out artprojectsforkids.org/portfolio/fun-with-mona-lisa and make your own modern version of Mona Lisa.  There are other projects on the Mona Lisa if you search on that website. 

The Second Mrs. Giaconda   is E.L. Konigsburg’s idea of the story behind the Mona Lisa.  What do you think of her version of the story?  Do you think it is believable?  Write a story about what you think really happened.  Make it interesting.  Use dialogue, descriptive words, etc.

Great Idea for History next year

Dear Friends,
It's been a while since I've posted anything.  I saw this on one of my favorite blogs and it looked really exciting!  Check out the link below:

http://www.halfahundredacrewood.com/2016/05/history-through-summer-and-beyond

Makes me want to try something new for next year!  My daughter loves hands on learning with lots of visuals.

The Search for Good Literature for Children

I don't know about your kids but my kids love to read. I mean LOVE to read.  So, it's been a challenge being in a country without a library.  That's why we love our Kindles!

It's been harder to find quality books that are not junk.  I thought I would share some good ones we've read.

Viking Adventure Series

This is a great Christian book series.  My kids really liked these books and thought they were really exciting.

http://www.lwjbooks.com/books/viking-quest-series/

My daughter really likes the "Humphrey" series which are books whose main character is a hamster.  Often there is a lesson to be learned.

The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail by Richard Peck was another book recommended by my daughter.

The Case of the Purloined Professor by Judy Cox is another cute book about mice.

The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson is a really good book written by someone who went through the Holocaust himself.  Depending on how sensitive your children are, you may want to read this with them.  It really is an inspiring book about how people can persevere through the most difficult times.

Russia Study

We're enjoying our study on Russia.  Honestly, I did not know much about Russia so I'm learning along with my kids!

My husband has been reading books at night to the kids before they go to bed.  For our study on Russia, we read Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin.

Wow...it's been a while since I've read a book like that.  I really transports to that era.  You can't help but read it in one sitting.  Once you finish, you have to just sit and ponder for a while. It's that powerful.  I also found this website that gives more background about the setting of the book.  http://www.eugeneyelchinbooks.com/breakingstalinsnose/index.php

After we read that, we had to read another book by Eugene Yelchin so we read his next book, Archady's Goal.  It's another excellent book.  Very emotionally stirring.  Yelchin illustrated both books himself and the pictures itself are worth a thousand words.

I found loads of websites with activities on Russia.  There's a lot to study.  I like this website:  http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks/russia.shtml

Another website that was helpful was http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/russia-crafts .  There's a lot of great crafts and note booking pages.  My son did research on wikipedia and then wrote a report on the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

China Study

We have enjoyed studying about China these past couple of weeks.  There is so much we can do!  We made two lap books on China.

www.homeschoolshare.com/country_china.php

www.homeschoolshare.com/ancient_china_lapbook.php

We also watched the Ancient China portion of History with Pipo.  You can watch it online here:

www.hulu.com/kids-animated-history-with-pipo

Or you can purchase it on Amazon.  I highly recommend it.

Resources for Korea Study

Some Great Korean Food!  Makes My Mouth Water...

There are a lack of resources online regarding Korea.  I had to do a lot of searching.  We have been enjoying reading Tales of the Korean Grandmother together.  My children are half Taiwanese and half Korean so this part of our Eastern Hemisphere has been important to them.

Every time we study a different country, we put all the maps, writing, artwork related to that country on a bulletin board.

Here are some websites that were helpful to me:
http://www.crayola.com/free-coloring-pages/print/north-korea-coloring-page/ 

There is another one for south korea on the same website.  This has a nice flag to color and information about it.

I really liked this website since it has nice coloring pages with information related to Chuseok, the Korean fall celebration.  My children colored theirs with oil pastels.

http://www.theholidayzone.com/chuseok/art.html

This website has a great idea for a 3-D craft that you can make.  I looked up information about the south gate on wikipedia.  My kids came up with their own variation of the model.  I wish I had a picture of it but I cannot find my camera battery charger!

http://www.crayola.com/lesson-plans/south-gate-of-seoul,-korea-lesson-plan/

We learned a some Korean on this website: http://genkienglish.net/speakkorean/  They have some cute games here to practice simple Korean.  Here's a printable chart of the Korean alphabet as well:

http://freshkorean.com/2012/08/16/free-downloadable-and-printable-korean-alphabet-chart/

My daughter likes to make crafts, so this blog had an interesting idea about making a book of Korean numbers:http://blog.susangaylord.com/2007/05/korean-counting-book.html

I gave the kids a choice on whether to do a report on the Korean War, tae kwon do, or a famous Korean person.  I am interested in seeing what they decide to write on!  I think my son will write on the Korean War.

Finally, I came up with my own worksheets/notebook pages that the kids could fill out after reading our World Book Encyclopedia or researching on the internet.  My daughter also decided to make a Venn Diagram about the difference between North Korea and South Korea.

For some reason, the images didn't copy but you can download the clipart from Microsoft online.  Surprisingly, they have several clipart for Korea.

NORTH KOREA

Capital City:_______________________________­

Leader:____________________________________

Government:__________________________________________________________________________

Religion:  ___________________________________

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Economy:______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Military:_____________________________________________________________________________

Facts:______________________________________ _________________________________________

                                                                                   

SOUTH KOREA

Capital City:_______________________________­

Leader:____________________________________

Government:__________________________________________________________________________

Religion:  ___________________________________

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Economy:______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Military:_____________________________________________________________________________

Facts:______________________________________ _________________________________________

PLACES IN SOUTH KOREA:

Gyeongbok Palace

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Seoul Tower

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