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:  ___________________________________

_________________________________________

Economy:______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Military:_____________________________________________________________________________

Facts:______________________________________ _________________________________________

                                                                                   

SOUTH KOREA

Capital City:_______________________________­

Leader:____________________________________

Government:__________________________________________________________________________

Religion:  ___________________________________

_________________________________________

Economy:______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Military:_____________________________________________________________________________

Facts:______________________________________ _________________________________________

PLACES IN SOUTH KOREA:

Gyeongbok Palace

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Seoul Tower

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Links, Lapbooks, and Ideas for Japan Study

I found some great websites to use for studying Japan.

There is so much material that it is going to take 2 weeks to finish everything.  My kids are enjoying it!

I found this great lap book on Japan - http://lapbooklessons.com/JapanLapbook There are so many pages that I did not end up printing everything.  My daughter really enjoyed making this and she is still working on it.

For my son, he was really interested in Medieval Japan after reading The Master Puppeteer so we are working on a different lap book on Medieval Japan.

I used this link:  http://www.tinasdynamichomeschoolplus.com/middle-ages-to-reform/medieval-japan/  This is a great website for lap book ideas, etc.  I have used it many times.

I also bought a video called Kids Animated History with Pipo.  It covers all the ancient civilizations.  Japan is included in that.  It is animated paper cuts and is very entertaining as well as educational.  My kids loved it.  You can actually watch these online here - http://www.yidio.com/show/kids-animated-history-with-pipo  However, since we do not have fast internet access, we bought the video instead.  I highly recommend it.

Antarctica Unit Study and Links

We are really enjoying our Eastern Hemisphere study for Sonlight this year.  The kids enjoy doing their research.  I give them a lot of freedom about what projects they want to do for each country.  For example, my daughter is really into animals and has been making animal fact cards or writing animal reports for each country.  For Antarctica, my son is going to research about explorers that went to Antarctica.  The notebook pages for Antarctica are a little sparse so I did some searching and found this great link:

http://diyhomeschooler.com/antarctica-a-mini-unit/

There are lessons, websites, activities, lap books, and note booking pages.

It looks like they have a lot of other great ideas for other unit studies, so I'll be sure to go to that website again.

Book for New Zealand study

We just read Red Sand, Blue Sky that was recommended by Sonlight for the New Zealand study for history.  My son wasn't crazy about it, so I looked up on Amazon an alternative.  We found a delightful book called Aroha's Grand Adventure by Angela Oliver.  It is a really cute story that features many of the animals that live in New Zealand. The kids loved it.  Very few stories like this anymore that are actually 300 pages long.

We also put whatever activity pages we do, maps, and crafts related to the country we are studying on our bulletin board for the week.

Window Kids and Reading Activities

Well, we are back to homeschooling again!  I found this great website:  windowkids.com

We use it to pray through the countries in the 10/40 window.  It makes this more fun and there are other activities on the website that the kids can do as well.

I'm trying to include more creative writing activities and projects to go with the novels that we are reading for school.   So far, my daughter has read Dumpling Days by Grace Lin, which naturally leads to a lot of interesting writing activities and projects on Taiwan.  This is not included with Sonlight but was a great book to include while we are learning about the Eastern Hemisphere.  Some examples of things we did were:  writing about our trips, writing a recipe, writing about the religious beliefs, practicing Chinese calligraphy and watercolor painting.

My son is reading Henry Reed, Inc. and I found this website that has some interesting ideas to go with that book.  http://www.emporia.edu/libsv/wawbookaward/winners/winner60-61.html

So, any new ideas that you want to use this homeschool year that you want to share?