This is a late upload. He actually finished MUS's first level last August 12th.
My math whiz has finished his Primer. He's been doing it since KG1. But stopped in the middle of it because I felt that, at KG1, he just wasn't ready to sit down and do worksheets.
Another Celebrated Dancing Bear is a story of two bear friends. Max is a dancer in the circus. The other bear, Boris, works at a hospital, presumably working as a doctor or a nurse. Boris is not happy with his job, and is jealous of his friend's occupation. Max, taking pity on his friend, helped to teach Boris how to dance.
Day 1: Social Studies~Geography and Culture, Occupations, Relationship~Hospitality, Human Emotion-Jealousy
This day, we talked about Russia. It is the setting of the book. The students located Russia in the our world map, Moscow and St. Petersburg in particular, and placed our story disk there.
Can you see the story disk? It's right on top of Moscow, the one with the bear and the Russian turret.
They familiarized with the flag by making one. I gave them white, red and blue papers, and they're left to do wonders. More of, I left them to do independent work while I put the littlest to her morning nap.
Y's 3D flag
W's drawing of the Russian flag.
We also talked about the things Russia is known for—wheat, cotton, caviar, lemmings, the Bolshoi Ballet Company, Tchaikovsky, etc. Speaking of ballet, Y showed me a stretch that they do when she was still having lessons.
Then we pulled out these books from our home library to further study ballet.
Go along books for the week.
Watching Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker during lunch.
In the story, Max taught Boris to dance so that Boris could change occupations. One particular dance that Max taught is the Hussar's dance. The kids get to watch this video to familiarize themselves with the steps. The following days saw us dancing to these steps after reading the book.
The book also talked about hospitality. They paid attention to how Max greeted his friend, Boris, when he visited Max one afternoon. Luckily, I had this printed out and stuck on our ref a couple of weeks ago, so that the kids can refer to it often. They just reviewed it and compared with how Max showed hospitality to his friend.
I had them list down jobs or occupations that they are familiar with. This, unknowingly, practices their handwriting which they both hate. They also learn an important skill of making a list.
Day 2: Language Arts~Vocabulary
I had them act out words from the book. This way, there's better retention of meanings, especially new words that they have just learned.
Moping his brow.
Day 3: Art All of the illustrations of Barbara Garrison in this book are etchings. We watched several YouTube videos of how an etching is made. All I can say is WOW! That is a lot of work.
The children drew the Russian skyline. Turret roofs that look like onions are very famous.
Day 4: Mathematics I had them count the hours from 7PM to 8PM. That's the time when Boris and Max have their dancing lessons. Then I had them count the hours at different time intervals. Oh and this is our breakfast on that day. Tea with milk and some preserves. Just like the snack that Max offered to Boris. The children didn't like the tea. I drank them all.
Day 5: Science: Boiling Point and Freezing Point
To illustrate how hot and cold these two temperatures are, I had to show them their temperature when they have fever, which is 37.8 degC. We measured with a thermometer their current temperature and measured it against the reading when they have fever.
Next, we boiled water and feel how hot the steam is. Unfortunately, I lost my food thermometer. We didn't get to see if it was actually 100 degC. We also felt an ice and feel how cold it is. It would've been better if I didn't lose my food thermometer.
There you have it. That's our Another Celebrated Dancing Bear week. It is a selection from Five in a Row volume 1. We rowed this on week 33 of 2014/school week 12 of SY 2014-2015.
