Happy weekend~

The farmer market opens every Friday morning. I like to be there cause I can find many organic food specially strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, eggs, vegetables, milk and all kinds of peaches. There are a lot of person shopping here. the booth owners are pleased to invite everyone to give a try for all of their stuffs. Sometimes I will try the home made fresh salsa with a piece of cookie.....so wonderful taste and yummy. I love the hot flavor than mild one.

BTW, the price on farmer market is more lower than supermarket in USA. Chinese people loves to shop here as you can see and hear someone speak the mandarin and you will feel like you are in the China town.

Don't forget the flea market is also a good place to go. The first Saturday in a month, you can see so many trucks get into De Anza college parking lot. There are more than 50 booths you can shop. Maybe you can find something particular or valuable. Go hunting by yourself~

Tongue Twisted

Kids love tongue twisted!

James and campers are practicing hard for the last day performance which will show on Friday night 6:30 pm in Mountain View Pioneer Park stage. They are so amazing and acting better and better everyday.

It's really helpful to improve the accent.

i.e.

1. Sally sells a seashell in the seashore.

2. Purple Paper People, Purple Paper People, Purple Paper People

3. I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish, but if you wish the wish the witch wishes, I won't wish the wish you wish to wish.

That's lovely, and try to find more from website. You can find it from "Tongue twisted for children".

Hope you enjoy it.

A penguin story

Remember the most popular books "Not A Stick", "Not A Box" and I told you I will show you guys the newest book from Antoinette Portis. Here it is!! " A Penguin Story" talking about Edna the penguin knows only the three colors that surround her, white ice, black night, and blue sea. She is convinced there is something more out there. So she sets out on a quest......a quest for color. When she finally finds what she's been looking for, it is everything she hoped for and more. But does that mean she will ever stop looking?

(picture by website/book)

White, thinks Edna. Like yesterday.

Black. Like tomorrow.

Blue, blue, blue. Forever

"There is white ice for sliding," says Edna.

"There is black night for seeing stars.

There is blue sea for hunting fish.

But there must be something else."

Look at the little penguin, she is trying hard to find something different with daily life. Good job!!

SPLASH ! Part V

Do you know where is the class three plan to go?

What happened to the class three at sea? Was there a shark? an octopus?

unexpected visitors? Guess what, they always got the way out........

Trust me, you will really enjoy this fantastic adventure story. Look at the picture on the cover page! Who is smiling and heading at the boat? What a terrible terrible thing is meeting the pirates at sea. Unfortunately, class three is too happy to ignore the sign of dangerous.......Who's gonna to sacrify for all of the classmates? Where is the teacher? Who can rescue them?

After that interesting story, I will bring you the other exciting story for "class two"!

(picture from website)

Class Three is going to sea!

They se dolphins, sea lions, flying fish, and an octopus that's all knotted up. What they don't see is the pirate ship sneaking up behind..... Before the students can say "Arr!" they're captured! That is, until their friends from the sea come to their aid. Can they save Class Three before the pirates reach Treasure Island?

Wonderful story!!

Wizard, Fairy, Chicken

This is a great book to learn about cooperation, team work and you can see how is the three become one!! I also suggest the song with lyrics "This old man" what you can link from as below.

BTW, you can play the "knick-knack" game in the class. That will be fun. Enjoy!

(picture from amazon)

Song: This old man

This old man, he played one,
He played knick-knack on my thumb;
Knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played two,
He played knick-knack on my shoe;
Knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played three,
He played knick-knack on my knee;
Knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played four,
He played knick-knack on my door;
Knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played five,
He played knick-knack on my hive;
Knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played six,
He played knick-knack on my sticks;
Knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played seven,
He played knick-knack up in Heaven;
Knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played eight,
He played knick-knack on my gate;
Knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played nine,
He played knick-knack on my spine;
Knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played ten,
He played knick-knack once again;
Knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

The little house

The Caldecott medal winner~ story and pictures by Virginia Lee Burton

In the middle of path, you can see 2 words "HER STORY", and the house looks smiling to you. The sun is in the sky, birds are flying across the house, window eyes are shining....everything looks so wonderful! And the house looks like our grandma! But who knows, things changed day by day, year by year. The buildings, cars, people become more and more...Where is the little house?

Luckily, they found it and move it to a little hill and she can see the Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter come and go.

Is it beautiful? Yes, it is!

Discussion:

What are the differences between four seasons in this book?

What is city?

What is countryside?

Do you like to live in city or countryside?

What can you see in the city or countryside?

What are the differences between both of them?

Do you see the cover page illustrated by a round shape? In my opinion, that's a hit~ it presents that everything will go back to the very beginning! Am I right?

SPLASH ! Part IV

Where's the Fish? by Taro Gomi. It's a famous picture book translated to many different languages and still popular in every country. Where's the fish? He's hiding among the dots on a curtain, among the flowers in a spreading bouquet, among the little striped candies in a tall glass jar. There's the fish! Taro Gomi turned story time into an exciting game in a simple, funny book.

(picture by website)

Song: Row, Row, Row your boat ( I love this song)

Drawing : A fish

SPLASH ! Part III

The Octopus follow me home !! What? An octopus follow me home?? What a crazy story it is!!

Look! A kid pets an green octopus? Do you have any ideas that how many animals pet by the kid? Holly cow, you will never, ever believe that!! Do you pet any animals at home?

Song1: Ten little octopus (use the melody of ten little indians )

2: The fish go jumping in the pond, shu-shu-shu.....all day long.

The cram do nothing in the sea, um-um-um.....all day long.

The octopus go wiggling in the sea, wiggle-wiggle-wiggle..all day long.

Activity: cut out 5 sea creatures, a lobster/octopus/seashores/starfish/crab

create a small story for these good friends funny life in the sea. The kids will love you so much!

SPLASH ! Part II

You must heard about "Swimmy" by Leo Lioni. It's very good to

encourage kids to create themselves' particular crazy ideas.

(picture from website)

Swimmy by Leo Lioni: Swimmy and his friends learn that teamwork works!

Make a bulletin board display entitled “Fishing for Teamwork” and post photographs (with captions) of children engaged in everyday teamwork activities.

Examples: cleaning up block area together, carrying a tub of sand, sharing play-dough, etc. You’ll find that as you start to highlight teamwork, the children will bring instances of teamwork to your attention so that you can put it on the bulletin board.

Or, cut out 5 different color paper or fabric of fish (pink, red, green, blue, yellow fish)

Or, chant is also attractive~

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (count numbers and clap hands)

I got a fish alive.

6,7,8,9,10 (count numbers and clap hands)

But I let it go again !

SPLASH ! Part I

Here is quite hot in daytime under the sunny shine. Kids like to play in water and I would like to introduce some books related "water"

~ Here we go!

Book : The deep blue sea (picture from website)

There's the sea, the deep blue sea.

There's a rock, a red rock in the middle of the deep blue sea.

There's a tree, a green tree on a red rock in the middle of the

deep blue sea.

There's a nut, a brown nut on a green tree on a red rock in the

middle of the deep blue sea.

......

It's amazing, isn't it? I love it. you can find the rhythm is very cool.

Readers will love learning their colors with this brightly illustrated.

Activity:

a. Draw a picture what they hear!

b. Prepare 3 different colors of each item mentioned, students choice

the correct color and object to match the story.

Am I in the wonderland?

I believe you must heard about this story or watched the movie of "Alice in the wonderland". Here Ivy's real life is some kinds of similar with that. I lived in a big house with 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 1 living room, 1 dining room, 1 game room with piano, backyard with flowers, fruit trees, small size basketball court, front yard and 1 garage. besides, there was a housekeeper to take care of our dinner. For me, holly cow!! It's really like a dream to live here.

BTW, I drove James to school in the morning then I went to my own classes. On Monday and Wednesday morning and evening I took 2 classes in adult community. On Tuesday and Thursday evening I took another class in the same place. It's quite interesting. Live in USA is so much fun and you can find so many incredible thing different from Taiwan. Most of people are polite, driving very smoothly, following all the traffic sign. Air is fresh and daytime lasting very long from 5am to 20:30pm. James loves here.

I went to library almost everyday and I found a pile of picture books are very interesting. I will try my best to introduce you all of them. Hope you will like them.

Enjoy!

USA trip

Dear friends,

Here is Ivy saying hello to eveyone. Do you miss me? Um...I don't think so. Since I didn't write my blog for a long time during the first semister in Taiwan. Now I am staying USA for almost 4 weeks and wish I can offer you some helpful information from now on. Guys....don't forget to give my comments if there are.