Unit Study (Homeschool Share): Round is a Mooncake

Geography/Culture
Found China on the map and placed storydisk (reviewed storydisk throughout week)
Colored Chinese flag/outline map of China
We also made a flag for China using red construction paper and two different sizes of gold star stickers

Discussed the Chinese Moonfestival
Made our own "Moonfestival" --
Created a money tree out of construction paper and put envelopes on it for each family member
Made a string of laterns for Elijah's room complete with white lights Aunt Lisa brought us REAL mooncakes from a Chinese bakery!  We ate Mooncakes and drank Jasmine tree under the laterns one night (everyone sampled the four different kinds of mooncakes-- red bean, lotus seed, pineapple, and date; one kind made me gag and another smelled like soy sauce-- I love soy sauce, but not in a mooncake!  I couldn't believe that Jason and Elijah tried something I wouldn't!  Pineapple was the favorite among the adults, but Elijah liked the date one the best).

Made a Chinese Meal
Aunt Lisa and I made some egg drop soup (FIAR Cookbook recipe) and some Fried Rice.  We all ate our meal with chopsticks (Elijah had to have help from me), and Elijah really liked the Fried Rice!! YIPPEE!  This is something I am going to add to our regular menu (cheap, easy, and yummy!). 

Math
Looked for *more* shapes in the story (round things, rectangles, and squares)
Played with tangram puzzles (we used some that had outlines and some that we had to figure out on our own; some are really challenging!)  We learned that tangrams are great brain builders!
Reviewed shapes (and introduced pentagon and hexagon)
Made a shape book from Enchanted Learning -- read over the shape book each day to reinforce the names of the shapes

Language Arts
Read the unit study book each day
Discussed some of the words in the back of the book

Wrote a poem in the same style as Round is a Mooncake

Science
Read What's Alive (Let's Read and Find Out Science)
Discussed what's living/what's non-living
Went through the book (Round is a Mooncake) and made two lists (one for non-living and one for living) using the items/objects in the text and illustrations of the book

Looked at the harvest moon (the "Moon Festival Moon" as Elijah calls it) on Friday night (October 6)

Art
Discusse name chops; I gave Elijah a special E stamp that he can now use as his name chop to sign letters, cards, and thank-you notes that he sends. 

Phonics
ABeka K-5 Phonics Lessons 40, 43
Read BOB Books
Played Get on the Ark!
Sight Word of the Week:  the

Handwriting Without Tears
L- pg. 14 in Letters and Numbers for Me
Grey Block Paper Writing Practice

Other
Kumon My First Book of Mazes pgs. 24, 25, 26, 27, 29
Kumon My First Book of Cutting activities 10, 11, 12
Card for Aunt Lisa
Learned the basics of how to play checkers
Dinosaur Activty Fun Book-- Counting Dinosaurs and Follow the Dinosaur Activities
Played with Wikki Stix