Author’s Note: Sagebooks HK is sponsoring The Sagebooks Challenge as we chronicle Glow Worm (4) and I going through their series for the first time. I am also guest posting on their Sagebooks HK Blog where I will be providing a time tested tip and a fun activity to help support you and your child as you go through the sets.
For our 16th week, I was out of town at a conference and my mother took over for most of the week. Apparently, the key to teaching Sagebooks HK Basic Chinese 500 is to have my mother do it.
WHAT IS SAGEBOOKS?
Sagebooks HK Basic Chinese 500 is a series of 5 sets of 5 books that teach your children how to read the top 500 high frequency characters in children’s books. You can find out more here.
QUICK BACKGROUND
I am an ABC/T and speak Mandarin 85% of the time to my four children (8, 6, 4, 1). My husband, Hapa Papa, only speaks English. We homeschool bilingually in Chinese and English and my older two children have already gone through the Sagebooks HK Basic Chinese 500. Glow Worm, (4) currently knows about 50 characters and this is the first time we are going through Sagebooks. He currently splits time between two Chinese preschools for 3 hours a day, 4 days a week.
GOAL FOR WEEK 16: BOOK 2.1:15
Since I did not meet the goal last week and I was not going to be home, I set our bar super low. I wasn’t sure if my mom would actually follow through because LIFE.
HOW DID WE DO?
As I mentioned earlier, the moral of the story is: MY MOM SHOULD TEACH MY KIDS CHINES. Glow Worm surpassed my paltry goal and finished Book 2.1 and even read two lessons in Book 2.2.
HOW DID WE DO IT?
Seriously, if you can outsource teaching Sagebooks to someone else, do it. Not because Sagebooks is a hard thing to teach on your own. It really isn’t. All it requires is consistency. But honestly, it’s much easier to be consistent when someone else is doing the work.
SAMPLE PICS AND VIDEOS
As always, no photo session of Glow Worm reading Sagebooks would be complete without Sasquatch (1.5) in the mix. Since Sasquatch lives in a perpetual state of FOMO, we have to make sure he has his own Sagebook to “read” otherwise, there will be no peace.
Here’s a video of Glow Worm reviewing Set 2 Book 1 Lesson 13.
Difficulties
The main difficulty this week was due to my leaving for a conference. Otherwise, since my mom did all the work and Glow Worm seemed to read a lot of lessons with her, it wasn’t difficult at all for me. In fact, I am super tempted to leave more often!
Some Observations
Life is full of interruptions and you won’t always be able to go through Sagebooks on a daily basis. The best you can do is to plan for what you can and then hope for the best. I did not expect my mother to remember to go over Sagebooks with Glow Worm and I certainly did not think that they would surpass my goals!
Sagebooks Challenge Application
This is our penultimate week before we’re all done with this Sagebooks Challenge. I’m so proud of myself (and Glow Worm, I guess) and if you’ve been following along, you should be proud of yourself, too. (Okokokok, and your kid, too.) We’ll be doing a Summer Reading Thingy from June through August so if you haven’t had a chance to start yet (or did but fell off the wagon), you can start with us then. (Truthfully, you can jump in any time, but I understand the desire to start at an “official” start.)
Follow along with the weekly activities on the Sagebooks HK Blog. Check out our accountability posts on the Sagebooks HK Parent Support Facebook Group. Come on, all the cool kids are doing it.
See you all next week.
* I refer to the Sagebooks in this formula: Set#.Book#:Chapter#. So, if I am referring to the first set, book 3, and characters 14-16, it looks like: Book 1.3:14-16.
