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 17th and final week, we continued plugging along through Set 2 Book 2 of the Sagebooks HK Basic Chinese 500 and tried to get back on track after I was gone for 5 days.
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 17: BOOK 2.2:9
I wasn’t too sure how much I could handle because being away from children and re-entering my normal life as a SAHM is DIFFICULT. So, I shot for 7 lessons this week.
HOW DID WE DO?
Surprisingly, we made it! I had a really rough week because I was living that Champagne Life and then I was home surrounded by tiny humans who couldn’t do things for themselves and I was super frustrated. But we still somehow stumbled through. Glow Worm is a champ.
HOW DID WE DO IT?
I wish there was some magic button I could push or that my mother was still parenting for me, but alas, it was just your typical week of me forcing myself to take 5-10 minutes out of the day and go over at least one lesson with Glow Worm. I brought the books with me to kungfu and we went over the lesson as we waited for my older two kids to finish class. I also bribed Sasquatch (1.5) with pilfered snacks from kind friends and videos on my iphone.
SAMPLE PICS AND VIDEOS
Look! More pictures of Glow Worm reading Sagebooks! For once, Sasquatch is not also demanding to read a Sagebook (but you can see his photobomb in the background).
Here’s a video of Glow Worm reviewing Set 2 Book 2 Lesson 8.
Difficulties
Glow Worm was having trouble remembering a lot of the characters from previous chapters.
Some Observations
I love how Glow Worm’s brain works and the types of connections he makes. Glow Worm keeps calling 叫 /jiao4/call/ the character 睡/shui4/sleep/ because it is the first character in 睡覺/shui4 jiao4/sleep/ and if you notice, 叫 and 覺 are homonyms. Brains are awesome.
Sagebooks Challenge Application
We’re done with our 4 month Sagebooks Challenge!
I am so proud of Glow Worm and how he really loves the time we spend together reading our 小書/xiao3 shu/little books/. I love seeing the Sagebooks curriculum and methodology at work. (It really does work!)
Next week, we’ll be starting our Summer Reading Thingy (yes, that’s what I’m calling it – don’t judge me) and if you’ve been waiting for an official starting point, here it is.
ALSO…
If you’ve been following along with the weekly activities on the Sagebooks HK Blog, we’ll be keeping the activities for one more month and then switching things up a bit. We’ll also be changing things up in our Sagebooks HK Parent Support Facebook Group. Come join our ongoing conversation!
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.
