Helping Out Homework

Date:  May 14, 2012

I think I have given Jay Jay a wonderful childhood that he needs.  From next year onwards, there will be a lot more homework.  There will be a lot more educational stuffs instead of Legos, outing, travelling.  It is time for him to get serious about his homework.  Of course, parent plays a very important role here.

This week assignment is a Mandarin Presentation of "My favorite Sea Creature".

At first, not only Jay Jay, but most of his friends wanted to do "Hermit Crab".  Now, I have no idea why is that, but since this is a Mandarin presentation, you have to know how to read and write Hermit Crab in Mandarin.  寄居蟹, how many of these 6 years old really know how to write this Chinese word for Hermit Crab.  How many even recognize the word?  So, if you cannot regconize the word, it is very very hard to make them understand what is hermit crab.

So, after much consideration, and convincing Jay Jay doing a hermit crab will be a disaster for both parents and himself.  HaHaHa... so, He agrees to change the topic.  So, after some quick thoughts... I went to youtube and make favorite some of the undersea documentary... especially octopus.  And then, I show it to Jay Jay on the TV.  He quietly watch the youtube that I have downloaded for him to watch.  It is about a octopus.  And how the scientist experiment on them so that to prove that octopus is very smart.  He watch it with amaze, and like it.

八爪鱼

Even the chinese work is so simple to write.  And most of the kids will know at least two words.  :)

So, we begun to construct our story board.  Of course, we decided not to draw, as Jay Jay did not know how to draw super nicely yet.  So, it will be paper cutting to form the presentation.

Octopus live in a big sea (ocean).  Sea is blue, and there are sea weeds.

So, glue them onto the sea (blue) paper.

Jay Jay remembers from the youtube documentary, how the octopus open a glass bottle and grab the fish (food) inside of the bottle.  So, he decided to have a bottle in the sea.

So, you end up with a yellow bottle, and a yellow cover.  The octopus will open the cover, and then grab and eat the fish inside.  So, you need to cut a fish inside the bottle.

How many legs does optopus have?  EIGHT!  Yes, there you cut 8 legs and paste them together.

Next, Octopus is smart, very clever, right?  That is why he has a big head.  With two eyes, and a big suction mouth.  He loves to eat.

Here is the favorite part, where he uses the hole puncher to punch some holes on the orange paper.  We end up with all these orange circle dots.  So, these are the suction on the octopus legs.  He has a lot of suction and can suck and hold an object very tight, and wont let go of it.

Lastly, writing the chinese word for Octopus.  By the way, octopus has three hearts, two for pumping blood to the gills, and one pumping blood to the legs and other parts.

Almost finish.  label the number on the legs.  Write a "Big Head" there... since he learn how to write it in Chinese.

And wala.... This is his presentations... One that he likes...

Wow, it is a great achievement.  Jay Jay present it using his madarin.  And it is quite all right.  He also bows and thank for people for listening too.  Well done!!!