Are you ready to take your little explorer on a journey through space? We are excited to announce the newest in our Bilingual Learning Series, The Solar System | 태양계, is set to release June 2021!
The Solar System | 태양계 will retail for $11.99 and is set to release June 2021
A step up from our core concept books, The Solar System | 태양계 uses simple, yet more complex, sentences to introduce your child to the planets in our solar system – plus additional vocabulary along the way! Simple facts are presented in a mixture of different sentence structures and, as always, transliterations accompany the Hangul (Korean written language) to aid in pronunciation for those not yet able to read it.
Take a peek: page spread of The Solar System | 태양계
The Solar System | 태양계 will retail for $11.99 and will be available for purchase in June 2021, but special preorder sets will be available for purchase starting April 2021. Get your hands on our exclusive Moon Phases poster and limited edition sticker sets and save- plus automatically be entered to WIN a Solar System Book Tote!
Preorder sets are only available in our online shop – or click here for a list of retailers that carry our books.
Autumn is here! The air is getting crisper, the leaves are changing color, and we are looking forward to all the traditions of the season! Many of those seasonal traditions in our home involve pumpkins – decorating, crafting, painting, eating… we are all about pumpkins!
A favorite activity for my kids is Pumpkin Exploration. It’s a simple activity that is perfect for kids who like to get their hands messy and can easily allow for some additional education like counting and language-learning. We make a trip to our local pumpkin farm, taking our time to enjoy it and have fun (maybe even take a hay ride or pick apples if still in peak season!) and once we get home, we wash up and get ready to explore.
We used a small pie pumpkin for this activity.
What you need: 🔹 A small pumpkin 🔹 Some newspaper to protect your work surface 🔹 A spoon for scooping 🔹 A bowl for collecting the seeds
What you do: 🔸Cut the pumpkin in half 🔸Explore the inside of the pumpkin, with hands or spoon 🔸Count and remove seeds and place in the bowl 🔸Play with, remove, and discard pulp
My preschooler has fun removing the seeds and pulp with a spoon.
Language-Booster: While exploring the pumpkin, talk about what you see: seeds, pulp, and flesh. This is a perfect opportunity to introduce or review vocabulary, discuss how plants grow from seeds, and think about where healthy foods come from.
Math: Count the seeds you find in the pumpkin, compare quantities (how many seeds were in one half? how many in the other half? which number is greater? etc.), and make number groups (groups of 5, 10, 20…).
After exploring, we make diagrams to record what we learned.
Pumpkin Diagram
After my kids are done exploring their pumpkin, we discard the pulp and clean the seeds, and we make our own diagrams to record what we learned. You’re going to want to keep your surface covered in the newspaper for this activity, too.
What you need: 🔹 A piece of blank paper 🔹 Some orange washable and non-toxic acrylic paint 🔹 A paint brush 🔹 Cotton balls 🔹 Liquid glue 🔹 Clean pumpkin seeds
What you do: 🔸Paint the shape of the pumpkin on paper 🔸Create “pulp” by gently stretching out cotton balls, and paint orange 🔸Glue “pulp” and seeds inside the painted pumpkin shape
My niece had fun gluing seeds on her diagram.
Making a diagram is a great way to retain information and record observations made during the exploration activity, while exercising creativity, and allows your child to look back on the activity at a later date to recall what they learned. It’s a great introduction to the scientific method!
Pumpkin Spice Hotteok
While the glue on the diagrams are drying, we prepare to cook the pumpkin. There are so many wonderful pumpkin recipes out there, so take your pick! This time, we made Pumpkin Spice Hotteok (호박 호떡).
Making pumpkin puree is super easy and can be used to make a variety of delicious foods. Hotteok (호떡) is a popular Korean pancake filled with sweet syrup and nuts, perfect for chilly days – and when combined with pumpkin and spices, is a delicious fusion between Korean and American flavors.
To make the pumpkin puree, make sure the outside of the pumpkin is washed well, sprinkle the flesh with some salt, and place cut-side down on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Roast the pumpkin in the oven at 400 degrees F until easily pierced with a fork and the skin pulls away from the flesh (45 to 60 minutes). Once cool enough to handle, process with a food processor or blender until smooth. That’s it! It’s ready to use in your favorite recipe!
While still warm, we used our fresh pumpkin puree in our Pumpkin Spice Hotteok recipe, and topped it with whipped cream, maple syrup, and honey butter. They were absolutely delicious and helped to close our day of activities!
The kids enjoyed every last bite of the pumpkin spice hotteok!
Taking the kids through all three activities, from whole pumpkin to tasty dessert, helps them to appreciate that journey from farm to table. They get to be involved in every part of that journey with these exploration activities: picking the pumpkin, exploring the fruit, recording their observations, and even cooking! And along the way they practice math, language, science, and art. It’s a well-rounded educational experience perfect for an autumn Sunday!
I hope you and your kids have fun with these activities, and that they can become a tradition in your home, too. Until next time!
Something my kids and I enjoy doing every year, is watching caterpillars grow into butterflies. It’s a wonderful activity that lasts for weeks, teaches about the process of metamorphosis, allows close observation of the live insects, presents an opportunity to introduce or review Korean vocabulary, and is absolute fun for everyone!
My daughter holding a painted lady butterfly, while releasing them.
Every Spring, I order a cup (or two) of caterpillars from InsectLore.com, and each cup comes with five caterpillars. If you have never done this activity before, I recommend getting a starter kit that includes the temporary housing and information booklet. (This is not a paid endorsement – Just sharing where I like to get our caterpillars!) The kit comes with everything you need to know about the process and how to take care of the butterflies before you release them. Usually, you will also receive some fun stickers or other paper toys.
Some of the butterflies like to stick around close by (on little hands or in the garden) before flying away, like this beautiful painted lady who took a moment to appreciate our flowers.
This year, I wanted to add some additional educational material to go along with our annual observation, so I created several worksheets and puzzle activities all centered around caterpillars and butterflies – and in addition to the worksheets, I created flash cards and a mini book that can be printed right from your computer!
Example pages from Butterfly Life Cycle Workbook
The Butterfly Life Cycle Workbook is twenty pages and can be found in the Aerilyn Books online store. The mini book teaches your child about the stages of a butterfly’s life cycle, in both English and Korean, and the key vocabulary can be reinforced with the flash cards. Your child will also get to exercise their creative skills while practicing numbers and colors and drawing the different stages from caterpillar to butterfly. Don’t feel comfortable raising caterpillars?No worries! It isn’t necessary to get the educational benefits of the workbook! So head to the online store to get the Butterfly Life Cycle Workbook and have fun learning about metamorphosis!
Being home from work and school is an important public safety measure during our current pandemic, but it can be rough – for all of us. Kids and adults alike are trying their best to transition from their usual school and work environments to working remotely, from the comfort of their homes… where their TV and all their favorite snacks are… where the couch is comfortable and Lego sets beg to be played with. It can be a real struggle to focus!
We’ve been trying to keep our kids on track with their virtual classrooms, while also entertaining them in quiet times between classwork. The balancing act between parent, employee, home-school teacher, and chef is leaving most of us feeling… well, unbalanced. Fortunately, I’ve found some activities that have successfully entertained (and educated) my younger kids – and it isn’t over in a mere five minutes!
Every Spring, we tend to our vegetable garden. The kids love to help me clean out old dead plants, turn the soil, look for worms – all of it. But this year, our weather hasn’t exactly been cooperative. It’s the middle of April and we still have snow – YIKES! We haven’t been able to shake off our desire to get planting, though, so we started some seeds indoors. This has been great for teaching our sons how plants grow, observing the parts of a plant, and using a small magnifying glass to take a close look at roots and germinating seeds. And it doesn’t stop there!
Sample sheets from How Plants Grow Workbook
I’ve put together a 20 page workbook to go along with this activity. The workbook includes coloring sheets, bilingual vocabulary practice, a Plant Growth Process wheel, cut-and-paste charts, matching games… enough to last a week or so. You’ll be able to teach your child about the parts of a plant, about the growth process, practice reading and writing, solve puzzles, and play games – all while watching it happen in front of them! It’s a hands-on learning experience that is sure to fill in some of the gaps of their remote learning!
You can find the downloadable workbook here in our online store. The material supports bilingual education in English and Korean languages, but can be completed and enjoyed by our monolingual friends, as well!
Stay safe and healthy, friends! We are in this together!
