Bean at 19 Months

I haven't shared much about Bean lately so I thought I'd give a little update in case anyone was curious :)

Bean is 19 months old now and is so much fun! She loves to run, climb and just generally try to keep up with her brother and sister.

She got loves music and to dance and will usually insist that anyone who is in the room must dance with her any time music is on.

She is talking a lot now and is still singing as well. Over the past month or so she has dropped a couple of signs from use in favor of just saying the word instead. She has stopped signing more for the most part but will loudly tell you "more, more!" if she is still hungry. Her favorite signs at the moment seem to be bike, toothbrush and cereal.

She loves to look through books and if Buzz or Boo happen to be laying on the couch reading she'll usually grab a chapter book off the bookshelf and climb up on the couch too.

She loves the book Too Purpley! which she refers to as "pore-pul" but for whatever reason she only wants Buzz to read it to her.

At bedtime she usually requests Titch because there are bikes in it and bikes are pretty much her favorite thing right now. She'll bring the book to either Ruben or I and say and sign "bike!" excitedly.
She also loves the book There's a Wocket in My Pocket and signs toothbrush whenever she pulls it off the shelf.

Bean has really fine motor skills and I'm very impressed with how well she eats with a fork and spoon. She loves to eat cereal and it's so cute to watch her feed herself and then drink the milk from the bowl!

Her favorite food right now is any kind of pasta and whether it's macaroni and cheese or spagetti she calls it all "chee chee".

We haven't done much in the way of organized tot school time since we moved but Bean has still been a very busy little girl each day. Whenever the big kids are sitting down doing their schoolwork she loves to pull out one of Buzz's old workbooks and a pencil and work in her "wor-book" too.

She is also very bossy with Buzz and Boo and has no problem telling them exactly what she wants them to do. If she unhappy with anything she will wave her hand back and forth and loudly declare "no, no!"

The Rag Coat

This week we rowed The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills.

We used lapbook components from Aussie Pumpkin Patch, we only used a few pages of the lapbook but the whole thing is really great!

The story is set in the Appalachian Mountain region so we talked about where the Appalachian Mountains are and Buzz and Boo colored maps for their notebooks. We also talked about Appalachian culture and looked through the book to find items from Appalachian culture included in the illustrations.

In the story the main character, Minna, is teased by her schoolmates which gave us the opportunity to talk about bullying and how to treat others.

Minna's father dies in the story and she doesn't understand why everyone is wearing black to his funeral. Since Buzz and Boo have never been to a funeral we talked a bit about what funerals are, what they are usually like and why people often wear black.

We talked about quilts and how they are made and read a few stories about quilts. Our read-aloud for the week was In Grandma's Attic which went along with the story really well because most of the chapters told a story about different pieces of fabric in the grandmother's quilt just like each rag in Minna's coat had a story. Boo enjoyed this book so much that she checked out the second one in the series from the library and has been eagerly reading it on her own.

The story also mentions Joseph's colorful coat so we read that story in our Jesus Storybook Bible and talked about the similarities and differences between Joseph and his colorful coat and Minna and her rag coat.

We talked about sacrifice, forgiveness and the importance of fellowship. I recently purchased the FIAR Bible Supplement which is full of Bible verses and stories to go along with each FIAR title. It includes a lot of verses that I probably wouldn't have come up with on my own for each book and I think it was a great purchase!

To wrap up our week Buzz and Boo did an art project. I made a coat outline for each of them and they used scrapbook paper cut into squares to fill in the shape. Buzz's didn't turn out the way he imagined and he got frustrated with it so he decided just to color in the rag coat outline from the lapbook cover and cut it out and glue it on to cardstock instead. Boo had a great time putting her rag coat together and decided to add some buttons to the finished product.

I already have a box full of lapbooks and in an effort to keep things better organized I decided that instead of making individual lapbooks from each FIAR title, each child would have a FIAR notebook. Any lapbook components (or I guess notebook components in this case) get glued on to a piece of cardstock that is three-hole punched and is then put into a binder. We include any art, worksheets, etc. that go along with the book as well. I think this will (hopefully!) keep things much more organized and make looking back through rows easier for them as well.