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.