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.

Owl Moon

This week was our first official week of school back after our Christmas break and also our first week of the school year getting back to "rowing" with Five in a Row.

Our book for this week was Owl Moon

We started our week by reading the story (of course) and putting the story disc on the story's location. Buzz and Boo colored in a black line map to show where we live, where the story takes place and what direction we would travel to get there.

We played Owl Knock-Out from the Owl Prowl pack on Homeschool Share.

Boo played Feather Phonics (also from Owl Prowl) and she loved it so much that she wanted to play again and again and again!

We talked about telling time. I called out different times and Buzz and Boo used our foam clocks to show what each time looked like.

Boo did a leaf graphing activity from Owl Prowl as well.

We read a great go-along book called All About Owls

There is a two page spread in the book that shows pictures of North American owls along with their average height.

Buzz busted out the rulers right away to measure how tall each of the owls is, which lead to making a chart comparing all of their heights.

Of course they had to measure Bean against the chart to see which owl she was the same size as!

The kids spent a long time on the computer listening to different owl calls from this site.

We also disected owl pellets! Not the real things because that would be yucky (can you tell I'm not really a sciencey mom?) I found a kit at Hobby Lobby called Unreal Upchuck

It came with two synthetic pellets, each with a different kind of skeleton. Boo spent most of the time talking about how gross it was and how she would never touch a real owl pellet so I'm glad I decided to wait on using the real thing :) But they got the idea behind what owl pellets are, and Buzz really enjoyed it.

We wrapped up our week with an art project inspired by this one on Walking by the Way. Somehow I neglected to make sure they we had brown construction paper until about 5 minutes before we were supposed to start. I did remember to buy the glow-in-the dark paint though! So we went with multi-colored owls and Buzz and Boo both chose to add craft feathers to their final product.  

 

 

Linked to Weekly Wrap-Up

A Pair of Red Clogs

This week we rowed A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno

It's a sweet story about a little girl who damages her wooden clogs and decides to try to trick her mother into buying her a new pair. Boo loved this story and we read it many more than five times this week.

We talked about Japan being an island and found it on our world map. Buzz and Boo both made two lapbook components, one is a map and one is the Japanese flag. Both are from Homeschool Share.

We read the book What Will the Weather Be? and talked about weather.

Buzz and Boo used their slippers to play the weather telling game from the story.

We read Taro and the Tofu, another sweet story by Masako Matsuno.

We used COAH's Stewardship study, which tied into the story really well.

Buzz did the story problems from Homeschool Share. He loves story problems and he really loves when the problems are based on whatever we're reading.

Buzz and Boo said that their favorite part of the week was sitting on pillows on the floor and eating dinner on a low table like Mako's family.

Grandfather's Journey

Last week we rowed Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say. It is about the author's grandfather's journey from his homeland in Japan to America. Buzz and Boo enjoyed the story but they enjoyed the go-along book Tea with Milk (also by Allen Say) even more. It is the story of Say's mother, who was raised in America, trying to adjust to life in Japan when she relocates there with her parents after graduating high school.

The kids both enjoyed making a few lapbook components to go along with our study. Their favorite was a seven continents layer book.

I feel like we've finally hit our stride with Five in a Row. The first few weeks I was trying to do so many go-alongs and additional lessons they I felt rushed to fit it all in. I've discovered that Buzz and Boo both learn very well by just doing the lessons from the manual conversationally. I throw in a few go-along books and maybe a lapbook component or two, and we've got a great week of learning!

One of the things that I love about Five in a Row is that we can just touch on subjects now and go more in depth when we re-row these titles in the coming years.

Two Weeks in Review

Two weeks ago we rowed The Glorious Flight by Alice and Martin Provensen. Buzz and Boo both enjoyed this story a lot. We read a lot, we've actually read most of the FIAR books before, but this was a new one for us. We were pretty laid back with this one and did most of the lessons conversationally. Boo's favorite part was learning what an onomatopoeia is and she has been pointing them out in every story we have read since then!

This past week we rowed Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton. This is one of Buzz's favorite stories (we have this book). We learned about personification this week, so the kids each picked an objected, added a face, and dictated a story to me about their character.

Buzz picked a t-shirt and Boo picked a book:

Once there was a shirt called Bob. When people are asleep, he goes down to the washer and opens it and lets all of his shirt friends out. Then they have great adventures! The End

Once there was a book named Lucy. She lets people read her. She's a nice book. She has big teeth. She has a stretchy bow. She has googly eyes. She has a big nose. The End

The kids enjoyed digging deeper into one of their favorite stories. Boo read the book to herself quite a few times during the week, as well as to Bean :)

How to Make an Apple Pie

Two weeks ago we rowed How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman. Buzz, especially, really enjoyed this  book.

They colored flags for each country that the girl visited in the story (from here)

We watched an episode of Reading Rainbow where we learned about milking cows and what can be made from milk. Boo loved this and decided she would love to milk a cow. Buzz thought that touching a cow would be gross :)

We made our own butter by pouring heavy cream in a tupperware container and shaking for a LONG, LONG time. I ended up doing most of the shaking.

Of course we finished off our week by making our own apple pie. It may not have been the prettiest pie ever, but it was yummy!

Madeline

This week's FIAR title was Madeline. It is one of Boo's all-time favorite stories, she can recite most of it by heart. Here's what we did:

We took a walk each day at half past nine (smiling at the good and frowning at the bad)

We learned about germs from an episode of Reading Rainbow

We used critter counters to arrange the "twelve little girls" in groups of 2, 3 and 4 and of course, two straight lines

We learned about good handwashing habits. I gave Buzz and Boo each some vaseline to rub all over their hands and sprinkled on pepper to simulate germs

Then we headed to the bathroom where they saw germs being transfered on to the soap dispenser and the faucet. They learned that they need to wash their hands very well to get rid of the germs.

And when studying Paris, you have to make crepes!

We also had a fun time with our homeschool group this week learning about trains. One of the fathers is a train engineer and he gave a great talk all about modern day trains and answered tons of questions. The kids learned a lot, and so did I!

Lentil

We are big Robert McCloskey fans around here. One Morning in Maine is one of Boo's all-time favorite stories, and who doesn't love Blueberries for Sal? We own this book and read it almost daily. So when the kids found out that we were going to row Lentil, they were very excited.

We learned about fractions with measuring cups and what else? lentils!

And we divided paper sandwiches

We listed to harmonica music, learned a bit about the other instruments in the story, and learned the words to "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" The kids then pretended to play instruments from the story while we sang.

Their favorite activity of the week was soap whittling. They both wanted to pretend to be grumpy Old Sneep, complete with cotton balls taped behind their ears to look like his "messy hair"

Buzz decided to make a raft and Boo cut hers into pieces and called it a soap puzzle.

We enjoyed our week with Lentil, up next is Madeline!

A Story About Ping

This year we're using Five in a Row (FIAR) as our main curriculum. I first came across this program when we started researching homeschooling (when Buzz was a baby), but back then I felt it seemed too "light" and wasn't going to be my cup of tea. I just wrote it off and honestly didn't think about it again until this past spring when I was looking into what curriculum to use for this school year. I wasn't thrilled with the curriculum we had used for kindergarten and I wanted something fun and low-key for this year, both because of my kids' learning styles and because we would be having a new baby in the house. So I came across FIAR again and decided to take the plunge. I'm so glad I did! Every week we get to snuggle up with a good book (which my kids love more than just about anything) and then take off with learning about anything that interests us. So fun! We rowed our first book this week, A Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack.

For science we learned about buoyancy. Buzz and Boo each made predictions on their chart about which items would sink and which would float.

And then they tested their predictions

"It floats !?!"

Buzz and Boo drew pictures of Ping with some help from their beloved Draw Write Now books and some inspiration from the book's illustrations.

 

They also did a worksheet where they counted Ping's family members

Acting out the story with critter counters

The wise-eyed boat

La-la-la-la lei!

We wrapped up our week with a fun Ping board game

All of our printables for this week came from Homeschool Share. It's a great resource for those using FIAR, and it has tons of other unit studies too.

The kids also spent a lot of time this week on our back patio watching some work being done on our neighbor's chimney.

We also had a great time getting together with friends for lunch and play time on Friday.

And for those in need of a Bean fix: