Old Crow Goes to Paris

Our latest FIAR book was Madeline.  Madeline is one of the most honored children's books and with its rhyme and precocious character it was a favorite for us too.  It gave us many areas of study including a visit to Paris!

Here is a tour through our week with Madeline. 

Monday

On the first day after reading aloud Madeline, we found France on the map and attached our story disk.  

Old Crow colored a picture of the flag of France, which we added to our Lapbook of Flags.

We also watched a short video clip showing kids visiting the Eiffel Tower and listened to someone speaking French.  Then he colored a picture of the Eiffel Tower.

While the kids had some free time later that day, I streamed the Madeline movie on the computer.  It matched the book exactly and they loved it!

 Tuesday

Old Crow wanted to have a Pajama and Movie Day like his younger siblings did at their preschool.  So on Tuesday we stayed in our PJs, ate popcorn, and watched a movie. :)

Of course we watched a Madeline movie...Madeline Goes to Paris.  She gave us a tour of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. ;)

Later that day we made a French treat...chocolate croissants.  They were really just chocolate chips rolled in canned crescent rolls. ;)   But he got the idea!

Wednesday

The next day we took a look at Claude Monet and his art.  Old Crow looked through several of his paintings and then he put together a puzzle of one of them...La Promenade.

After looking at Monet's style of painting, Old Crow tried his hand at painting.

Thursday

Today was Daddy's day for lessons...as the focus was on the appendix.  Dr. Daddy explained where the appendix is located and its function.  Old Crow was fascinated by Madeline's scar and the fact that the book didn't show a picture of it.  So we found some images of an appendix scar and that satisfied him.

To go along with our discussion of the human body and health, we had a science center on germs.  Old Crow rubbed his hands in glitter which represented germs.  He tried to wipe them off with a paper towel and that didn't work.  He tried to rub his hands together to get them off...that didn't work either.  I then asked him to try water.  He ran water over his hands and some glitter came off but not all.  I asked him how he thought he could get it all off.  He then tried soap and water.  Voila!!!  All of the "germs" came off.  We shall see how long our lesson on soap and water lasts. ;)

   

Jenny

Resurrection Week

As our friends and family enjoyed Spring Break the week before Easter, we spent the week in our new home catching up on school work.  The weeks before were spent packing, unloading, and organizing our new house so we were a little behind. ;)  

Since it was Resurrection Week, I wanted that to be the focus of our school work.   The first thing we did was create our Resurrection Lapbook.  I found a wonderful link with many printables for the lapbook.  

We printed off the lapbook cover, Easter Bingo (which Old Crow wanted to play everyday), How We Celebrate flipbook, a Bible verse (John 11:25) for copywork. 

We also found Israel on the map and used the pages from his A Beka social studies book to learn about places and culture of Israel. It helped him to realize that the places we read about from long ago are real and current even today.

For a fun math activity, we used jelly beans to practice several skills.  I filled a jar with jelly beans and we discussed how to estimate.  Then we poured some of the jelly beans onto the table and graphed the colors, which allowed us to find the greatest and least. 

After the graphing activity, we wanted to count all the jelly beans in the jar to see if our estimations were close.  We grouped them by 10s, which made counting them a lot easier.

 For our daily Bible time, we focused on Jesus' days before His resurrection.  I used the Resurrection Eggs to help facilitate our discussions.  We opened two eggs each day and read the corresponding scripture.  It was a great reminder for even Clark and me...reading and focusing on all Jesus endured for us. 

  And Memphis Belle enjoyed playing with the container of plastic eggs...although she prefers them to be filled with chocolate.  We called her our little egg thief.  She would sneak off with the filled eggs, open them, take off the candy wrapper, and hide and eat the chocolate.  She was a mess!! (literally and figuratively)

Jenny

Ducks Don't Get Wet

During our review week we looked back at several FIAR books we had previously studied.  One day we focused on The Story about Ping...a wonderful book that allows you to take many directions for learning.  You can study ducks, China, pandas, buoyancy, and much more.  You can see our other activities for The Story about Ping by clicking here. 

As we looked back over an old favorite, we also learned more about ducks.  We read Ducks Don't Get Wet and began to understand how ducks stay dry.

Our science center for the day was an experiment to compare two ducks...one covered in oil and one without oil.  

A ducks natural process of staying oily is called preening.  To mimic this, we covered one construction paper duck with vegetable oil and we left the other duck alone.   

Then Old Crow sprayed water on both ducks.  And you can guess what happened. ;)  The plain duck soaked up the water and began to tear.  The water sprayed on the oiled duck just rolled right off.  Just like real ducks with oiled feathers.

Now the next time we head to lake, we'll have to be sure to watch the ducks.  :)

Jenny

Traveling Homeschool

Today we took a rode trip.  After everyone was buckled in, I packed a basket full of books for the boys to keep between them.  We decided to have a "traveling book mobile" 

and bring our school with us. :)  For an hour, they read and talked to each other about their books (and they forgot all about asking to watch the tv).

Memphis Belle even wanted to get in on the action.  

Jenny

Fun with words and sounds

Each day as part of our reading time Old Crow works with both sight words and phonics.  I try to change and rotate the activities so that he will have something new and exciting every day.  Below is a compilation of some of his favorite activities (a big thank you to Pinterest and my "retired" teacher-sister for giving me tons of supplies).

  

Using magnetic letter tiles to spell sight words

Writing the sight words on the dry erase board

Using vowel letter tiles to complete the word card and then matching it to the object

Sorting objects into groups by the vowel sound

Highlighting sight words in a book, magazine, or newspaper

Choosing a consonant letter tile and adding it to the word family card; then he decides whether the word is real or non-sense and writes the word in the appropriate column

Driving his race car to match the sight word I call out

Reading aloud with fluency :)

Jenny

Stopping by Woods

Recently we had the chance to read Robert Frost's famous poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.  It gave us the opportunity to study poetry and also many other fun learning themes: snow, animals in winter, and animal tracks.  Here is how our week went while we rowed Stopping by Woods.  

Monday

I read aloud Stopping by Woods and explained to Old Crow that this type of writing is called a poem.  Then of course he says, "What is a poem?"  So Monday we focused on one characteristic of many poems...rhyming.  We looked for rhyming words throughout this story and we also read other poems (Dr. Seuss), looking specifically for rhyming words.  He also practiced matching rhyming words during his independent time. 

We also discussed what snow is and read about it in our Abeka science book.  Since it is 70 degrees in February, it is unlikely we will see snow anytime soon.  So we created our own "snowflake" by using Borax.     You can click here to get detailed directions. Basically you mix Borax with boiling water and after 1-2 hours "ice crystals" will begin to form on your submerged snowflake made of pipe cleaners.

Tuesday

We read Stopping by Woods again and today we focused on another characteristic of poetry--alliteration.  We looked for alliteration in our poem and we also made silly tongue twisters of our own. :)

We reviewed our 5 senses and applied each to winter and snow.  We watched a wonderful video of a snowy landscape while listening to the narration of Stopping by Woods.  We were able to use our senses as we listened to snow falling, shoes crunching on the snow, and harness bells ringing.  

Click here for the Youtube video.

Then Old Crow created his own senses snow poem.  

Winter looks like ice.

Winter smells like smoke.

Winter tastes like snowflake.

Winter feels like Jesus.

Winter sounds like wind.

Wednesday

Today we read Stopping by Woods and focused on a third characteristic of poetry--repetition.  Old Crow read the line "and miles to go before I sleep" as it was repeated.  We also read other poems and looked for lines that were repeated.

Stopping by Woods has beautiful illustrations that show animals in the woods.  We read Animals in Winter and discussed what different animals do during winter.  Some migrate, some hibernate, some store food, and others stay and hunt food.

For those animals that stay and hunt food, we decided to make birdseed cakes so the birds wouldn't starve in our snow-covered countryside. ;)

We mixed together flour, water, caro syrup, and birdseed.  Then we filled the muffin tin with the mixture, placed a straw in the center of each "muffin" in order to have a hole for stringing later, and waited 6 hours.  We strung yarn through the hole and hung them outside.  Click here for detailed steps.  

The birds and squirrels definitely love us now. ;)

Thursday

On our last day of this week, we read Stopping by Woods and looked for the three characteristics of poetry we had previously discussed.  We also saw in the book that the horse and man often left footprints in the snow.  This gave us the opportunity to learn about animal tracks.

We read Big Tracks, Little Tracks and learned how to be a detective searching for clues the animals leave.  This was perfect for Old Crow!

I printed animal track cards and he became a "detective" while matching the footprint to the animal.  It rained  on this day, and Old Crow couldn't wait to be able to go outside and search for those animal prints.  All we needed to do was let Bonnie (our golden retriever) out in the rain and then we could have had all the muddy footprints we needed. ;)

Well that concludes our week long study of Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. 

And I still have "miles to go before I sleep."

Thanks for joining us!

Jenny