{BFIAR} Angus Lost

The first week of August we rowed Angus Lost.  In this story Angus the dog decides he wants to see the world outside the front gate.  He wanders off and meets another dog, a goat, and a car.  As he is trying to find his way home, snow begins to fall and he must spend his night in a cave.  Once morning comes, he follows the milk man home – and realizes home isn’t so bad after all!

Social Studies

We reviewed what Libby should do if she were lost.  We role-played different situations, and went over her full name, mom and dad’s names, and where she lives.  I decided to hold off on memorizing our address as we will be moving soon but we did start memorizing our phone number.  We also practiced calling 911 on her pretend phone.

What is a ‘milk man’?  We discussed where milk comes from, and that the milk man used to deliver milk, but now we go to our supermarket to buy milk.

Language Arts

Story Sequencing Cards

Literature

We read through Five True Dog Stories which included five short stories about historical dogs.  This is from the Sonlight reading list.

Word Families

Math

The illustrations in the book are in an A/B pattern of black/white and color.  I asked Libby if she could figure out the pattern, and then we spent some time making other A/B patterns with other objects around the house.

We played a pet shop game that I printed off of Homeschoolshare.  It allowed us to review numbers, and it was a good introduction to the concept of money.

Science

Caves

After reading a book about caves, we pretended we were going on a cave exploration.

Later that day we made salt dough caves.  After they dried, L and I painted their caves, as well.

Dogs

We read through the Magic Tree House Fact Tracker: Dog Heroes.

While we learned about dogs, we pretended we were puppies!  We practiced our doggie tricks – these dogs can even ride scooters!

Libby was a basset hound, but she decided to wear her ears flipped up because she was riding so fast on the scooter that her ears were being blown back in the wind 🙂

Ian’s dog had cropped ears!  He wanted them up like this.

Art

Angus was a Scottish Terrior.  We used black yarn to make our own scruffy Angus.  I had also given them both a small ‘Angus’ stuffed animal at the beginning of the week.  Libby named her dog Licky.

Snack

We made ‘doggie treat’ peanut butter cookies!  And of course we ate them out of our (purchased brand new) doggie bowls.  We actually ended up eating lunch every day from our dog bowls!

Yep…my two year old cracks eggs!  He’s pretty good at it actually!

The kiddos also played with our sweet babysitter’s dog!  They were thrilled to play fetch!

Sensory Play

This week I filled our bin with Insta-Snow.  This fun pretend snow feels very similar to snow, but it’s not cold.  Ian wasn’t very interested in it, but Libby played for hours.  I added some dogs, a goat, a cat, and a ‘milk truck’ for her to act out the story.

Other Things We Have been Up To:

The weather has been beautiful!  We’ve been spending several hours outside each day.

Helping each other on the swings (blurry because it was taken from across the playground – didn’t want to disturb them!)

Car wash with Dad

And finally, Libby and Ian have started doing chores!  This is what a disco fairy looks like while cleaning the toilet.  She asked to help; of course I said yes!  She learned to clean the bathroom this week, and has done it 3x by herself.

“Mommy, can I clean the bathroom today?”  Why YES you can 🙂  Ian is also helping out around the house by dusting and wiping the tables down.

We have implemented a chore chart and rewards program which so far is working well!  I’ll have to share soon.

I cannot believe we have reached our last BFIAR book!  It has been such a wonderful learning journey with our children, and we look forward to continuing with the Five in a Row products for many years to come!  We plan to re-row these books for Ian next year, so I have tucked everything away until then, I know it will be like visiting old friends.

As we were outside this evening, Libby looked up, pointed at the moon, and said, “Look Mama, it’s a crescent moon tonight”.  We learned about the moon over a year ago in June 2012 when we rowed Goodnight Moon!  More proof that when you have fun and read great books, the information sticks! 🙂

Libby turns 4 this week (what happened to my baby??), and I am nearly finished with her Pre-K plans, so I’ll be posting them soon!

Warmly, Megan

{BFIAR} Jenny’s Surprise Summer

With Summer in full swing, we rowed Jenny’s Surprise Summer.  Set at the ocean’s side, we learned about the beach and animals who live in shells.  We also learned about kittens, as the little girl in the story has found two kittens to take care of.  She ends up needing to make a big decision at the end, so we talked a lot about the decision-making process.

Some Go-Along Books We Read:

Language Arts

After reading A House for Hermit Crab we reviewed the sequence of the story and the months of the year.

Science

We read all about hermit crabs and decorated our own ‘hermit houses’.

We explored several types of shells and starfish.

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Art

We made glitter starfish and orange kittens just like in our story.

Sensory Play

I found a recipe for homemade sand play-doh that was so easy!  Equal parts of flour and water and sand, with a little bit of oil.  It was the perfect consistency and so fun!

We couldn’t get away to the beach that week, so we brought the beach to us!  A huge bag of sandbox sand cost $4.00 and was well worth it!

Snack

I found this fabulous recipe that was so delicious!  It is like dirt dessert, but uses Vanilla Wafer crumbs with a few Oreo crumbs mixed in.  YUM!  It looked so real, the kids didn’t believe they could eat it!

Field Trip

We were able to visit the Discovery Center in Fresno, which is a children’s science museum.  They had so much fun running around exploring!  We looked at some shells and even saw real hermit crabs!

We also visited the Cat Adoption Center here on base to snuggle some kitties.

Jenny’s Surprise Summer is an adorable story and Libby and Ian had such fun with the activities!

{BFIAR} My Blue Boat

In early July we read My Blue Boat by Chris L. Demarest and had fun learning about whales, boats and lighthouses.  We had a fun week, and then took a family trip to San Diego to check out real whales, boats and lighthouses!

From Amazon:

“In this simple tale, a child sails from her bathtub on an imaginary ocean voyage. The blue boat sails across the bathtub, into the harbor, between the whales, under the sun and the stars – until it manages to find its way home.”

A Few  Of Our Go-Along Books

We read several books about whales.  We learned that whales are mammals, and they have live babies and drink milk from their mothers – just like we do.  Although whales live in the water, they must breathe air.  When a baby whale (or calf, as we learned) is born, the mother must push him up to the surface of the water to breathe!

With tape we made a baby whale at the size it would be when born and compared it to the size of a human newborn.

My Blue Boat is illustrated using watercolors so we also painted boats using watercolors.

It was a VERY hot week so we spent lots of time outside playing in the water.

I had made these ice boats, so we floated them in our water table.  It was so hot that they melted almost immediately!

So when they melted we played with our ocean animals and scuba man.

On another day I made ice fish, which also melted almost immediately – but fun was had while they lasted.

We spent the next day guessing if several objects sink or float.

We practiced measuring using goldfish.

We also finished Singapore Essential Math Kindergarten A, which included writing numbers up to 10, shapes, patterns, length, size, weight, equal sets, more and less.  We will start book B in the fall.  We use our counting bears and Libby and Ian both love it.

On Friday we packed up and headed south to San Diego for a weekend of fun.  Our first stop was Sea World.

“It’s Baby Beluga!”

We took a sunset ride over the harbor to look at the boats.

We watched Shamu the Killer Whale’s amazing show:

Leaving the park all tuckered out with her new friend ‘Cubby’.

The next day we went to Coronado Island.  We visited Naval Air Station North Island and saw Daddy’s boat, the Ronald Reagan.  Although Alex has been gone on two deployments over the last three years, he always flew home so this was our first time seeing a carrier.

And then we went to the beach to enjoy the sun and water!

We watched the sailboats in the distance.

We then visited Point Loma Lighthouse.  The blue boat was guided home by the lighthouse in our book.  It was fun learning about the lighthouse keeper and visiting San Diego’s first lighthouse.

The view was beautiful at Point Loma.  We could see the entire city of San Diego.

We had a great week!

{BFIAR} Prayer for a Child

We read Prayer for a Child over the last few days and enjoyed some fun activities.

We read several books about stars and constellations and then had a backyard camp out.  We had dinner and s’mores over the campfire, and then Libby and I slept all night in the tend in our back yard.  This was a huge deal to Libby!  She made it all night sleeping in the tent.  Ian decided he would rather sleep in his own bed.

My intent was that we would stargaze (and see the super-moon that was visible this weekend) but Libby fell asleep before it was even dark!  I tried to wake her once it was dark but she was out!  We ended up sticking glow in the dark stars on her bedroom ceiling so she can enjoy the stars inside for now.

Some pictures from our camp out:

Star books we read

Caught her reading our BFIAR book in the morning when I woke up.

We spent some time talking about children around the world.  Every day we read about a few children in the book Children of the World by Donata Montanari.

Each page spoke of a different child, where they live, what kinds of food they eat, where they go to school, and what their parents do.

We read the classic folktale The Little Red Hen and baked a loaf of bread.

Prayer for a Child begins, “Bless this milk and bless this bread…”.

 

Finally, we made a praying hands craft by tracing their hands.

They listed several things that we pray for and I wrote them on the inside.

Libby nearly memorized this sweet prayer, she loved it!

{BFIAR} If Jesus Came to My House

We have spent the last few days reading If Jesus Came to My House by Joan Thomas.  In this sweet story, a little boy imagines what he would do if Jesus came to visit him.  He would serve tea, let him play with his favorite toys, and have the longest turn on the rocking horse.  He realizes that Jesus can’t really come to play with him, “as he has imagined”, but by showing God’s love to others – and treating them the way we would treat Jesus – the Lord is with us.

Bible

Matthew 7:12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

We talked about treating everyone with respect, the way you would want to be treated.

Motor Skills

“And with my bricks I’d build for him a palace of his own…”

We used our cardboard bricks to build a palace!  Libby and Ian decided that Clifford lived in their palace 🙂 And yes, Ian is wearing his fishing gear.  He’s all boy 🙂

 

“When we were done we’d stack the toys all neatly on the shelf…”

We practiced stacking our blocks neatly away when we were done playing.

Science

“And though the house is dark at night with shadows on the wall…”

In the story the boy is afraid of the dark and of the shadows on the wall, but with Jesus there he knows that he is safe.  We learned about how shadows are made and had fun playing with our shadows!  We also learned that night is really just a shadow when the earth is turned away from the sun.  Libby was very intrigued by this concept.

Can you make your shadow shorter?

Can you make your shadow taller?

Can you make your shadows hold hands?

Tracing our shadows with chalk.

Language Arts

We read the poem, “My Shadow” by Robert Louis Stevenson.

We are still working through our reading program All About Reading Pre-Level.  We are about half way through and the kids are thoroughly enjoying it.  Libby is really grasping concepts well.  Recently we have been working on identifying phonetic sounds in words.  She does very well with this.  Both kids LOVE Ziggy!  I don’t quite understand it, but they go bonkers when he comes out for the reading lesson, and will cooperate with the puppet far better than they do with me.  I would’ve never guessed, but the maker of this puppet is genius! 🙂

Here she is identifying which picture has to ‘get out of the wagon’ – sled, sick, or zebra.  Zebra gets out because it has a different starting sound.

Ziggy!

I also asked Libby to finish the statement:

“If Jesus came to my house I would…give him a fresh cup of milk and let him hold my bunny!”

Emotions

We talked about fear.  Everyone gets scared, sometimes.  It’s ok to feel this way.  What are some things that can help us feel better?  Talk to someone, cuddle up with stuffed animals, and know that God is always with us, loving us.

Life Skills

“Then I would put the kettle on to make a cup of tea, and we would be as happy and as friendly as can be.”

We practiced our manners and hospitality skills by having a tea party!  Well, we didn’t have tea, but we set the table full of goodies and used the finest of our manners.  We had petite finger sandwiches (PB&J), strawberries, water with orange slices.  We had such an enjoyable lunch!

For desert we had ‘fudge fluffies’ (chocolate pinwheels).  We talked about what a tradition is.  I told them how when I was a little girl my grandmother and mother would have tea parties with me and serve fudge fluffies.  It was a special to have a tea party with my children and enjoy this yummy treat.

Our table

We had a great few days with this story.  The illustrations are beautiful and the lessons to be learned are many.

Other things we did this week:

Today was Daddy’s Birthday!

We made a cake. 

{BFIAR} The Red Carpet

This week we rowed The Red Carpet by Rex Parkin.  This is one of our favorite books yet!  This adventurous rhyming story tells of a red carpet that is rolled out for the Duke.  It rolls out of control and the police are summoned to arrest it!  It outruns the police and makes its way to a special visitor.

We learned about police, signs, and about motorcycles (the police in the book were ‘motorcycle cops’).

We started the row with lots of fun!  After reading the book I got out their play table and wooden town set.  Libby and Ian set up their town, and I got out a surprise – red crepe paper.  Libby and Ian took turns rolling the ‘carpet’ through their town, and eventually it got loose and rolled all over the house!

Social Studies

Libby became fascinated with signs this week!  We read the book everyday, and Libby was especially interested in the poison warning sign and the jellyfish warning signs.  She took great care to look at each one and ask what they represented.  While we were out and about she pointed out signs all over the place, and as we’re riding in the car she tells me what each sign means, “Mommy, there’s an H sign, there is a hospital down that way!”.

She drew signs of her own.  The first one is the jellyfish warning sign she saw in her book, and the second one is a sign she created for her room – a sign showing that Ian is not allowed to jump on her bed!  She also did a scavenger hunt from homeschoolcreations where she found different traffic signs throughout the book.

We read books about police officers and talked about how they help to protect us.  We talked about 911 and practiced dialing on my cell phone (without actually calling!).  Libby and Ian dressed up as community helpers, and also learned about fingerprinting.  God makes each of us an individual, and nobody has the same fingerprints.  Police use fingerprints to find the ‘bad guys’.

Math

We counted pennies and learned about the term cents.

Art

The kids each made their own police badges with glitter!

Baking

In the book, when the carpet comes through town it turns over the pretzel cart sending pretzels flying.  We made pretzels from scratch.  Most of them were cinnamon sugar, and they were yummy!

Fun!

We built a Lego police car.

We ended the unit on Father’s Day.  We were able to talk about what a special person Daddy is in our life, and we wrapped up the book by rolling out the red carpet for Daddy on Father’s Day morning!

Homemade cards for dad.  Libby wrote hers all by herself (I spelled for her, but she told me what she wanted to say and she wrote it!)

For Father’s Day we went miniature golfing, home for BBQ ribs, and then went for an afternoon swim.  It was a wonderful day!

Ian jumped in the pool all by himself!  We ended the day with a splash 🙂

{BFIAR} ABC Bunny

For the past two weeks we have been working through a row of the book ABC Bunny.  It has been a hectic few weeks so this simple book was a good choice.  We concentrated on reviewing the alphabet and the letter sounds.  Libby has a good grasp on this, so much of this row was more focused time for Ian.  He knows most of his letters now, and about three-quarters of their sounds.

A sweet poem by Wanda Gag, it follows a bunny on an alphabet adventure.

Language Arts

We read several go-along books that also were about the ABC’s.

We learned how to sign the alphabet, and several words, using this adorable Pooh book.  We also watched the video “Signing TIme“, which I was able to check out from our library.

We played beanbag toss with our ABC beanbags.  We tried to get them into the shapes we taped on the floor.

The kids worked on their foam letter puzzles.

Libby wrote her name and practiced her letters with chalk.

We played alphabet bingo.

We played letter Go Fish.  We play with the cards face up because it’s just so hard to hold all those cards in our hands! 🙂

Libby and Ian spent time playing Starfall.  Ian has mastered the touchpad on the laptop!

We are working on our short vowel sounds in our phonics book. This is a bingo game we played that went along with the lesson.

Matching letters to items with that beginning sound.

And we played with our letters at bath time!

Music:

• We listened and watched the song that goes with the book on YouTube.
• We sang the alphabet song.
• There is a page in the book that shows the notes to sing the song.   We talked about music notes, and their purpose of showing the musicians what to sing or how to play their instrument.

Science:

We identified all the animals and differentiated them from the insects in the book.

We also identified all the different weather elements in the book (hail, wind, rain).

Art

Libby practiced cutting and gluing with this activity card that we printed in a from homeschoolshare.

Libby also worked on several other worksheets from the ABC Bunny lapbook.

Other fun things we have been up to in the last few weeks:

We spent Memorial Day up north of Fresno at Shaver Lake.  We spent some time on the beach and had some delicious pizza.  We had such a fun family day.

It has been very hot here in Lemoore recently, so we’ve been staying cool by playing in the water!

We began from reading the chapter book Pippi Longstocking every night at bedtime.  Libby is loving Pippi and her crazy adventures!

We enjoyed our month of May, and are looking forward to our summer!  We also rowed Blueberries for Sal in early May, and I am working on a blog post about the fun we had blueberry picking that I hope to post soon!

{BFIAR} The Quiet Way Home

We rowed the sweet story The Quiet Way Home by Bonny Becker this week, and spent some time learning about listening, our ears, sound waves, and music.

From Amazon:

“When Grandfather fetches a small girl from school, they take the quiet way home. They hear not the loud clanging and rumbling noises, but the “dart-and-flee” of the honeybee; not the hurry-up honks of the busy road, but “the rustle scuffle scrape-a-caper / Tumbling paper” in the alley; not the roar of the lawn mower, but the chip chop of the garden hoe. Huang’s bright double-page spreads in acrylic paint and colored pencil show that there’s excitement and connection in uncrowded places where you can get close up to one special thing.”

Our ear-themed go-along books this week:

The Listening Walk by Paul Showers was also a perfect book to read with this unit study.  A young girl and her father take quiet walks where they listen to everything around them.  This book especially fit our family living on a jet base as it commented on the loud roars of jets!

Outside Time:

• The weather has been gorgeous here in CA this week, and we started our week off with our own listening walk to the park.  We heard many of the same sounds the girl hears in the book – birds, cars, jets, dogs, and the wind.
• We took snacks and our books and read outside at the park!
• Ready to go to the park:

Science:  All About Sound

• We played a game with plastic eggs where I put several different items in each egg, and Libby and Ian took turns guessing what was in the egg based on the sound it made when shaken.  Libby was especially good at this game – she got every single one right, even when Alex and I were not sure.  She knew cotton ball right away, which I actually thought she may struggle to get.

• We learned that sound waves are actually vibration (and what vibration means!).  Using the book Science is Simple, we did several preschool-aged vibration activities.  I LOVE this book!  So many great ideas that are fun.

• L and I spoke and felt their vocal cords to feel the vibrations.
• We made our own instruments and discussed the vibrating components!
• Our guitars were made from boxes (a Kleenex box and juice carton) with a square cut in the side.  L and I each painted theirs, and then once dry we put rubber bands around the openings.  When they plucked the rubber bands, they vibrated and made music!

• A YouTube video of our guitars:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmMlsqM5Ztc
• And we made Kazoos!

• We filled two glasses with water (one more than the other) and listened to the different frequency of the sounds made.  We experimented by pouring in more water, or pouring some out to get higher or lower pitches.  Link to YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYQGJiX4qew
• And our homemade band put together:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWERZYWNoFg
• We played our tambourine and maracas and practiced playing them loud and soft, quick rhythms and slow.  This quickly turned into an impromptu parade with a marching band of Libby and Ian!  They had so much fun marching around the house and up and down the stairs!  I had a hard time getting a good picture because they were on the move!

• We watched The Magic School Bus sound episode
• We watched several “guess the sound” videos on YouTube.  Ian especially liked this.
• L and I each took turns using daddy’s earplugs.  We talked about ear safety with loud noises, and how daddy wears earplugs in the jet to keep his ears safe.

• And we got out the stethoscopes and listened to the sounds inside our bodies!  This is always a hit.

• We talked about the liquid inside the ear, and how it helps us keep our balance.  Then I had the kids spin in circles, which made them dizzy (they loved this).  We talked about how sometimes our brain can be confused because after we stop moving this fluid can still be moving around.

Bible:

• Our Bible verse this week was Psalm 46:10 “Be quiet to hear God”

Other things this week:

• Ian is practicing his chopstick skills with these kids chopsticks.  He does so well getting the chicken and noodles to his mouth, and he has fun doing it!

• And Libby requested we start another read-aloud chapter book.  She picked Beverly Cleary’s The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

We have had such a delight learning together this week despite some tough things hitting our family recently.  I am so blessed to have my two amazing children to brighten each day.  They fill my me with joy and give me hope, even in the hardest of times.  Praise God for that.

{BFIAR} The Carrot Seed

This week we read the sweet story, The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss.  In this story, a boy plants a carrot seed and tends to it.  His family members tell him that it’s never going to come up, but the boy is patient and tends to his carrot seed.  One day, up pops his carrot, ‘Just like he knew it would”.  We read about seeds, plants and vegetables and got dirty this week!

Go-Along books included:

• Carrots Grow Underground by Mari Schuh
• One Bean by Anne Rockwell
• Jack’s Garden by Henry Cole
• How to Grow a Seed by Helene Jordan
• Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
• Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert
• Jack and the Beanstalk Jack Galdone

Character

• This week we talked a lot about having patience.  “Good things come to those who wait”.
• We also talked about having faith.  We can’t always physically see the things we know to be true, but that doesn’t mean they are not actually there.  We know the carrot is below the ground, out of sight, but if we dig deeper we will find the carrot.  We cannot see the Lord but we know He is there always.

Art

• Footprint Carrots!

• Our awesome babysitter Rebekah helped the kids find these pinecones.  We talked about how the pinecones hold seeds, and then Libby asked to paint them.

Science

• We learned all about what seeds need to grow!
• We soaked and ‘planted’ lima beans in a baggie, and observed the sprouts.
• We did an experiment with mung sprout seeds.  We took three cups, left one empty, filled one with 1/2 inch of water, and filled the last cup half way.  We put 20 mung sprout seeds in each cup and set them by the window.  Libby predicted that the cup with the most water would grow the best and the cup with no water would not grow.
• The sweet potato is in water, and we are watching for sprouts.
• We will continue to watch our sprouting station grow!

• We also planted Basil and Zinnea in small containers.  We have been watering them everyday and look forward to seeing growth!

Sensory

• I put together this ‘garden in a box’ for the kids to dig and play in.  Libby especially has had so much fun exploring this environment and pretending to tend to her garden.

• ‘Carrot’ bubbles purchased from the Dollar Store

Math

• We learned about measuring this week in Singapore K Math.  We used our new skills to measure the carrots, and put them in order from smallest to largest.

• While we were measuring the carrots, Libby said, “Wait one minute, mom….I have an idea!”  She ran and got the book The Carrot Seed and turned to this page, and did this:   I thought it was cute 🙂

Language Arts:

• We used lima beans to spell out our sight words.

• We also traced the words with glue and put sprinkles on them.  Libby loved this!

• We used a smaller carrot to write letters and words in a salt tray.

Fun food

• We of course munched on lots of carrots this week!

• We also made carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

• And white chocolate covered strawberries, or ‘carrots’.

Other fun things we did this week:

• Snugly math on the couch with daddy

• We went to the zoo!  Petting animals and observing the ducks in the pond.  We also fed the giraffes and saw all kinds of awesome animals.

• At The Little Gym Libby does an interpretive dance with scarves and Ian hangs from the rings:

Over the next week we will continue to tend to our sprouts.  We are also starting an Easter unit learning all about the resurrection of Christ, and will be doing some fun egg activities!

 

 

{BFAIR} The Big Green Pocketbook

This week we traveled all around town with the book, The Big Green Pocketbook.. A young girl and her mother take the bus into town and visits the bank, insurance company, laundromat, jewelry store, drug store, and five and ten store. We discussed the concept of money, did some role-playing, visited local stores, and learned about the color green.

We mixed the colors blue and yellow to make green.

We had a day out on the town.  We visited a jewelry counter

Went clothes (and accessory!) shopping:

Pretending to be purchasing orange-shaped gum drops for daddy, just like the little girl in our story.

Picking up our dress at the ‘laundromat’:

Libby played the boardgame Busytown with Nana:

We also sang “The Wheels on the Bus”.  We counted and did simple math and sorting with lollipops.  The little girl in the book was given two lollipops at the bank: one for now and one for later.

The girl in the book purchased a new box of crayons at the dime store.  Libby also received a new box of crayons for her green pocketbook.  When the girl accidentally left her pocketbook on the bus, the driver generously returned it to her.  For this kindness, the girl made the driver a beautiful picture.  Libby decided to use her crayons to make a birthday card for Nana.

Everything packed in her green pocketbook!

Other fun things we did this week:

We’re enjoying the beautiful California sun and weather in the 70’s.  It’s the perfect time for outdoor play!