Category Archives: FIAR

The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge

We’re getting ready for a week’s vacation on the coast, so I decided to “row” The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde H. Swift and Lynd Ward (even though there won’t be any lighthouses where we’re going).  Ian was reluctant to read the book with me on Monday morning, but by the end of the story he wanted me to read it again and enthusiastically joined me for reading it the rest of the week.

We did a lot of the discussions from the Five in a Row manual (Vol. 2).  It a good chance to talk again about personification, (which I’m still not sure he understands, but I figure multiple exposures will help it click eventually).  We also had interesting talk about the rivers in our area–where they start, where they end, etc.).  I’m not always consistent about using the story disks, but this was one I didn’t want to skip.  Ian really enjoys looking at maps, so it was nice to give him a connection to New York since it’s always just been another state in his USA puzzle.

I loved the two book recommendations in the manual.  Ian was fascinated by the pictures in My New York by Kathy Jakobsen. Oh, how I wish I’d read this book before I visited New York!  I’ve only been twice, and it’s been about 15 years since the last trip, but I feel like I know more about the city from reading this book than from both of those visits.  I would have gotten so much more out of them if I’d read this first.  Even if Iantake anything away from the book besides enjoying the sights and hearing the names of some of the landmarks for the first time, it’s a great addition to our home library.  I’m sure it will come out every time we read a book set in Manhattan, and hopefully someday we’ll get to explore the city itself.

I was also really impressed with The Bridge Book by Polly Carter.  It had a ton of information about the different types of bridges, how they’re made, what materials are used, and lots more.  Yet it managed to be simple enough that Ian was able to sit through while I read the whole thing.  He was drawn to it throughout the week.  I think as the boys get older it’s something that will interest them even more as they get more sophisticated in their block and Lego building.

The only other “go-along” book we used was one we had around the house called Who Sees the Lighthouse? by Ann Fearrington. It has beautiful illustrations based on real lighthouses in the United States, and for me it was worth flipping through just for those. The story leaves a lot to be desired, but Ian enjoyed counting the objects on each page.

Captain JanuaryIan loves Reading Rainbow, so we watched the episode “Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie,” which not only talks about this story at the end, but has some fun information on lighthouses and making a “ship-in-a-bottle.”  Ian watched it twice, along with Captain January, an old Shirley Temple film about a girl who lives in a lighthouse with a lightkeeper who loses his job when they put in an automated light.  Parts of it were slow for the boys, but other parts had them rolling on the floor with laughter.

There’s some helpful information about the real Little Red Lighthouse at nycgocparks.org and lighthouseinn-ct.com (some beautiful pictures of it on this site).  Looking at these sites and reading this story made me want to go back to New York and experience it all over.  And next time I go, we’ll definitely try to take some time to visit the lighthouse at Jeffery’s Hook!

Little Red Lighthouse & Great Grey Bridge DSC_8296  

To see what other FIAR books we’ve rowed, see my “Index of FIAR Posts.”  Also, a great place to see what other people have done with FIAR books is the FIAR Blog Roll at Delightful Learning.

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

This week we “rowed” Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton.  I chose this book to go along with our Fruit of the Spirit study on Faithfulness (see this post), but there were so many fun things to do with it that I decided to do a full row instead of just using it as part of that lesson.  Ian’s had his eye on this book (and the videos we have that go along with it–all three of them, each a little different!) for a while, but I’ve been making him wait, so he was really excited to read it this week.  We were completely immersed in the story this week and watched it in various video forms.  I like the one that is part of the Storybook Classics collection because it shows the words as it reads the story, but Ian really likes our old VHS tape with songs.

The Five in a Row manual (Vol. 1) had a ton of great suggestions of things to talk about as we read through it.  The part about “road engineering” came really naturally, because Ian noticed right away that it was like the scene in the movie Cars (also a great example of personification) that explains how they built the Interstate instead of continuing to use Route 66 that went with the curves of the land.

For a math activity, we used geoboards to make squares with rubberbands.  This turned out to be more fun than I imagined.  At first, I just handed Ian a board and some rubberbands and asked him to make a square.  He had no clue how to do it and made a T.  So we started again and I offered some assistance.  (It was really helpful that we had just watched an episode of Peep and the Big Wide World called “Quack’s Square Deal” where they talked about squares and how they had to have equal sides and right angles.)  After we made one across 5 nails I asked him to make one 3 nails across.  Then I left the boys to make their own designs while I put Arianna down for her morning nap.  When I came back, Ian was so excited because he had made something musical!  Then I started making the letters in their names, which they both really liked.  Ian practiced making some letters too.  Who would have thought geoboards would provide over an hour of entertainment? (Well, Elijah lasted about twenty minutes, but Ian was fascinated.)  We put on our “Listening Lesson”* and they played so quietly while their sister slept.  Ahhh….

  

  

Our “Listening Lesson” is usually just tied into our Bible lesson, but we had this fabulous CD of Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel from Maestro Classics.  Not only does it include a wonderful dramatic reading of the story set to beautiful orchestral music, you also hear information about Virginia Lee Burton and the “story behind the story,” as well as the composer, Stephen Simon, telling about some of the thought process that went into writing the music.  I absolutely adore it, and so do the boys.  (Elijah loves pointing out the “big tubas” that the composer talked about.  He catches them every time!) The Maestro Classics website even has curriculum guides for homeschoolers with lots of great ideas to expand on your learning.  I’ve put the rest of the CDs on our wishlists and hope over birthdays and Christmas we’ll be able to collect the whole set!

Back to Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne.  This book is right up my boys’ alley in so many ways.  We discussed how steam engines work by watching a Thomas & Friends video segment: “How Do Steam Engines and Diesel Engines Work?” (The steam engine part was very well done; the explanation of the diesel engine was hard to understand.  Even my husband, who works on diesel engines for a living, thought it was confusing.)  We also watched another quick video on steam shovels, as well as a Mighty Machines episode (Season 1, episode 1): “At the Demolition Site” streaming on Netflix (which didn’t have anything to do with steam engines, but showed a lot the related to construction and what kind of machines we use nowadays).

We tried to make a steam powered pinwheel, but we didn’t have a whole lot of success.  I had tried following a tip from someone and made it out of aluminum foil (I guess some people had trouble with paper absorbing the water).  Our pinwheel worked fine when we blew on it, but when we held it to the steam from our kettle it just wiggled.  I thought maybe it was because I had made it too big so I made a smaller one (the boys had lost interest by this point, but I was determined to make it work), but although it wiggled a little more, it still wouldn’t turn.  *sigh*  We did discuss the condensation on the foil and how it was because the steam was made of tiny water particles, so at least we got some science in.  🙂

  

We finished up our time with Mike Mulligan by making a cake similar to what I’d seen someone mention on the FIAR forum.  I let Ian help me dig the “cellar,” trying to make it “neat and square.”  He shoveled the “dirt” out onto his plate and then I plopped a dollop of frosting on the side and he spent about an hour playing with his construction toys in it (and eating it along the way, of course).  Elijah’s not real big on eating sweets and skipped out on most of this activity, just coming in at the end for a little taste.  Ian asked if he can play with his cake again for dessert tomorrow.  Hmmm… I think he may just have to wait until the next time we row this book.

  

  

To see what other FIAR books we’ve rowed, see my “Index of FIAR Posts.”  Also, a great place to see what other people have done with FIAR books is the FIAR Blog Roll at Delightful Learning.

Night of the Moonjellies

Last week for Five in a Row we read Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Shasha.  I chose it  to go along with our Sea World field trip on Wednesday, and I’m glad we started doing activities/discussions from the book over the weekend, because we were too wiped out to do much after that long day!

The one thing about the book that was a little hard to explain to Ian was identifying true moonjellies.  Mark Shasha used it as a nickname for comb jellies (ctenophores), but there actually is a different sea creature named a “moon jellyfish” (Aurelia aurita).  Since they’re not really fish, the new trend is to call them jellies, which means when you come across things labeled “moon jellies” (such as we did in an aquarium at Sea World, much to Ian’s delight), they may not be the same creatures you were reading about!  I decided it really didn’t matter.  Ian enjoyed the story and seeing the Aurelia aurita just as much as if it had been a ctenophore.   Still, we talked about the differences (comb jellies don’t sting) and enjoyed looking at online pictures of the ctenophores Shasha was remembering in his story.  There was a lot of good information on the author’s website, as well as fairly basic descriptions and good pictures from the Simple English Wikipedia and  earthlife.net.

To add to our look at ocean creatures, we watched the Magic School Bus episode “Take a Dive” and read The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor by Joanna Cole.  Ian loves this series, and while I don’t read all the information on every page, he still learns a lot.

I’m sure we’ll come back to this book in a couple years and do some of the more advanced activities in the Five in a Row manual (Vol. 1).  Right now every book has something new and exciting for a 4-year old.  We’ve got lots of time to dive deeper into all there is to explore!

To see what other FIAR books we’ve rowed, see my “Index of FIAR Posts.”  Also, a great place to see what other people have done with FIAR books is the FIAR Blog Roll at Delightful Learning.

Make Way for Ducklings

This week for our Five in a Row (FIAR) studies we read Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey.  I chose it because we’ve been enjoying watching the webcam of a hawk nest at Cornell University.  All three eggs hatched this week and we got to see them in almost every stage of the process.  It was amazing!  I left the site open on my computer and often we would just sit watching in awe.  It seemed like the perfect time for this story!  I know I saw this book as a child, but I don’t remember ever reading it.  I missed out!  Ian and I both enjoyed reading this one over and over throughout the week.

On Wednesday we went to a local park to try to find the mama duck and ducklings Grandma had spotted the day before, but to no avail.  Instead we just enjoyed watching the adult ducks and I taught the boys the differences between the males and females.  Ian was really disappointed not to see any ducklings, so we prayed that God would give a chance to see some.  On Friday morning as I was getting Arianna dressed, it occurred to me that we should try another park that day.  The boys were thrilled at the sudden plans (I am NOT a spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment type of person) until they found it we were returning to the scene of our unfortunate duck incident back in January.  (Elijah still reminds me at least once a week out of the blue, “Mommy, the duck ate my chicken.”)  Ian insisted as we drove there, “I do NOT like that park.  I don’t EVER want to go there again.”  Mean Mommy wasn’t giving in.  Thankfully, the ducks and geese were all on their best behavior.  The boys relaxed and we enjoyed the warmth of the sunshine along with the cool breeze as we walked along the water’s edge.  And lo, and behold…

Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Mallard!  Hello, Ducklings!  There were only 5, but of course Ian started to call them by name: “Jack! Kack!.. Mack!… Pack!… Quack!” We spent quite a bit of time watching the family before moving on towards the playground for lunch.  Needless to say, this is now Ian’s FAVORITE park.

  

Other things we did at home this week (in addition to many discussions out of the Five in a Row manual (Vol. 2):

  • I found lots of ideas from this unit study, including a great collection of “uck” word family activities.
  • I also used some of the pages from the lapbook at HomeSchoolShare to do one of the math activities in the manual.
  • We watched the Reading Rainbow episode “Chickens Aren’t the Only Ones,” which talks about other animals that lay eggs.  Ian was so fascinated and delighted in telling all about how turtles lay eggs too!
  • For our mapping activity, we went on a Google Lit Trip, which was fabulous!  It was so much fun to see Boston on the map and “travel” around the city to all the places in the book with real pictures of what it looks like today.  (We first watched it on YouTube, but the pace was a little quick for me.)  Someday I hope we’ll make it to Boston to see the Public Garden in person!

To see what other FIAR books we’ve rowed, see my “Index of FIAR Posts.”  Also, a great place to see what other people have done with FIAR books is the FIAR Blog Roll at Delightful Learning.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Our Five in a Row (FIAR) time this week was sweet and simple.  The boys were already familiar with The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter because we listen to many of her stories from Lit2Go on a regular basis.  I’ve been saving the print version until this week, however, so they really enjoyed getting to see the illustrations.  I love Potter’s original pictures best, but I actually have 4 different versions.  It was fun looking at the differences.  We also got a lot of giggles out of the Peter Rabbit-Pop Out! Android app on my Kindle Fire (it was free at Easter time this year).  Just for a little change, we also listened to a different version of the audiobook from Tales from the Forest, along with The Tale of Benjamin Bunny and The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies.  (Because these stories are in the public domain, there are several different readings available for free.  Ian can be rather particular about the readers, so we’ve tried a few.  He likes these best, but we usually do the ones from Lit2Go because we can get many other Beatrix Potter stories all by the same reader.)

We planted onions and spent the week water and watching, but it will be a while before there’s much to see.  The only other thing we did related to this story was listen to a Karen & Kids podcast on “Obeying Your Parents.”  It’s always an important topic of conversation in our house, as I’m sure it is in most of yours!  This book led to some great discussions on why God calls children to obey.  I liked having the story as a tool so I wasn’t just throwing Bible verses out.

Many of the activities in the Five in a Row manual (Vol. 2) will be better when my kids get a little older, so I know we’ll come back to this book.  We didn’t do a lot of extras, just rowed this one “conversationally.”  I love that FIAR can be so simple and yet so rich!

P.S. Just for fun, you might enjoy this little video clip from You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown! I didn’t show it to my kids because we have trouble with the word “stupid” getting thrown around a little too carelessly, but it’s fun for Mom and Dad!

To see what other FIAR books we’ve rowed, see my “Index of FIAR Posts.”  Also, a great place to see what other people have done with FIAR books is the FIAR Blog Roll at Delightful Learning.

Harold and the Purple Crayon

Over the last couple weeks (sickness and weather dragged it out a lot longer than I intended), we’ve been “rowing” Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. Many of the activities in the Five in a Row (Vol. 2) manual were geared toward slightly older children, so I’m sure we’ll enjoy rowing it again later on.  We kept it simple and had a lot of fun!

As with all our school books, I made Ian wait until Monday morning before I would read it to him.  He’d seen me get the book out on Saturday and was itching to get going.  We read the story many, many times over the course of three weeks, as well as enjoying Harold and the Purple Crayon: Let Your imagination Soar  on video (which I found at the 99-cent Store a couple years ago and have been saving for our Five in a Row time.  (Both boys loved it and requested it repeatedly.)  We also watched a Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood segment on how crayons are made, which Ian found fascinating.

We took out all the purple crayons and markers we could find to compare the different shades of “purple”.  Then we each took one purple crayon and drew a picture.  This is one area where I feel like we should be spending more time.  Ian never “draws”; he just scribbles color and doesn’t even attempt to make it look like anything.  So I was very intentional about drawing a real scene.  He attempted to copy me all on his own.  He was worried that it didn’t look like mine, but I tried to reassure him that the point of art is making something that is unique.  And actually, I thought his picture turned out pretty well considering what I’m used to seeing out of him.  I think we’ll start being more intentional about “art lessons,” since he does really seem to enjoy it (and Elijah is really into it).

The highlight of our time with Harold, however, was the lesson on “Gaining a View from Altitude” (FIAR (Vol. 2), pg. 152).  We live up in the hills, so we are fortunate to be able to look down upon the “flatlands” below and see places we go on a regular basis.  (Target’s big red sign is an easy landmark for us to find.)  But we were able to take this idea even further with an awesome field trip that only cost us the gas to get there.  In the book Harold tried to figure out where he was by climbing a mountain, and he ended up coming down in a balloon that looked a lot like this one.

  

Orange County Great Park has a helium balloon that can take passengers 400 feet up in the air.

  

We loved looking down and seeing the parking lot, the carousel, the playground, the freeway, etc.  What a view!

It was a fun way to finish off our time with Harold!

To see what other FIAR books we’ve rowed, see my “Index of FIAR Posts.”  Also, a great place to see what other people have done with FIAR books is the FIAR Blog Roll at Delightful Learning.

Katy and the Big Snow

When we read books like Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton, it makes me both thankful and a bit sad that we don’t experience a true snowy winter.  Since we already spent one sunny week focusing on snow (see The Snowy Day), we spent most of our time with Katy talking about the different things that make up a community.  (There are lots of ideas for related conversations in the Five in a Row manual (Vol. 1).

I printed and laminated the “community helpers cards” from HomeSchoolShare.com‘s resouces for Katy.  I had intended to play “memory” with them, but Ian found it challenging enough to just match up the pairs.  The boys are definitely into trucks, so they enjoyed watching the Mighty Machines episodes “In the City!” (from season 1) and “In the Snowstorm!” (from season 2) on Netflix. Ian also really liked a video that has orchestral music written to go along with the story.

100_6667He spent a long time poring over the “map of Geoppolis” in the book and figuring out what each little picture around the edge represented.  So I used that concept to make a map of our area, including all the places we visit on a somewhat regular basis: the zoo, children’s museum, church, friends’ houses, Daddy’s work, etc. I just sketched in the main roads with pencil and numbered each place of interest.  Then I copied little pictures of each place into a document, printed them all out on one page, cut them out and pasted them around the edges with the corresponding numbers.  (I’ve blurred the edges for privacy, but I wanted to share the idea because Ian loved it!)  He asked about the compass on it and it gave us a good chance to discuss directions.

Our messiest (and therefore probably the most fun) activity was playing with shaving cream (almost a whole can!) and construction vehicles out on our glass patio table.  We actually did this activity twice, one time using whipped cream on a tray with some friends who were visiting.  They loved licking their fingers afterward, but the “snow” melted pretty quickly so it wasn’t a very long play time.  I’d definitely stick with shaving cream next time.

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To see what other FIAR books we’ve rowed, see my “Index of FIAR Posts.”  Also, a great place to see what other people have done with FIAR books is the FIAR Blog Roll at Delightful Learning.

The Story About Ping

 

The Story About Ping

We fell in love with China this week as we read The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack.  It was my husband’s favorite story as a child (somehow I missed out), so Ian was very eager to read it.  Although we did enjoy a few duck/water-related activities, my main objective this week was to give Ian a taste of China and Chinese culture.

For geography we took our “story disk” from the Five in a Row manual (Vol. 1) and placed it along the Yangtze River in China.  We also watched part of a fascinating documentary series called Wild China (available streaming on Netflix).  I wasn’t sure Ian would be at all interested, so I played it on my laptop during lunchtime.  My goal was just to watch the portion on the cormorants (fishing birds), but he actually enjoyed the half hour before we got there (especially the part on bats).  So after naptime I played the rest of the the first episode and we enjoyed learning about the “dragons” and giant salamanders, and lots more.

Watching a show like Wild China gave us a good opportunity to discuss the meaning of “fiction” as well. Ian kept asking when we were going to see Ping or if each man was Ping’s master, so I explained that these were all real people, whereas the characters in the story are made up and wouldn’t be there.  For a fiction experience, we watched the Reading Rainbow episode “Runaway Duck.” (“Ping” is one of the book recommendations at the end.)  Since Mulan played on Disney Channel this week, hijacked Grandma and Grandpa’s DVR once again and recorded it for us to watch as a family Friday night, just for a little extra taste of China.

I’m not usually big on “go-alongs” (related books), but I thought I’d put a few into our school basket just for a little broader picture of China.  We already owned Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel and The Seven Chinese Brothers by Margaret Mahy, so I included those.  I also added Daisy Comes Home by Jan Brett.  I love her detailed illustrations (especially the Chinese clothing), and this story is actually similar to “Ping” (the book jacket mentions it as an influence) so it fit easily into our week. (Visit Jan Brett’s website for more “behind the scenes” information on the book.)

     

Our math lesson was pretty simple.  To help us count all the ducks in Ping’s family, I printed out a “worksheet” from HomeSchool Share, but instead of coloring all the ducks (which I was afraid would get old fast), we used our “rainbow stones.”  (We used one color for his father, one for his mother, one for his sisters, one for his brothers, etc., so it was a great visual.  Look at all those yellow cousins!)  Elijah loved this activity and got lots of counting practice playing with the stones as we cleaned up.

For science we visited a local park to observe the ducks.  Unfortunately, so many people disregard the many signs asking them NOT to feed the ducks that the birds have all become quite aggressive, expecting to receive food anytime anyone approaches, especially if they turn out to have anything edible with them.  We had taken a lunch and I thought we’d just sit by the lake and enjoy watching the ducks.  Think again!  First they swarmed around us in such an alarming way, even I felt a little uneasy.  Could I get three small children away from them if they got too bold?  But after shooing them enough with my feet, they eventually left us alone.  Until one decided he didn’t care.  He ran up to Elijah and snatched the last bite of chicken nugget right out of his little hand.  At first Eli was too surprised to react, but then all the other ducks realized he was an easy target.  Of course I happened to be nursing Arianna, so I didn’t exactly have two hands to rescue him (at least without exposing myself to everyone else at the park!)  I managed to stand him up on the bench, but even then a duck took a nip at his shoe.  By this point he was terrified, so I helped him up to the table out of their reach as an elderly Chinese man came over and helped drive the rest of the birds away.  After seeing them go after his brother, Ian was pretty nervous too, and both boys ended up finishing lunch on top of the picnic table.  So much for our nice peaceful lunch by the lake!  Elijah was so upset he wouldn’t get out of the stroller the rest of the time we were at the park, even when the ducks were far away.  Ian, however, did fine as long as they stayed away and started throwing things into the lake (leaves, sticks, stones, etc.) to see what would float.

Little did he know that I had already planned to have a little buoyancy experiment that afternoon.  I gathered various items from around the house and we predicted whether they would sink or float.  Then we tested each one and sorted them into two groups.  Afterward, I asked Ian why he thought they did what they did.  We talked about how the ping pong ball floated because it was full of air, just like the barrel on the little boy’s back in the story.  Ian took the screw from our “sink” pile and said, “This can be the little boy.”  I caught on to what he was thinking and we used a rubber band to strap the ping pong ball to the screw.  I asked Ian to predict whether it would sink or float now, and he said with certainty it would float.  Of course, he was thrilled to be right.  He loved this whole experiment, and as I cleaned up he asked, “Can we do this again next week?”

We finished off our week by taking the train into Chinatown to celebrate Chinese New Year.   What an adventure!  Lots of crowds, but so much fun! We watched lion dancers, admired dragons, and had a blast throwing down the little “party snaps” vendors were selling on the street.  Ian loved seeing things we’d talked about all week, and he was very excited at the thought of visiting “China.” (I couldn’t quite convince him there was a difference, though after seeing all the gorgeous scenery in Wild China, I hope we both get a chance to see the real thing someday!)  Gung Hay Fat Choy!

To see what other FIAR books we’ve rowed, see my “Index of FIAR Posts.”  Also, a great place to see what other people have done with FIAR books is the FIAR Blog Roll at Delightful Learning.

Madeline

My plan for literature this week had been to “row” The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats from Before Five in a Row, but the weather has turned so warm, I just couldn’t get enthusiastic about such a wintery book.  However, as I thought about some math lessons to do with our Bible story on the 12 disciples, it occurred to me that this might be a good time to introduce “twelve little girls in two straight lines.”  I had intended to start introducing some of the simpler books from  Five in a Row (FIAR) after Ian turns 4 next month, so we just jumped in a little early with one of my childhood favorites: Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (with lessons from Five in a Row (Vol. 1)).

We still have a few B4FIAR books to finish up, but I want to start including at least one FIAR book a month now that Ian’s getting older, though we won’t pase out of B4 completely because I’ll want to re-row them with Elijah (and then later with Arianna).  I don’t think we’ll do a lot of extras yet, but I’m looking forward to rowing “conversationally.”

For math we used twelve little stones to see how many different ways we could group them.  (Since we were also talking about the disciples this week I wanted to use something neutral.    Otherwise I would have used the “Madeline Girls” from Homeschool Share’s Madeline resources.  We also got out a measuring tape to measure how tall the boys are, just like the man measured Madeline in one of the illustrations.

For geography, we found Paris and placed our story disk (from the FIAR Vol. 1 manual) on the big world map on the wall in the boys’ room.  We also looked at some pictures andsouvenirs from when Grandma visited Paris a couple years ago.  It was fun seeing the Eiffel Tower ond other Paris landmarks represented in many different ways.

For science, we talked about the appendix and the parts of the digestive system.  Ian’s fascinated by anything to do with the body, so I also purchased the My Body unit from Teacher Created Resources (available digitally on CurrClick or as a hard copy from Amazon).   I drew life-size outlines of both boys and let them color them.

   

We printed out the pages on the digestive system and taped them on to the drawing of Ian.  (I know we’ll get to more from the unit at some point, but that was enough for now).  We also read The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body several times.

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For language arts, we talked about rhyming words, which Ian is finally starting to catch onto and have fun with.  One time when I read through the story, I pronounced “again” as “uh-GANE” to emphasize the rhyme with rain.  Ian corrected me, saying, “It’s ‘uh-GEN.”  I explained that I was trying to make it rhyme, and sometimes in poems you’ll see “again” paired with words like “rain.”  From that point on, if I tried to pronounce it the way we usually do, he’d get upset.

We went to the library and checked out a few other books about Madeline.  Madeline’s Rescue was my favorite (after the first one).  Toward the end of the week we watched the original Madeline special  and Madeline’s Rescue. (Ian loved them so much I ended up buying digital copies on Amazon so he can watch them anytime, anywhere on my Kindle Fire.)

I wasn’t sure how Ian would like a story about a bunch of little girls, but he LOVED this book.  He brought it to me to read several times every day, and he would have watched the movie over and over all day if I’d let him.  Even Elijah was asking for Madeline and pretending to read the book to himself by the end of the week.  Our first FIAR book was a hit!

To see what other FIAR books we’ve rowed, see my “Index of FIAR Posts.”  Also, a great place to see what other people have done with FIAR books is the FIAR Blog Roll at Delightful Learning.

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