FIAR: The Story of Little Babaji

Technically The Story of Little Babaji is not a Five in a Row book.  Truly though, any book can be used the FIAR way.  Since I'm trying to align our FIAR books with the country we're studying in Expedition Earth, I needed a book set in India and this one fit the bill.  Those of you who are near my age may remember the original version of this story which was called Little Black Sambo.  In efforts to be more policitally correct and culturally sensitive, the newer version was written.  Most of the main story elements remain the same, however.

We did not do any projects to go with this book.  However, a few that would be good companion activities include this Taj Mahal coloring page (NOTE:  The Taj Mahal is not in the story, but is important to the study of India.) and this game from Homeschoolshare.  I actually printed and laminated the game for the boys to play but so far we haven't fit it in. The Homeschoolshare link also includes a bunch of other ideas for using this book.

FIAR: A Pair of Red Clogs

 

We "rowed" the book A Pair of Red Clogs for our third week of homeschool.  We tied this book into our study of Japan in Expedition Earth.   This is a sweet story with great illustrations that all of us enjoyed so much. There is a great resource page for this book at Homeschoolshare. We did not end up using many of these resources because I'm finding that we are learning so much from the living books we check out from the library about each country.  With the living books and the resources from Expedition Earth, I am not feeling the need to do a lot of extra activities with each book.   I had planned to do a simple origami project with the boys for this book, but we ended up rowing it on a week that began with Labor Day and ended with an out of town field trip, so we didn't get around to the origami.  

We did do a quick kimono art project that I found on Art Projects for Kids.  I enjoy doing these projects with the boys and thought our kimonos turned out great. As suggested in the project instructions, I made a cardboard "T" shape which we traced with a Sharpie marker to give us all a uniform starting point.  Then we used oil pastels to add the details.

FIAR: How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World

During our second week of homeschool we "rowed" the book How to Make an Apple Pie and see the World by Marjorie Priceman.  We have been trying to over lap our FIAR books with the country we are studying for Expedition Earth, but I couldn't find a book to go with South Korea which we studied during our second week.  So.......since the season is right for apple-picking here in Iowa, I chose this book which I love so much!  The boys loved listening to it every day and retelling all the places the girl has to go to get the ingredients she needs for her pie.

I found a bunch of great printable activities for this book at Homeschoolshare.  However, as I am getting further into homeschooling (a veteran of over 3 weeks now........haha!), I am finding that doing every cute printable activity I find may not be the best fit for my two boys.  Which kind of stinks because I really like cute printable activities.  However, I am learning about their preferences and while I had visions of the awesome lapbooks we would complete for each book we row, I am finding it hard to fit in time for all the extras.  And truthfully, I don't think their experiences with the books will suffer if we don't do a bunch of paper and pencil or cut and paste activities.  Please know that I LOVE the idea of lapbooking and still plan to incorporate it into our learning, I just haven't found the right balance yet.  However, I wanted to add a link to the wonderful resources for this book from Homeschoolshare.  That site is truly a treasure trove if you haven't already discovered it.

So, instead of having a cute lapbook to share here, I'll share some photos of our first "field trip" to a local apple orchard where we picked our own apples.............

A few days after we picked the apples we made an apple pie out of them.  And BOY was it yummy!  I used this recipe which I've made in jars (SO cute and fun), but just made a regular "big pie" with it.  I really like the syrup coating on the apples with this recipe.

I. Love. It.

My intention is to write on this blog more regularly than once a week, but, boy!, homeschooling sure is keeping me busy!  On top of homeschooling my 2 boys, this week I added teaching 8 piano lessons and 3 Kindermusik classes.  Perhaps that explains why I've been absent in this space!  Also, when we get going with our school days I find that I forget to take many pictures.  I'll try to be better about that!

Here's what I love about homeschooling so far:

I love not having to rush myself and the boys out the door each morning.  We are easing into our school day gradually, trying to start around 9:00 every morning.  This allows me time to exercise before school as well as time to check email, clean up after breakfast, throw in a load of laundry, and gather any last minute things I need for our day.

I love starting each school day cuddled on the couch with my two favorite guys in the whole world.  We have been reading a short devotion from the book Jesus Calling each morning.  It starts our time together on a positive note, which I feel is very important.

I love that I've had time to make homemade bread for us to enjoy twice this week so far.  It disappears quickly! Is there anything better than homemade bread fresh from the oven?

 I love being able to incorporate my boys' interests into their school day.  One way I've done this with my little guy is to have him create a scene with his Legos.  I then took photos of several "action" shots as he manipulated the scene to tell a story.  I printed each photo on printer paper and each day he's been writing the words to go with one page.  When he's finished, he'll have his own book!  This is a much more motivating way for me to get him to write than anything else I've come up with!

I love having the flexibility to add in little field trips that support our learning.  Yesterday I took the boys apple picking at an orchard since we read How To Make an Apple Pie and See the World this week for FIAR.  I'll post more about that later.

So.......I'm loving it.  

A few of you asked about why I'm not incorporating a lot of Montessori materials into our homeschooling.  Which is a fair question since many of you followed me for that last several years over at My Montessori Journey.  I've been thinking about how to answer that question and will try to do a post about that soon.  I just wanted to pop in here today so you'd know I was still around.  :-)

FIAR: The Story About Ping

During our first week of homeschool, we "rowed" the book The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese.  I have loved this book for a long time and it was great to share it with the boys.  My oldest son had heard it before, but my youngest hadn't.  This book gave us a good chance to talk about the consequences of behavior since Ping decided to hide out to avoid a punishment.

On one of the days we did an art project and tried to draw Ping.  I found a great website with lots of easy step-by-step drawing instructions for drawing a variety of animals.  CLICK HERE to go check out that site.  My little guy was in a bad mood when we did the drawing project, but did a nice job.  He colored over the top of it, so it's hard to see his drawing.  I thought SC and I did a decent job with our little "Pings" as well. I think my Ping has been eating a LOT of fish!  haha

We also did a sink and float experiment to explore the concept of buoyancy, which is represented in the story.  I used a sink and float paper from Homeschoolshare.  Before we did the experiment I had each boy fill out their predictions about whether each object would sink or float, then we tested the objects to see if our predictions were correct.  They enjoyed this experiment very much.  I think we'll be doing a lot more of these in the future!!

Since the story of Ping is set in China, we also "traveled" to China in our Expedition Earth curriculum this week.  The boys were so excited to build the Great Wall of China as a special project.  To do this, we followed Erica's directions and it turned out great!  We used one whole box of Project Bricks plus a bit out of a second box.  We have plenty left over now to build a pyramid or castle.  I ordered the first box from Amazon, but found the second box at Hobby Lobby in the hobby section.

I wish I'd taken a photo of the Wall being mightily defended by an army of LEGO mini-figures.  One of the attackers was a LEGO gorilla wielding a banana for a weapon.......not much threat to security there!