Angus Lost
Over the last week or so, we’ve been casually “rowing” our latest Before Five in a Row book: Angus Lost by Marjorie Flack. It’s a cute little books about a Scottish terrier who is bored of all the same old things at home and decides to explore the neighborhood, only to discover he can’t find his way back home.
The Before Five in a Row manual had lots of wonderful ideas, especially for discussions. We talked about what it would feel like to realize you were lost and what to do if it happened to you. I also shared with Ian about the expressions “home sweet home” and “there’s no place like home,” which connected well with us since Elijah makes every homecoming a celebration worthy of applause and cheering, even if we’ve only been gone for an hour.
We also talked about dogs and being safe around them, as well as introducing the idea of different breeds of dogs. Homeschoolshare.com had a lot of lapbook resources for the book, but the only one I felt suited our needs was the “Dog Lotto,” which I printed on cardstock and laminated. It was great for discussing how different dogs can be from one another. We didn’t play the game as suggested, but instead just used it as a matching activity, where Ian used the cards to try to find the same picture on the gameboards.
I’m so happy that Jolanthe at www.homeschoolcreations.com added Angus Lost printables to her B4FIAR resources in time for us to do it this week as planned. As I mentioned in my post on Daniel in the Lion’s Den, I was inspired by these charming worksheets to put together a little “workbook” of pages associated with our lessons for the week. I just slipped each page into a plastic sheet protector, and then Ian completed them with a dry erase marker. Not only did that allow him to erase each page and enjoy it several times throughout the week, but I’ll just file them away to pull out again when Elijah and Arianna are ready to do them. (I also printed out a few activities that were too advanced for Ian, so when we “re-row” the story later, there will be new things for him as well.)
There are other “Angus” books out there as well. I believe the first in the series was Angus and the Ducks, but we didn’t have access to a copy. We did enjoy reading through Angus and the Cat, however. Elijah is such an animal lover, any of these books would appeal to him. I think Ian just liked the idea revisiting Angus in a new book!