His Treasure Seekers

We stumbled into our latest Five in a Row book completely by accident.  I really wasn’t planning to do any formal schoolwork for a while, but as I started to get boxes unpacked, Ian was drawn to the series of ValueTales books from my childhood library.  He picked out The Value of Helping about Harriet Tubman one night to read with Daddy before bed, so the next day as I was searching for some sort of educational video to put on while I continued tackling boxes, I decided to put on the Reading Rainbow episode on the book Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter.  I figured it was a good time to discuss the concept of slavery and the Underground Railroad since the book on Harriet Tubman had already introduced the idea.  (It also just happened to fit in with our Bible lessons on the Israelites being freed from slavery in Egypt.)

We did several of the lessons from the Five in a Row manual (Vol. 2).  The ones the really stood out were searching for compound words (which took Ian longer than I expected to catch on to, but was really helpful because we started finding them all over the place after that) and learning the song.  Ian enjoyed listening to me sing it as I played it on the piano (so glad the music was in the back of the book!), but I also found a great video of the song on YouTube which shows the lyrics while playing the music.

We talked about gourds and how they can be used to hold liquids.  I have a calabash, or “bottle gourd” that some Maasai friends gave me when I lived in Kenya, and Ian enjoyed having something he could hold and look at, even if it’s shaped a little differently than the drinking gourd referred to in the song (which I would imagine looks more like the picture on the right).

  

I found a number of other videos that went along well with this study.  The first was Harriet Tubman from the Animated Hero Classics series (also available on YouTube).  The other was video Follow the Drinking Gourd starring Morgan Freeman, which is available streaming free for Amazon Prime members (anyone can do a 7-day rental for $2.99).  It tells the story of a family escaping via the Underground Railroad.  (For older students, check out Whispers of Angels: A Story of the Underground Railroad, also available streaming free for Amazon Prime members. It’s about an hour long, and it’s a documentary rather than a story, but I really enjoyed it.   Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad is another option.  It was a little “dry” for Ian, but short and very informative.)

So it was a pretty simple “row,” but Ian learned a lot, and it felt good to get back into Five in a Row!

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 other day Ian was watching an episode of Reading Rainbow (Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie), and one of the books they recommended at the end was Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews.  He came to me asking if we could get that book, and I told him we already have it since it’s one of our Five in a Row books.  It has been a few weeks since we rowed anything, so it was a great impetus for getting us back into FIAR mode.   I wasn’t familiar with it yet, but it turns out that this is a fascinating book! We pulled out our Five in a Row manual (Vol. 1) and both enjoyed finding out more about the Inuit culture during our week with Very Last First Time.

Ian was puzzled by the airplane in some of the pictures.  “Did they have airplanes in the old days?”  I agreed with him that many parts of the story seemed to indicate it was set a long time ago, but then I pointed out that Eva’s kitchen looks pretty modern.  However, we were a little uncertain as to exactly when to place it because they did use candles for light rather than flashlights (or headlamps, like in the amazing video we watched of real mussel hunters going under the ice).  I wasn’t as concerned about settling on an exact year so much as helping Ian look for clues as to the time period.

I used this as an opportunity to teach Ian a little about Canada.  After finding the country on our map, we searched for Ungava Bay and talked about what “tundra” means and how the climate is different from where we live because of how far north it is.  We also searched through our collection of foreign coins for any from Canada.

We didn’t spend a whole lot of time on Inuit Culture, but we did get a little taste of it.   It just so happens that we’ve been reading through The Eskimo Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins as our chapter book read-aloud lately, it was a good fit.  (This link is to a free Kindle version, but we really enjoyed the illustrated version that came in our set of e-books from Yesterday’s Classics.  So many wonderful books are in this bundle!) We watched a video on how to build an igloo, which Ian wanted to share with everyone who came to our house.  He spent a little time working on this igloo coloring sheet for sight word practice.  I hesitated first about printing it out, and then about giving it to Ian, but it turned out to be a good exercise in following directions and working independently.  He did as much as we wanted and I decided to just leave it at that.  We also read three other picture books that were related to Inuit culture: On Mother’s Lap by Ann Herbert Scott; Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara Joosse; and The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett.

      

I’m not sure what it was that made Ian want to read this book when he saw it introduced on Reading Rainbow, but I was glad that we had it on hand so we could pull it out when he asked for it.  I first discovered Five in a Row when he was not quite two years old.  Right away I knew it was something I wanted to do, so I started collecting the books from Before Five in a Row and all four volumes when I’d see them at used book stores and on PaperBack Swap.  By the time Ian was old enough, I’d gathered probably ninety percent of the stories.  It’s wonderful being able to just grab one that interests us and dive in!

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.

I can’t believe I’ve been hanging on to this post for almost 2 months and never managed to finish it.  We’re in a crazy season right now.  I’m almost out of my first trimester, so I’ve been feeling rather sub-par for a while.  We’re also in escrow and getting ready to move into a new house.  We haven’t stopped doing school, but it’s definitely thinned out a bit.  Any Five in a Row books we’ve picked up have been done strictly “by the manual,” so I didn’t see much point in writing about them.  We’ve kept up Bible and composer study, but that’s been about it.  I’m hoping after we move I’ll be able to get in a few good months before the baby arrives in September (by which time Ian will “officially” be a Kindergartener!)

Anyway… just for my records, here’s what we did when we rowed Lentil by Robert McCloskey (way back when…)

We did several lessons out of the manual.  Ian especially enjoyed the lesson on the patriotism and the flag. We talked about the number of stars and stripes, and I showed Ian this map of the original 13 colonies and we compared it to a map of the 5o states.  We tried counting all the flags we could find in the book (37 including small banners people were holding that we couldn’t exactly tell if they were flags or not).

We couldn’t help singing “She’ll Be Coming’ Round the Mountain” a few times, but Ian’s favorite part of this book was playing the harmonica.  I had an old one around and our neighbor just happened to stop by and give one to the boys as well, so everyone had fun making music all week.  (And I’ve conveniently misplaced them and don’t know where they are now!)

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.

lemons

Over the last two weeks we’ve been rowing How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman.  Ian loved the story and all the activities we did from the Five in a Row manual (Vol. 1). In addition to reading it several times, we watched a cute reading of the story on YouTube as well as a Reading Rainbow episode featuring the book. (Our library has most of the series on DVD.)  I focused mostly on geography and the sources of the various ingredients, but we also had fun doing math with a bowl of apples on the kitchen table and a few other suggestions.

We talked about the seven continents as we put together a puzzle map of the world.  (I also found some free coloring pages about the continents at CurrClick.)  Then we used the story disks from the printables at Homeschool Share to locate the various places in the book.

I printed and laminated a set of cards for matching various elements of the girl’s trip around the world. Elijah practiced sorting them into three piles based on the pictures (country, food and modes transportation), while Ian matched up the proper cards into a pile for each location.

  

Of course, the highlight of our time with this book was making an apple pie.  We tried to get the freshest ingredients possible.

We spent a day at an apple farm and picked our apples right off the tree.

  

We made our own butter by shaking whipping cream (and a pinch of salt) in baby food jars.

  

We even evaporated our own salt.  We had planned to get an egg from our friends’ chicken, but that didn’t work out.  Either did grinding our own cinnamon, though Ian was impressed with the bark.

  

After begging all week to make our pie, Ian was a great helper when we finally had collected all our ingredients.

  

And voila! Our beautiful (and delicious) apple pie!

We decided it looked too good to settle for eating it plain, so we also made some homemade vanilla ice cream by rolling it around in a pair of coffee cans.  Heavenly!

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.

Last week we “rowed” The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer.  It was a cute story, and Ian really got into it, but we didn’t do a whole lot of extras.  We did some of the activities in the Five in a Row manual (Vol. 3), watched the Reading Rainbow episode that featured the book, and read About Amphibians by Cathryn Sill (love this series!).  There’s also a nice reading of the story on YouTube.

We also acquired a new pet, though it’s a reptile. Grandpa caught a gopher snake, and as with the bullfrogs we raised from tadpoles over the spring and summer, it’s proving to be quite the educational pet. Learning about our snake just as we were rowing this book provided a chance to talk about the differences between reptiles and amphibians. The boys are quite fascinated by “Rocky,” especially when it comes to watching him eat his weekly pinkies. (Having to buy live food also means trips to the pet store, so we got to see some live salamanders as well, which was a nice bonus.)  Ian was quite inspired by The Salamander Room and has enjoyed creating a little world for his snake.

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.

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.

Ian 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!

  

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.