Here are some of the books we’ve done units on outside of Five in a Row:
I want my children to be familiar with all the major fairy tales and folk tales, though sometimes we just read the story. Here are ones we’ve spent a little more time on:
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.
We missed a week due to sickness, but now we’re back in the swing of things, just finishing up Week 28 of the Bible lessons from the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum. I chose to use the story as it is told in John 6:1-13 instead of the suggested passage in Matthew because John mentions the little boy who shared his food and I thought Ian would appreciate that detail. Our memory verse was “Nothing is impossible with God” Luke 1:37.
To introduce the story, I told it to the boys using our flannel board set while I read out of Ian’s ESV Seek and Find Bible. The story was in several of our story Bibles, but I just had a lot of trouble getting into it this week. We listened to the ESV story several times on our playlist and enjoyed watching a video, “Bread from Heaven,” together. It took some artistic license, creating a back story for the boy with the fish and loaves, but it definitely helped Ian understand the story better. There’s also a a game on the Charlie Church Mouse Preschool CD-ROM that goes along with it.
I have to admit, I was feeling very uninspired this week. There wasn’t much I could find to go with this lesson from my usual favorite resources. Then I stumbled upon whenyourise.com. Basically it’s a blog by two moms doing a fantastic job at what I’m attempting to do here. After perusing their site, I realized I haven’t been tapping into my own creativity very much (something I hope will change!) I also borrowed one fun idea from them. We set up all the bears and dolls we could find to be our “crowd.”
Then I showed the boys our basket with 2 “fish” and 5 “loaves” (goldfish crackers and croutons), though I’d really hidden more of each under the napkin. (Yes, I miscounted my “loaves.” We fixed it when we started reading from the Bible.)
The food just kept coming! It was a fun way to have our snack, and Ian enjoyed acting it out so much we had to do it all over again. Thankfully I had a big carton on goldfish, because it would have been hard to explain that we’d run out of food!
I printed out a basket and some fish and loaves (I set my printer to print 2 pages on 1 sheet so they’d be smaller) to put in it. I just let Ian color, cut, and paste them onto a page for our Bible notebook. This was the first time I’ve had him try to cut things out himself. It was definitely a learning experience!
Our iPod playlist this week was short and to the point, but we listened to it a lot. This is one of my favorite teaching tools since we can use it in the car or during playtime at home. Here’s what was on this week:
I’m looking forward to the next few weeks as we talk about Palm Sunday and the Resurrection. (I try to keep “Easter” as a fun spring celebration with bunnies and egg hunts, etc., while keeping “Resurrection Day” about Christ’s triumph over death. That way we can still enjoy the fun cultural stuff without diluting the sacred nature of the true holy-day.) Okay, so I got a little ahead of myself! But at least my planning is done for a while–now I just need to plan THIS week!
Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 is such a beautiful (and rather convicting) picture of compassion. It was also our Bible story for the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum Week 27. Once again, I chose a different memory verse (mostly because we just did the suggested verse with a different story). So we memorized, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I didn’t include a reference because this phrase is found several times throughout the Bible (in Leviticus, 3 gospels, and even a few of the epistles). In other words, this is a really important concept for us to grasp!
To be honest, I felt like I was barely keeping my head above water this week. Our calendar suddenly got crazy last week, and between multiple birthday celebrations, multiple doctors’ and dentists’ appointments, a marriage seminar this weekend, and a few other “extras” this week, I’m surprised we did anything at all! (And I’m considering taking next week off, since I’m writing this Sunday night and haven’t even started getting things ready for the next lesson.)
This week we took break from our usual school routine in honor of Ian’s birthday. Instead, we spent the week focusing on one of his favorites subjects: knights! It seemed like a good tie-in to the armor of God, so I combined the two, anachronistic as that might be. Our memory verse was “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” Ephesians 6:11 (I just focused on the bold part, but Ian picked up a lot of the rest due to the memory songs on our playlist (see below).
Rather than focusing on one book this week, I kept out a whole basket of books (both fiction and non-fiction) related to our theme. Some I purchased; some were from the library. Here’s my booklist:
For his workbook I printed off mazes, dot-to-dots, and some of the printables from Homeschool Creations. Included in those were some pattern cards (Ian surprised me with how well he did–something has clicked since the last time I tried patterns with him) and Ian’s favorite item: the game. I guess you’d call it a folder game, but I didn’t put it in a folder. I just laminated each side separately and then used packing tape to connect them. The first time we played we used jelly beans for markers, but I decided I didn’t really like handling them so much before we inevitably ate them so we switched to different coins. So it was a great math lesson all around as we identified the coins, counted the dots on the die, and counted the spaces as we moved.
I also printed and laminated the Armor of God cards from 1+1+1=1‘s Raising Rock Stars page. Elijah played with these for 20 minutes the first time! Sometimes he would hold them up one by one for me to read, then he’d go through them himself for a while, then come back to me and so on. I think he really wanted to memorize them. Totally unprompted. (To be honest, I hadn’t included him in my objective for the week. I usually just plan for Ian and count on Elijah coming along for the ride when he’s interested.)
I had planned on making a set of “full armor” as described at Danielle’s Place, but we were so busy all week we never got around to it. We did have fun making our own shield and sword. For the sword, I folded a piece of of cardboard around a stick, added the handle from a milk jug, and bound it all together with lots of duct tape. Ian loves blue, so I used some blue painter’s tape on his so we could easily differentiate between the boys’ sets.
The boys enjoyed watching “Knights are Brave and Strong” from The Backyardigans Season 1 (streaming on Netflix and Amazon). For our Bible notebook we dressed up a paper doll in the “Armor of God.” (Yes, we lost a shoe.)
Most of our memory work came through our iPod playlist (which also had several poems this week):
Most of those activities came to a screeching halt on Thursday, when Ian opened his birthday present. This Playmobil Lion Knights Castle (thank you, credit card rewards points!) became our sole focus for the next day or two. The boys had lots of fun acting out everything we’d been reading about. (It has now taken up semi-permanent residence in the boys’ room on their train table.)
We finished out the week with two birthday celebrations. First, we went to Medieval Times to see a jousting tournament and lots of other things we had read about this week like falcons, various weapons, etc.
Then tomorrow we’re having a small party at home with our extended family. There were lots of fancy castle cake ideas online, but I get easily frustrated when it comes to frosting cakes, so I decided to keep it simple. Well, fairly simple. I really liked the idea of using ice cream cones for towers, but I wish I’d doubled the cake recipe so the main part of the castle was taller. Oh well. He’s four. And he thinks it looks great. And it’s not like it’s going to stick around that long anyway.
Whew! I’m tired just writing about our busy week! It will definitely be one of our more memorable “preschool” experiences!
Additional note: The Armor of God notebook page was a hit, and we did it again a couple years later, only this time we used pictures of the kids themselves:
“It has been said that guardian spirits watch over and protect small children, and that may be so. But there are also stories of children who find the courage to protect themselves. Such is the story of Hansel and Gretel.” Cynthia Rylant
We took a break from Five in a Row (FIAR) this week in order to spend some time with another classic fairy tale: Hansel and Gretel. I chose to use this book by Cynthia Rylant as our main source, though we used a number of other resources as well. I really enjoyed Rylant’s writing style and her focus on the children’s bravery.
In addition to reading that book several times, we listened to the classic version by the Brothers Grimm from Listen to Genius, as well as enjoying the beautiful illustrations from Paul O. Zelinsky in Hansel and Gretel retold by Rika Lesser. Ian had fun with an Android App from StoryChimes that he played with on my Kindle Fire. Other than that, we took it pretty easy this week as far as “school” because of a busy schedule. If we do this story again in a few years with my younger children, I hope to do more, like build a gingerbread house, make patterns with candy, or take a walk and try to follow a trail of stones.
The one big thing we did do was go to see a children’s concert version of the opera by Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921), featuring selected songs, sung in English, with a narrator. Ian was already familiar with most of the music because we listen to a recording of it quite often. It was his first time at a major orchestral performance and he was slightly overwhelmed at first, but ended up enjoying it. We also watched a video (available streaming on Netflix) that uses a lot of the opera’s music and its storyline (which is slightly different from the more familiar Grimm’s version).
While I love Rylant’s description of the children’s bravery, I think Humperdinck completes the picture with his repeated mentions of God’s providence and protection of children in a scary situation. His beautiful “Evening Prayer” is one song I don’t mind being stuck in my head.
When at night I go to sleep Fourteen angels watch do keep Two my head are guarding’ Two my feet are guiding Two are on my right hand Two are on my left hand Two who warmly cover Two who o’er me hover Two to whom ’tis given To guide my steps to heaven
I had never heard of the book If Jesus Came to My House by Joan G. Thomas until we started Before Five in a Row, but it’s become a favorite of mine. It seemed like a fitting choice to go along with our Bible story this week, since Jesus really did go to Zacchaeus’ house. We didn’t do a lot of activities, but the book did trigger a lot of good conversations.
We talked about shadows and enjoyed listening to a poem, “My Shadow,” from A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. We also discussed how the dark can be scary sometimes, which led to talking about Ian’s favorite Scripture song: “When I am Afraid” from Hide ’em in Your Heart Vol. 1 by Steve Green. The Before Five in a Row manual had another song suggestion, but I also used this discussion as an opportunity to introduce Ian to Rodgers and Hammerstein with “I Whistle a Happy Tune” from The King and I. I put all three of these on our iPod playlist, along with other things related to our Bible story. (The full playlist is in my post on our week with Zacchaeus.)
I love the part of the story where the little boy lets Jesus play with his nicest toys, and even lets him pick the best to take with him when he leaves. I asked Ian which of his toys he thought was the nicest. He decided it was his monster truck. “If Jesus came to visit, would you let him play with your monster truck?” I’m not sure he was quite ready to answer that question. He definitely seemed torn!
I put some pages from Homeschool Creations in Ian’s workbook, which he always enjoys. I also created and laminated some cards with rhyming pairs from the story. Ian has gotten much better with rhymes than he was when we first started talking about them (about a year ago), but sometimes he still comes up with the craziest answers when I ask him, “What word rhymes with [blank]?” It makes me wonder: does he really not understand the whole concept or is he just being silly? I figure it never hurts to have a little more practice.
This story didn’t “click” with Ian as much as some of the others we’ve done, but I love it because it’s so sweet. I’m looking forward to re-rowing it with Elijah and Arianna down the road!
Poor Zacchaeus. I don’t think I’d be too thrilled if the first thing people remembered about me was that I was “small in stature.” Zacchaeus was the star of our Bible lesson from the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum (Week 26). As we read Luke 19:1-10 I realized that Zacchaeus was much more than a “wee little man,” as the old song calls him. He is a great example of repentance, transforming from a greedy tax collector who thought only of himself into a generous benefactor who recognized how his actions affected had others and tried to make amends. Because of this, I chose to focus on the Golden Rule for our memory verse: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Matthew 7:12 It’s a lesson I think Zacchaeus took to heart, and as Jesus said, “This sums up the Law and the Prophets.” In other words, this is the key to walking in God’s ways. I want to start planting these seeds of truth in my children’s hearts now while they’re so young.
As usual, we told the story in numerous ways. On Monday I introduced the story by explaining what a tax collector was and why people didn’t like Zacchaeus. Then I told the story while using our flannel board set, which the boys still really look forward to every week. After that we read it Ian’s ESV Seek and Find Bible. Throughout the rest of the week we reinforced the story by reading it in The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley), The Rhyme Bible Storybook, and Classic Bible Stories: A Family Treasury. (We try to read/listen to the ESV passage every day as well.)
We spent time with Zacchaeus in a few other ways this week as well. I printed and laminated a series of picture cards and had Ian put them in the right order to retell the story. He really enjoyed this activity and pulled them out on his own several times. He also remembered the story was on the Charlie Church Mouse Kindergarten CD-ROM and entertained Elijah with it on the computer. (Elijah still can’t figure out how to use the mouse, but he loves watching Ian play games.) Both boys enjoyed watching the “Treasures in Heaven” video from Nest Entertainment.
For Ian’s Bible notebook, we made a picture of Zacchaeus in the tree. I painted Ian’s hand and forearm brown to make the trunk and branches, and then he sponge painted the green leaves. “Zacchaeus” was a print-out from mssscrafts.com (one of my favorite resources when planning Bible lessons).
As alsways, our iPod playlist was one of my most valuable teaching tolds. Our playlist this week contained a few items that related to our Before Five in a Row book, If Jesus Came to My House by Joan G. Thomas, which seemed like a good complement to Zacchaeus, so here’s our complete list. Items related to this Bible lesson are in bold:
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.
He 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.
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.
This week we immersed ourselves in the Father’s love as we focused on the parable of the prodigal son according to the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum Week 25 lesson plan. The story is found in Luke 15:11-32. It’s hard not to be moved by the tender love of the father whose excitement about having his son return to him outweighs any disappointment or anger he might have felt regarding the son’s foolishness. What a comforting picture of God’s love for us!
Because the story takes place in so many places, I skipped telling it with the flannel board this week. Instead we just read the passage in Ian’s ESV Seek and Find Bible every day, as well as reading in two of our Bible story books: The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley) and The Rhyme Bible Storybook. As soon as I first read the story, Ian remembered it from the Charlie Church Mouse Kindergarten CD-ROM, so he enjoyed playing that throughout the week. He’s been really into mazes lately, so I put this one from Danielle’s Place in his workbook for the week.
Ian enjoyed seeing the story when we watched “The Prodigal Son” from Nest Entertainment’s Animated Stories from the Bible series. (Despite a couple negative reviews on Amazon, I like this video. It creatively tells the biblical account without detracting from the powerful message.)
I used a different memory verse than the curriculum suggested, choosing instead to go with “God is love” from 1 John 4:16. Since Valentine’s Day is next week we made cards for Daddy at the same time we did our Bible notebook pages using hearts that I cut out and some Valentine stickers.
We had a really long iPod playlist this week, mostly because I included a number of songs from the Father’s House CD by Brian Doerksen. (The album is based on the story of the prodigal son and has many songs that convey God’s love toward his children.)
The playlist was a big hit this week, especially the Adventures in Odyssey episode. Ian also had a lot of fun dancing to the “Celebrate” songs and G-O-D is L-O-V-E. The last one led him to request the Hide ’em in Your Heart DVDs, which he hasn’t watched in ages. I’m so glad he had fun with our Bible time this week!