Five in a Row - The Bee Tree

 We rowed "The Bee Tree" by Patricia -- this week. We've read this book before, and it's such a fun book to read aloud. A girl named Mary Ellen is bored by reading her book and would rather go out and play. Her grandfather takes her on an adventure to find a bee tree, with a sweet reward of honey at the end, and teaches her that reading is the same kind of adventure. We kept this row simple with a focus on bees and pollination, onomatopoeias, and geography terms. Some weeks call for simple and this was one of them!

Monday:

We read the book and then read a book called "Honeybees". We talked about the different jobs of the different types of  bees and then completed a few worksheets. The first one described the three types of bees: worker, drone, and queen. The next one listed six different jobs of the worker bee (and there are more than six, I just had them choose six). We also did some copywork from scriptures that talk about honey - Proverbs 16:24 and Psalm 19:10.

Tuesday:

We read the book again and then read "The Honey Makers." There was similar information in the book, but also some new information and fun facts. The boys color-coded the parts of a bee (worksheet from here) and then drew the simplified life cycle of a bee.

Wednesday:

We skipped school Wednesday because I had a hair appointment that morning, and then we had so many errands to run and do that afternoon followed by church that evening.

Thursday:

We read the book and then talked about onomatopoeias. We briefly touched on this last year so it wasn't new to the boys. They filled in a simple worksheet where they had to name an object that could make the listed sounds. Then they drew and labeled eight onomatopoeias of their own.

We then talked about the geography terms in the book. The boys wrote them down along with their definitions and then illustrated each one.

Friday:

We read the book again along with the book "If You Were a Kid During the California Gold Rush." The woman "Klondike" Bertha in "The Bee Tree" had just gotten back from an expedition to the Yukon. I couldn't find a book for kids on the Klondike gold rush, so we just talked about the California Gold Rush. Then we looked in our World Books and read some information about gold. They then filled in a notebooking page with information about gold.

We then talked about pollination and they color-coded the parts of a flower.

Next they completed their book summary sheet, which we do for every book.

There were more activities I had wanted to do but we just didn't have the time to get to them. Next week we are going a little deeper with the book "Follow the Drinking Gourd."

Five in a Row - Night of the Moonjellies & Homeschool Highlights

This week we rowed a really fun book called "Night of the Moonjellies" by Mark Shasha. It's about a seven year old boy that is helping in his Gram's restaurant for the summer and he makes a neat discovery - a moonjelly!

Monday:

Today we read the book and talked about the illustrations. We discussed the warm and cool color palettes used on the different pages. We mixed paint colors using the primary colors and learned which ones were warm and which were cool.

Then we took different colors and "warmed them up" by adding warm colors and "cooled them down" by adding cool colors. The boys really enjoyed mixing paints to make new colors. They were excited to see which colors they were making. I can't believe we've never really done this before.

We also did our vocabulary words - marina, pier, and moonjelly. 

Tuesday:

We read the book again - the boys really enjoy this story. The story takes place in New England, and the actual restaurant from the book was in Connecticut. We read a book I had on the shelf, N is for Nutmeg: A Connecticut Alphabet. We then completed a Connecticut state page and labeled the six New England states on a blank map.

We also used pastels to create an ocean picture with shining moonjellies. I copied the cover of the book and cut out the boats for the boys to glue on their picture. They loved using chalk pastels!

Wednesday:

We read the book a third time - I'm making sure we read the book each day. We talked about jellyfish today (even though moonjellies aren't really jellyfish). I printed out a book on the parts of a jellyfish from Montessori Print Shop (they were $3.00) and we labeled a jellyfish using a free printable from TPT.

We also read lots of information about jellyfish from several books we have. The boys then wrote down some interesting facts they learned on a notebook page.

Thursday:

We read the book a fourth time. I asked if they were getting tired of the book yet, and Silas said he wasn't. Titus said, "Kind of, but I do like the book!"

We learned about bioluminescence by reading some books and watching a few YouTube videos. The boys thought it was really neat! I had them make their own notebooking page about what they learned and then we used glow-in-the-dark and neon paint to paint our own bioluminescent creatures.

Friday:

Today we read a book called, "Why Is the Ocean Salty? And Other Questions." I had the boys draw the ocean zones and we talked about them for a bit. We just learned about them a few months ago. 

They also did their book summary sheet and filled in all of the information.

Tonight we are cooking hamburgers, fries, and homemade milkshakes, just like the restaurant in the book! Next week I think we are rowing "The Bee Tree."

They each worked in their Math Lessons for a Living Education and Learning Language Arts Through Literature, as well as a few new workbooks I bought for them. Silas has a cursive workbook, a Grammar Minutes workbook, and a workbook on writing good sentences. Titus has a manuscript penmanship book, a grammar workbook, and a workbook on sentences. 

Eli had a basketball game last night and Mercie and I went. They lost (only their second loss all season). Today is Mercie's 13th birthday! We will have cake and ice cream with her best friend and my in-laws. 

How was your week?

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FIAR: Grandfather's Journey & Link-Up

This week in Five in a Row, Mercie and I read the book "Grandfather's Journey" by Allen Say.

 

This was a beautifully illustrated book that we enjoyed reading each day.

 

On Monday, we talked about Japan. We read about Japan in Children Around the World. Mercie colored the flag and map of Japan, placing a star sticker where the capital, Tokyo, is. We also located Japan on her Asia map, colored it, and wrote "Grandfather's Journey" beside it.
 

 

On Tuesday, Mercie defined her vocabulary words {steamship, songbirds, and homeland}. We talked about how they were all three compound words.

On Wednesday, we talked about landforms since many are mentioned in the book. I printed out some worksheets from superteacherworksheets.com and she made a little landforms flip page.

 

 On Thursday, Mercie colored the parts of a bird and made a bird feeder from a tin can and some yarn. We hung it in the yard with some birdseed in it.

 

 

 

On Friday, we talked about the Five Essential Parts of a Story and did a worksheet. She really understood what we were talking about and had some great answers.

 

 

We also tried our hand at some simple origami. We made dogs, cats, fish, and frogs.

It was a fun week, and I tried not to do too much. Sometimes it's easy to over plan but I just picked the projects that I knew she would enjoy and that would benefit her.

 

The featured post from last week was:

 

Our Homeschool Notebook

 

 

Thanks for linking up last week, and I can't wait to read the FIAR posts from this week!

 

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FIAR: The Story of Ping

This was Mercie's first week using Five in a Row. We "rowed" the book "The Story About Ping", and it was a lot of fun! She had a great time, and is excited about next week already.

Mercie is 7, in the 2nd grade.

On Monday, we read the story. She was really nervous the whole time that Ping would not get back to his family! When we finished the book, she said, "I should have known that books always have happy endings." So sweet!

We talked about ducks and how their feathers have a special oil to keep them waterproof. We did a simple experiment to show this. She cut out two duck shapes from a paper bag, and "painted" vegetable oil on one of them. Next, she used a medicine dropper to drop water on both ducks. The one with oil didn't absorb the water; instead, it bubbled up on top. The duck without oil absorbed the water and got wet.

Then, I poured oil into a glass of water. Mercie was amazed how the oil fell to the bottom, and then quickly rose to the surface of the water. She stirred it up, trying to mix them. She thought it was funny that they wouldn't mix, and that the oil kept coming to the surface! She laughed when she made an "oil tornado" in the water!

After that, Mercie looked in our Animal Encyclopedia and read about ducks. She then filled in a page in her "Do It Yourself Animal Book". I am going to have her use this to keep a journal of all the animals we read about in FIAR.

 

On Tuesday, we talked about China, since that is where the Yangtze River is. She colored the flag and drew the river on the map. We cooked chicken fried rice, too.

 

 

I also had her define 3 vocabulary words from the book: barrel, scurry, and paddle. She noticed all by herself that those words had double consonants! {I didn't even recognize it!} She got a little practice looking in the dictionary, but I had to help.

 





On Wednesday, we talked about ducks some more. I found a poem in the Fold 'n Learns about a duck going "bottom side up" to eat. It was really cute, and I had Mercie find the illustration in the book that fit the poem and draw it. She did a great job.

She also made a mini-duck book with pictures and names for several different types of ducks. She remembered reading about some of them in her Animal Encyclopedia.

We found China on the map and talked about continents and countries {still confusing to her.}

On Thursday, we counted all of Ping's family members - all 68 of them! We worked a few math problems from the book. We played our continents and oceans game a few times. She is getting much faster! When she masters the continents and oceans, we start on countries.

On Friday, I had her draw a summary page and the life cycle of a duck.

In math, she worked on mental addition and subtraction. I printed her some daily grammar practice sheets from SchoolhouseTeachers.com to use this week. She worked in her Fun-Schooling Spelling Journal and her Bible Time  Kids Devotion Journal.

She enjoyed this week and loved doing Five in a Row. She is already talking about next week! We will be rowing "Grandfather's Journey".

How was your week?

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