Katy No Pocket, Australia {BFIAR}

As soon as the book was over Duck and Owl wanted to do a "jump like a kangaroo race"  just like they did at the beginning of the story. We jumped all over the house.

Next we measured just how far we could jump.

A favorite project was making Australia cookies. I used this gluten free recipe and used sugar instead of agave. I placed  parchment paper over the map and let the kids push down the dough over Australia  to fill in the shape, they did pretty good. Then we added chocolate chips where  all the mountain ranges were and used colored candies to make major cities. The kids LOVED this and it only took 30 min to do.

Robin working on adding her capitols.

All 4 finished countries, the little broken cookie at the lower right is Tasmania.

Robin did some research on things she loved about Australia..She wrote out all  about what a biliby is and that Australia's major export is cattle.

Falcon wrote a short report on the government and how Tasmania is part of the commonwealth of Australia 

                                  Austrailia

            Tasmania has a population of 507,626. It is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, and although Tasmania is technically part of the commonwealth it still retains its own laws and customs.

            A commonwealth is a group of colonies or states that are bound together for common well being. There are six colonies that make up the Commonwealth of Australia.                                      

Each state is represented at a federal level by a Governor-General. Governor-Generals are appointed by the king/queen that is in office.

            The current queen is Queen Elizabeth II. The queen has very little actual power but plays a more ceremonial/symbolic role in the country.  Governor-Generals on the other hand, have the ability to summon parliament, call elections, and appoint the prime minister, Governor-Generals also have the ability to appoint officials such as high court justices.  

See older kids can learn from  FIAR books too! I usually have my oldest child read the story to the little ones once ( he usually likes the stories) and then have him do a bit of research on a topic involved in the book. For Katy No Pocket he choose to write a little on the country mainly because I thought Tasmania was it's own country! So see I even learned  something new!.

Duck did a lot of activities from this resource

We were studying  Tasmania this month with our homeschool geography group so I choose to row Katy No Pocket to go right along with our studies.

We also  read 

We watched 

 Fiction  movie based in Australia, I watched this with my older kids 12 and 6. 

All 4 of the kids watched this one.

Did you know that Inspector Gadget has a field trip series? We  found it on accident when requesting something else in at the library. Here is one on Australia that I found on youtube..

We love this series and we just checked out the one for Spain and Italy for next week when we row Ferdinand.

Want to see how others are using Five in A Row check that out here.

Corduroy {BFIAR}

Was my favorite book as a child I recall reading it over and over and over never getting sick of  the story.
I can't believe I have waited this long to row it with the kids.


We went to Build A Bear for Duck and Owl to have bears made and Robin who already has a bear was going to get  more stuffing added to hers and get a new outfit. I offered to buy the boys outfits for thier bears but they did not want them. Nor did they want me to make green overall's at home for them!

We made gluten free  peanut butter button and bear cookies

 Corduroy helped.

 Finished bears. Here is the recipe we used, it was yummy.

We went to a trip to a department store and acted out the story with our bears.

 We didn't find buttons on any department store beds but we did find a button on a toss pillow on a bed.

 3 sets of bear ears hiding in the bed at JCPenny's

 I was feeling adventurous and I love to see peoples reactions when you do things outside of the social norm. So all  4 of my kids took their shoes off and  climbed up onto the display bed  so I could read them the story, Corduroy that I had stashed in my purse. I didn't intend on them getting under the covers but Duck and Owl insisted and thought it was so fun. So there we were in the middle of the store sitting on the display bed 2 kids under the covers and 2 on top while I read the book to them. We got a lot of stares, I am sure we were quite the site to see but we were NOT escorted out by security and I think the children will always remember the time we climbed into a display bed at the store and read a book!

A picture is worth a thousand words! Here we are, all but Falcon who shot the picture. My husband doesn't like the kids faces on my blog so I blacked them out.
                                       
Measuring how tall our bear is in  the family restroom at the mall. We also measured how tall all 3 bears were together, then how tall each bear was standing on each child's head.


The littles made paper Corduroy bears for us to add in our Project Life schooling book we started this year.

Some other bear books we read this week.

 I cannot say enough about this version of Goldiocks and The 3 Bears it is full of rich vocabulary and bright pictures and is not your ordinary dumbed down children's  remake of a classic. We will be adding this book to add to our collection.

We did a little Goldilocks role play fun. We used pom poms and raced from the pot on the other side of the room to our bears carrying the pom poms  on a spoon.

Gummi Bear math activities
We estimated, sorted, added, subtracted, and did pattern play with these bears before we ate them.

Corduroy  ate some too!

Want to see how others use  BFIAR, click here.

Owl Moon {FIAR}

The kids acted like owls, they stood on branches way up high in the tree  ( the couch ) and jumped down onto the floor catching mice and other small rodents ( pom poms) with their talons (feet) then dropped their prey in their nest (shoe box)

Falcon has 2  in each of his feet

Robin and Duck showing me what they caught

It was quite funny to see them scramble around and walk with prey in their feet.

Survival of the fittest  ( a game we played with added incentive to get the most cookies for snack)
 After they had all practiced a few times I explained how only the fittest survive in the wild then when I said "go" they were instructed to jump from the trees ( couch) and catch rodents ( pom poms) however many they were able to catch would  equal to the amount of cookies I would give them for snack. Some might say this was mean but it really got the point across on how important it is to stay fit and to practice often in anything you do so you can perfect your technique  and become a master in whatever they choose.

We went owling as well. Not outside at night though, Falcon has a stuffed Snowy owl and Owl has a stuffed Great Horned owl. At night I would hide the owls somewhere in the house ( always up high because that's where owls would be) and the kids would go owling every morning. We did this all week long, they loved it.

Owl lunch- all the kids enjoyed creating their owl personal edible owls.I put out all sorts of foods and let them decide how to do their owl. This is Robin's she even chose coconut flakes at the bottom for snow (kinda hard to see in the picture).

Falcon who is 12 is to old to do most of the projects along with the FIAR books but he does participate sometimes and do some of the go along art and science projects.He usually reads the book at least once to my littles at circle time.

 He  looked through the book picking out similes and metaphors

Moon Talk 

We discussed the many powers of the moon and how it affects gravitational pull and the tides. Since our body is made up of mostly water we discussed how full moons may effect our bodies. Their grandmother is always saying how crazy people are out during full moons and that the hospitals are usually the busiest on  nights of the year when there are full moons ( she is an RN at hospital).

We discussed the similarities of a woman's menstrual cycle along with the moon cycle, that can't just be a coincidence!

Oreo moon phase snack
I don't know if you have ever noticed but I have a moon phase widget on my blog page at the very bottom. You can get your own here.

We are now going to track moon phases for the rest of the year today today is a waxing crescent if I would have started a few days earlier it would have been a new moon and the start on a new cycle,

Art
We painted a winter scene using a monchome color scheme and made sure we added shadows that the moon cast onto the snow from the trees.

Falcon's art piece, notice the shadow the paint bottle is casting on the painting? I thought this was great, just as he finished painting  his tree shadow the sun projected a shadow on his art piece. Do you see the little owls in the tree? I love the 2 looking at each other on the right.

Robin's winter owl scene. I LOVE how these turned out.

Duck and Owl didn't really want to follow directions so this is what they came up with. The glue was still drying, it was the first time I allowed them to use Elmer's  glue instead of glue sticks so they got a little crazy!

A walk in the woods and nature studies
We listened to the sounds of bird calls at our local park

We watched woodland animals at the feeding station at the window on wildlife at our local metropark. ( I love our park system)

We went for a walk looking closely for any signs of animals.

Deer print?

Horse print?

Neat picture of frozen water rings.

Picture Robin colored and taped to her bedroom window we used this coloring book. It's such a neat book we bought it from a nature center over the summer I found it last week when de-cluttering.

We watched Snowflake Bentley and lots of other books on snow and winter.

This DVD actually contains the visual story on Snowflake Bentley, I highly advise watching  the DVD,it held my kids attention much better than the book, although we do have both. This DVD also contain another Five In A Row story as well.

We made paper snowflakes

We also made  these. I didn't  get a picture of ours so you can see the blog I got the idea from. We used a mix of pink, blue, and purple paint. We traced the snowflake with Elmer's glue after it was all dry and sprinkled it with  glitter for extra pizzazz. I will add a picture later in the week.

A few of our  additional books we read this week sticking with the Owl, moon, winter, snow theme.( although there are no snow or winter books pictured here)

Draw Write Now Book 2 has this owl drawing and writing project that we will do this weekend.
Here are some great links to other owl  projects
Drawing on owl
Owl Babies, A favorite book of my children check out this go along
Night Owl  this would b e great done in chalk or oil pastels
Winter wood, hidden owls  scroll all the way down it's second to last. I wish we would have done this one. The kids could have gathered sticks on a nature walk. There never is enough time in the week.

Harold and the Purple Crayon {FIAR}

I made Home made grape scented purple playdoh for the kids to play with


We have plenty of plain pillow cases  so I thought it would be fun if the kids drew on the pillow cases with purple fabric markers, then they could always have them to sleep on. Even if they outgrown them I know I would cherish them forever.

Not all of my kids wanted to use a purple marker like Harold so I let them choose a color they wanted

Falcon working on his with a red marker.

Robin stuck to purple (side 1)
We also wrote Robin and the purple marker on the pillowcase and added the date. I covered up her real name for the picture though.

(Side 2)

Owl just scribbled on his (side 1) I  put my hand over Owls and helped his draw the things he wanted.

I never did get a picture of Duck's pillow case he chose blue though!

Now when they lay their heads down to sleep they can dream of  the adventures their marker could take them on.

We made hot air balloons ( like Harold drew in the story) working on a blog post tutorial for that.

and read this book as well

{FIAR} Mrs. Katz and Tush

 

 

Paper Driedel we printed and assembled from enchanted learning. 

 

 

We made a paper menorah and used the center candle to light a new candle each day we studied Judaism.

 

 

We used to be part of a yahoo group called flat travelers, it was like a Flat Stanley project. We had sent our polar bear Louie to Israel and while there he stayed with a Jewish family and celebrated Hanukkah. It was fun to go back through and read all he did while staying with his host family.

 

 Some fiction and non fiction books we read to go along with Mrs. Katz and Tush.

 We watched this fun DVD,now the kids want a kitten! Robin then drew Tush and her 4 babies.

Some fun fiction books about cats. Color kittens was a fun one for  Duck and Owl. We painted after reading this book and worked on color mixing in our egg cartons, then added some more painted papers to our pile for future art crafts.

We made a Cheesy Potato Kugel

We Celebrated Sukkot!

The kids decorating the baby gate that will be the roof of the Sukkot with paper fruit.

Playing Stack the States on the Ipad in the Sukkot hut, who doesn't love hanging out it a fort//hut?

Robin made signs for our pets to hang up on a telephone pole if they were ever lost like Tush was in the story.I didn't get a picture of them because when I tried to look for them they disappeared and were nowhere to be found!

We spent quite a bit of time going through Jewish holidays. We really felt like we related to this book. We had a Manx cat ( they have no tails) for many years before she died. Out neighbor came from Poland  many years ago and speaks very little English. And of course we just read about slavery so this tied in well. Tomorrow we are going through a house that used to be part of the underground railroad and see were they hid the slaves in the basement.

This was one of the more difficult FIAR stories  we have done due to all the confusing words and Jewish holidays but we all learned quite a bit. We actually rowed this book for 2 weeks instead of 1 partly because we had so many field trips interrupting our day, and partly because I really wanted to go deeper about Jewish holidays.