Tall Tales - Pecos Bill

While working through Sonlight D - American History part 1, it only felt fitting that we should do a unit on Tall Tales. I wasn't exactly sure where I wanted to go with this but I knew that I wanted a unit that we could do without a ton of work or planning. After some research, I bought Evan-Moor's Tall Tales Literature Pockets. It has nine different pockets complete with the stories of each tall tale and activities to go along. I wanted J to read and enjoy the stories of these bigger than life Americans.

Our first Tall Tale was Pecos Bill. We read the story in the text but we also read several books from the library. It was interesting that each story had some of the same story elements but they weren't completely identical.

After discussing the elements of a Tall Tale, we worked through the bigger than life worksheet about Pecos Bill.

We talked about how some of the items in the story could have happened and some just couldn't. She chose 2 elements of each and wrote them onto sticky notes.

After she wrote them onto sticky notes, she added them to our chart. We will add elements to this chart after each story that we read.

We discussed several of the vocabulary from the stories and she wrote the definitions in the mini book. This was a great activity for using context clues to derive the meaning of the words.

One activity I added to our study was to create a Tall Tales banner. Each character we learn about will get his/her own flag and we will hang them together when we are done. I gave J several options for this study - create a lap book, make a banner, make a notebook...she chose the banner. She is ever the artist:)

She drew a picture of Pecos Bill riding the tornado and being raised by wolves.

Next was the art project for Pecos Bill. She is creating a moon from a coffee filter colored with markers and a water dropper. The water will make the colors of the markers combine.

This is J's completed art work for Pecos Bill. She made a picture where Bill and two wolves are howling at the moon. She is super creative, she added Pecos Bill in a cave and two rock ledges for the wolves. Now, on to our next tale - Slue Foot Sue. Have a great weekend.

B4FIAR - The Little Rabbit with free printable

Our Before Five in a Row selection this week was The Little Rabbit by Judy Dunn. I had planned to do this study as a welcome to a new pet rabbit but the rabbit didn't come like expected :( I decided to work with the book anyway.

I had found carrot shaped eggs around Easter time and bought them.  I knew that we would eventually be working with The Little Rabbit and The Carrot Seed. I thought they would come in handy. For this activity, I added black beans and alphabet beads in each carrot. He had to shake the egg to see what letters were in each one. He then traced the letters on the chart. This idea and free printable chart came from Mrs. Jones Creation Station (link below).

We read about rabbits and discovered what they needed to be happy and live long lives. I wrote all of the items that Kaleb mentioned about what bunnies do onto the carrot (printable below). He even had me write "got lost" because Buttercup the rabbit got lost in our story.

We also discussed what rabbits need, have, can, and are using this free printable organizer from Beach Bummed Teacher (link below).

We read about how to  handle a bunny correctly. He practiced using a stuffed bunny of J's. This will come in handy if we ever get a bunny of our own.

He decided what pets he would get if he could using this free printable from Homeschool Share. Needless to say the tarantula did not make his list (happy for that) but he did mention that he would like a mouse:(

I made some carrot bean bags and gave him two baskets. Each one was programmed with the letter R and the letter V. He had to determine of the picture/word began with the letter R or V and then throw the bean bag into the correct basket.

One of Kaleb's favorite games was parking the cars. Here, you roll the dice and park the car in the correct space. We played this game together - I was red and he was yellow. He won, though:)

I also had a package of rabbit and carrot erasers that I found. We used these several ways this week. Here, they were markers for another number game using dice. We tried to see who would cover the board first.

He put carrots programmed with numbers 1 through 25 in order. Rather than overwhelm him with all of the numbers, I gave him the first ten numbers to put in order etc...

I found this cute printable carrot subtracting printable. There were five carrots in the ground and he "took away" two, then counted how many carrots were left. This came from Frog Spot (link below).

I used the erasers for another game. I cut some alphabet stickers to fit the backside of the erasers and added them to a container of blackens. He had to use the tweezers to choose a carrot or bunny and then find the letter match on the chart. He covered the letter with the eraser. He liked doing this as well. We reused the alphabet mat from the Mrs. Jones Creation Station (link below).

Our letter of the week was V. He made a V into a volcano. We also watched several videos of erupting volcanoes on youtube.

J had a play hutch and we found some bunnies to play with during the day. I gave him some yarn for hay and he used the erasers for Buttercup's babies.

Then, we made a makeshift hutch from one of our bookshelf cubbies. We added a towel, a bowl for food, and Buttercup with one of her babies. He fed her daily and made sure the hutch was clean. I wasn't sure he would be interested in doing this but he surprised me.

We worked with numbers that added to five and numbers the added to ten. We used this ten chart and the erasers. He chose a number and added that many carrot erasers to the chart. Then he added bunny erasers for the other addend. By doing this activity, he was able to visualize addends of ten. This is part of my free printable (link below).

One last activity that we did with the carrot and bunny erasers was work with patterns. I started a pattern and he had to finish it. He was pretty good at this, taking the patterns further than I expected. We had fun with The Little Rabbit even though the outcome wasn't how I wanted it to be - no rabbit joining our family. But, I will say that this sparked a curiosity in my daughter J and she is researching rabbits as well. We have started a chore program in our house and she is working towards purchasing her own bunny. She has started a notebook for her research and is reading every book that she can find on the subject. So, eventually, we may have a pet rabbit after all.

Download Rabbit Printables HERE.

Links

Mrs. Jones Creation Station - has the free printable alphabet garden sheet and idea using the carrot shaped eggs.

Frog Spot - has the free printable carrot subtraction game.

Lil Country Kindergarten - has the free printable bunny finger puppets and rhyme that we used this week.

A Girl and a Glue Gun - had the idea to make rabbit cinnamon rolls. We did this but no picture - sorry.

Homeschool Creations - has the idea for the mini sensory bin using the hutch and bunnies. We just happened to own the hutch already.

Beach Bummed Teacher - has the free rabbit printable organizer in her TPT store.

The Measured Mom - has a whole bunch of ideas for the letter V including the parking lot game and making the V into a volcano.

Pledge of Allegiance

We are working through the final weeks of Sonlight Core D - American History part 1. As part of J's history program, I added a state study which she will complete over the next school year. I also felt that it was important for her to learn the Star Spangled Banner as well as The Pledge of Allegiance. These were two items that J hadn't had the chance to experience since we lived overseas. No better time than the present, right?

Learning the Pledge came at a really good time - it was her literature selection for her language arts program for the week. So it worked out. I thought that I would share a mini project that J created to learn it. (This was her idea:)

We began by reading about the flag and the pledge. We discussed the meaning of the words and talked about the elements of our flag. Then she created her own flag using card stock.

She added the words to the Pledge on the stripes of the flag. She decided she wanted to create this flag so she could practice the Pledge each day.

Her finished project - cute. It is hanging on our wall so she can memorize it. It was a simple art project with a great outcome. J's idea was pretty great. I love it.

Tot Tuesday

Little bit of Taco Stew and a lot of sour cream....it is what tastes best:)

I love that face! Enjoy your food today:)

Greater than Jonah and Solomon

We are still working through Telling God's Story Book 1 for our school year. It is coming to a end though and we will be moving on to Book 2 (next school year). This week's lesson was titled "Greater than Jonah and Solomon."

J colored her sheet while listening to the lesson. I wasn't sure that she would like these coloring sheets each week, but she surprised me. She always loves to have something to do while she is listening to my reading.

J worked on some mapping. This was part of the lesson. I love when we can actually see where Jesus walked.

One craft that I found was Jonah in the whale. Jonah hangs from a string in the whale's stomach. This free printable was found at Sunday School Resources (link below).

J also tried an origami whale. This one was somewhat easier than the star that we made sone months back. I love the variety of activities that this curriculum provides. We are definitely learning a lot:)

Links

Artistic Hands of Faith - has a cute Jonah craft using a ziplock bag with free template.

Crafting the Word of God - has a free template for a Jonah craft.

Sunday School Resources - has a cute craft with Jonah "hanging out" in the whale.

B4FIAR - Caps for Sale (with free printable)

Our second Row was Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina. It is a cute book about a peddler who has to trick some monkeys into giving back his hats. We also read the companion books by the same author - More Caps for Sale and Circus Caps for Sale.

I found this cute rhyme and made a mini pocket chart for it last summer when I thought that I was going to homeschool Kaleb this school year. You may download my printable at the bottom of the post. Kaleb had to match the color word with the hat. We focused on beginning sounds.

The letter that we were working on was the letter U. Kaleb worked on a habitat sort for Under the Sea. I found this at Target.

Kaleb and I discussed more U words and he glued them to the letter.

While we were working on Caps for Sale, he decided to balance his dog on his head like the peddler. Not a hat but close.

He colored some hats for a paint stick craft. I asked him politely to color each hat a different color. Right now, his favorite color is blue so they probably would have ended up all blue.

 Kaleb used the hats to make a paint stick version of the peddler.

He worked on some monkey actions....just like in the book.

I made a mini alphabet review game. I programmed small cups with letter stickers. Using three cups, I hid the monkey under one and scrambled them up. He had to find the monkey and tell me what letter the money was hiding under. I only made cups for the rest of the alphabet that we will be working on.

I finally was able to put up my magnetic oil pan. We have played with this a lot. I placed the letter cards using sticky tack on the board and had Kaleb sort the magnetic letters.

Here is another printable that I created for the unit. Caps for Sale was supposed to be early in our school year and I had planned on working with numbers 1 through 5. He had to place the missing numbers on the chart.

We discussed money and he made a money book. He matched the money to each page.

After that, Kaleb graphed the money. He threw the die and placed a coin when it came up. I used this to get him acquainted with each coin name.

He worked on beginning wounds all week. Here he is working with clip cards that I also found at Target.

J helped me put these together. We made the peddler and a few monkeys along with some hats. J painted them for me. We used these to act our the story. We were always missing one monkey though because Riley took a shine to it:) This idea came from Wee Folk Art (link below).

Kaleb practiced the letters T and U as well as his name. He used a wet paintbrush to trace them on the chalk board.

We discuseed different types of monkeys and mapped several of them around the world. We watched some clips of each monkey on youtube.

I found some animal magnets and had him place the beginning sound/letter under each one. We worked on each animal.

Kaleb counted the hats on the peddler in the story More Caps for Sale.

Lastly, he made his own peddler mustache which, of course, he colored blue - his favorite color. All of these items went into his Caps for Sale notebook.

Here's our peddler with a variety of hats. He turned out pretty cute if I say so myself. Our next Row is going to be The Little Rabbit. See you soon.

Download Caps Mini Unit HERE.

I hope you enjoy the mini unit that I created. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Links

Wee Folk Art - has the instructions on how to make the peddler and the monkeys peg people to act out the story.

Story time Secrets - has a few printables as well as some good ideas to enjoy the book. I love the Monkey see, Monkey do game.

First Palette - has a few free hat printables so you can make your own hats for the peddler.

Hubbard's Cupboard - has some good ideas for extending the book.