FIAR - The Glorious Flight

Our next FIAR literature selection was The Glorious Flight by Alice and Martin Provensen. It is a great book that teaches determination through the flight across the English Channel by Louis Bleriot in 1909. Louis was determined to fly and continued working on his aircraft until he could fly!

We learned about the different parts of a plane. We read a million books about flight (it felt like a million).

We learned how to fold a paper airplane and then tested to see if it would fly and how far it would fly.

Kaleb loved his plane. He flew it outside all afternoon.

We worked on some simple addition problems using a plane mat and Lego people. He added the people who flew on the plane. He couldn't believe that he was using Lego people for Math!

His most favorite activity, though, was the Lego airplane that I found at a consignment sale. I have had this in my closet for a month, just waiting for this book. Kaleb is a Lego fanatic! He was thrilled.

He didn't waste any time putting it together. It was missing two simple parts but we have so many Legos that it was possible to find a replacement.

He is working on a plane dot-to-dot. But you can see another Lego plane that he made for this story. He found a manual in the set of legos that my friend gave us and he built the plane all by himself. He certainly enjoyed learning about planes! Our next book will be Cranberry Thanksgiving in honor of the up-coming holiday. See you soon.

Links

I Craft Gifts - has a popsicle stick airplane craft that looks pretty easy.

Crayola - has a really neat airplane craft that looks somewhat difficult for my child but may be good for another.

Meaningful Mama - has lessons on perseverance.

Growing Firsties - has a perseverance free printable.

Kids of Integrity - has another lesson on perseverance.

Character First Education - has a lesson on determination.

FIAR - How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the USA

After rowing How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, it seemed only natural to row the book's cousin, How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the U.S.A. by Majorie Priceman. I found a simple lapbook on Homeschool Share and we just went with that.

We learned about the United States and our national symbols. We read about bald eagles, the pledge, and our capital.

We learned about resources and manufacturing. In the book, she goes around gathering items to make a cherry pie, instead of gathering the ingredients. She makes her own pie pan and rolling pin.

We learned about America - how many states, our bordering countries etc...

We mapped the adventure - where she went throughout the country. It was a simple study but Kaleb enjoyed the book as well. I love Majorie Priceman's books, there are so many things you can do with them. Have an awesome day.

FIAR - How to Make and Apple Pie and See the World

Our Five in the Row book these past few weeks has been How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman. It is definitely one of my favorites and I even used this book when I taught third grade overseas.

First, Kaleb made a passport so he could collect stamps for every country that he visited. Each country stamp also included the ingredient that was found there.

He learned about the parts of an apple as well as the life cycle of an apple.

He compared the weights of several items to the weight of an apple. He loved when I pull out the balance! He tried to discover the amount of blocks that would balance out his apple.

He wrote a mini book about how to make an apple pie.

We had a taste test of several types of apples which was fun. This was the first time we tasted Pink Ladies and learned that we liked them.

He mapped out the adventure in the book on a world map. We discussed why she would use certain types of transportation according to the map.

I challenged him to make an apple from Legos. He then made an orange candy corn man as well.

He worked on a mural of a cityscape which unfortunately got super wet when my tot spilled the paint water on it. We were disappointed but we had fun drawing it.

Lastly, we made an apple pie. I peeled the apples and he cut them. I used a store bought crust.

It turned out pretty good and we ate it with ice cream. This book took us a few extra weeks because of the hurricane but we finally finished it. We will be working on How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the USA next. It should only take a week for that book, then on to our next FIAR book. 

FIAR - Night of the Moonjellies

Our first row of the school year was Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Shasha. It was a great start to our Five in a Row year. I struggled with the decision to keep Five in A Row this year but I am glad I did. I loved working through it with my daughter but I often wonder if my son, Kaleb, enjoys it. He seemed to like the book and learning all about jellyfish.

He learned about the life cycle of a jellyfish. We read many books about jellyfish and learned a lot. He is coloring a life cycle sheet.

We talked about warm and cool colors. I gave him a small butterfly to color only in cool colors and then another to color in warm colors. We also went through the book, looking for warm and cool colors.

He made some tissue paper jellyfish. I helped him trace the templates and cut out the tissue paper. He just doesn't have the patience for tissue paper! But he did glue all of the items down and added his tentacles. This project came from Deceptively Educational (link below).

This turned out cute and was worth the effort. He choose all of the tissue paper and he decided he wanted his jellyfish colorful.

Kaleb is working on jellyfish facts. Instead of a lap book, we made a notebook from a 3 prong folder and all of his mini books from the story.

He drew his menus for our diner - Mar Gray's.

We talked about our five senses and the beach. He is adding what he can see, smell, feel, taste etc... at the beach in his mini book.

Finally, I wanted my kids to try something new - New England Clam Chowder and Lobster Rolls (technically crab meat). We had a dinner of chowder and the rolls along with some oyster crackers for fun. This was the first time for both items and it went well. They tried it all and I have had some requests for the chowder but, it will have to wait until the hurricane is over - no soup or canned goods to be found:( Oh, well, it still turned out to be a good row. We spent two weeks on our book and learning all we could about jellyfish. Our next row - How to Make and Apple Pie and See the World!  See you soon.


Links

Learn Create Love - has a simple jellyfish craft to print and paint.

Deceptively Educational - has a great project for an accordion book about jellyfish, complete with free templates and a great jellyfish art project with templates.

I heart Crafty Things - has another jellyfish art project using newspapers.

FIAR - Owl Moon

Kaleb recently asked to learn about owls and what better book to add to our boy-directed learning but Owl Moon by Jane Yolen. Owl Moon is a Five in a Row title that we rowed along with our owl learning.

Kaleb has taken a sudden interest in writing by himself. He decided he wanted to write owl facts on his chart so he did. I spelled out what he wanted to write and he did it all by himself. Go, Kaleb! This chart came from First Grade Fever (link below).

Kaleb worked on the parts of an owl chart. He labeled all the parts of an owl. We learned about talons and hooked beaks. This free printable came from Imagine...Inspire...Innovate (link below).

 We watched some owl videos to hear the different sounds owls make. These were interesting.

I found a simple math activity from Paula's Preschool and Kindergarten (link below).  He had to solve the addition math problems and then color by number. All of the problems were doubles which we have been learning and reviewing daily.

Key words this week were talons, raptors, and carnivores. He made some mini books for his notebook defining these words.

Another owl math page that I found in the math pack by Paula's Preschool and Kindergarten (link below). He counted each type of owl and graphed the number on the chart. 

He made an owl from the letter O. Since I am not pushing him to read at the moment (I am waiting on him), we are practicing letter sounds. He likes these letter crafts so you may see more of them.

 I found some printable owl cards that I thought would made an excellent math activity. First, Kaleb measured out the average size of each owl species on yarn. He then taped the measured yarn to the owl cards.

Placing the owl/string cards on the bench, we were able to compare the different sizes of each owl. After some discussion, I had him put the owls in order from largest to smallest.

Here is his finished activity. He was able to see the variety of sizes of each type of owl. It was a great math activity. Also, you can see my tot in the back....smiling:) Not a bad week of Kaleb directed learning. We are off to learn about snakes. See you soon.

Links

House of Baby Piranha - has one of the ideas that I found using the letter O for an owl.

Real Life at Home - has a free printable pack for Owl Moon.

I Heart Crafty Things - has a great newspaper crafty owl that I truly wanted to make but I found I didn't have any newspaper:(

First Grade Fever - has the Owl can/have/are chart free printable that I used.

Paula's Preschool and Kindergarten - has the free owl math pages. I also used her owl measurement page to aid in our yarn measurement project.

Learn Create Love - has a free printable snowy owl page/craft to do.

Imagine Inspire Innovate - has the free printable owl diagram that we used.

Home School Share - has a few of the free printable books that we used for our owl study.