Henry the Castaway

On the spur of the moment, I decided we'd row Henry the Castaway last week.

Since last Monday was Columbus Day, we read this book and then continued with the explorer theme for the week.

There aren't really any printables I could find, so I made up a few things.

Jack's list of qualities an explorer should have

Though there isn't a specific place named in the story, we mapped the Orinoco River in Venezuela since that's where Henry imagines he is exploring.

We have also been using the activities from this book and Jack has really enjoyed them!

We made salt dough maps, too. This was our first attempt at salt dough and it was fun!

They painted their creations today.

Someone posted a link to cardboard boats on the FIAR boards and we tried building them on a smaller scale. This was harder than I thought it would be, so I ended up being the builder! We went to the park one day to float them in the creek.

They found a few spots where there was enough of a current for the boats to pick up some speed.

Since I had switched our plans at the last minute, we didn't have many go-alongs. This book is a good one for learning about water and rivers. There are also several other Henry books available!

We had a fun time with Henry!

Friday Fun

Way back in the dark ages when I was teaching, we had Friday Fun Time. Really this was just an extra recess on Friday afternoon designed to get squirrely children outside and give teachers a little bit of extra time to get some things done before the weekend. I'm trying something a little different.

I'm trying to plan something fun for each Friday--not necessarily going somewhere, because that can make me want to pull my hair out some days. A craft, a snack, just something a little different from the rest of the week.

Today we listened to "It Came From Beneath the Bed!" and made tissue paper candy corns. These are going to look really neat when the sun shines through them!

After baths this evening, we had pumpkin pie shakes.

And to wrap things up, we watched Spooky Buddies. Not exactly high art, but Jack LOVES these movies and has been looking forward to this one.

Have a great weekend!

Outside the Box

"Energy and persistence conquer all things." ~ Benjamin Franklin

I need a white flag. I can't keep up. When Jack was this age, he was getting pretty close to giving up naps. Unlike his sister, though, he would get up around 7:30 or 8:00 and go to bed by 7:00. But not this one. Yesterday she got up at 5:00--4:57, to be exact. She fell asleep eating her lunch, right before we had to leave for class and errands. When I had to dress her, 10 minutes after she dozed off, she woke up and kept going strong until 7:30.

Today she slept in until 6:30. She rode around in the car this morning and this afternoon. She ran around the gym, danced in the lobby, chased balls, and climbed bleachers. She finally gave out about 8:15. Add to this the stomach bug that Jack has picked up, and I think I've been conquered. If my captors could keep up with the cooking and housework on their own, I think I could go along with it!

~~~~~

"I've got mad energy for days. That's what people can't get their minds around. They say, 'Oh, he's going to crash.' They try to apply all these common terms to a guy who is not common. I don't fit into their little box." ~ Charlie Sheen

Cinderella Stories

Last week Jack and I went to see a play of Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters.

We have been to a few plays through this series and we've always enjoyed them.

We're in between FIAR books right now, so we took a couple of days and discussed Cinderella stories using these books.

We didn't list it here, but Jack really thought it was important to note that he liked the actors in the play much better than the characters in the book!

If you've never read the story, you can see the Reading Rainbow episode here!

Rocks!

After rowing When I Was Young in the Mountains and Wee Gillis, we took some time to study rocks and mountains. I found this fun lesson guide at The Teacher Wife's store and we used many of the pages to keep track of what Jack was learning. I put the little rock characters (the ones you see on the picture above) on the wall along with the rock cycle diagram (also included in the packet) and he really liked those and had the types of rocks and how they were made memorized right away!

We spent some time looking at rock samples--the fossil was from Jack's camp class this year and I picked up the rock kit at the museum gift shop.

This Janice VanCleave book has lots of great rock experiments!

We tried out the erosion experiment and other than splattering the kitchen floor, it worked pretty well.

We also did a lot of cooking over the course of the unit. All About Rocks had directions for this yummy sedimentary snack.

Tracey has many fun ideas for studying rocks on her blog--such as making brownies when we learned about metamorphic rocks...

...and making fudge when we learned about igneous rocks!

Some of the books we used

And a few more--you can watch the Reading Rainbow episode for the Magic School Bus Inside the Earth here. (Sorry about the twisty picture--I tried twice and gave up!)

Today we wrapped up with some fossil cookies. I didn't actually use the nice stony-looking recipe that Martha made, nor did I make sure my insects were "food safe"--I figure if Alice has chewed on them plain as much as she has, they aren't going to hurt her if I mash them in the cookie dough for a minute.

Ta da! They turned out pretty cute! I found this idea on Homeschool Share's October Calendar (on October 12, which is National Fossil Day). If you haven't checked out the new calendar, you need to! It's full of fun ideas--October 21 is National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day, and I noticed on the pumpkin bread mix box I got the other day that they have a recipe for Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins!

I picked up this Magic Rocks kit at Mardel a while back when I had a coupon and we set it up this afternoon.

Ours hasn't turned out quite like the one on the box (though this was just an hour or so after it started), which I think is probably due to my guesstimation of the water temperature. We had fun anyway!

Wildlife at the Window

We've had this window feeder for a while now, and it's mildly popular with the birds. We've had another visitor recently, too! About a week ago, Jay spotted this little guy climbing the screen, but he seemed to think the feeder was a little to far away for him. Apparently he worked on his jumping skills, because we've spotted him at the feeder a few times this weekend. Today he stayed long enough for us to get lots of pictures!

He drives Boris crazy.

No matter what, that mouse won't give him the time of day. It kind of messes with your tough cat image to be an inch from a mouse who is oblivious to your existence--even when you're batting the window.

We watched him eat for a long time and he didn't pay any attention to us.

I finally tapped on the window and got this surprised look--and then he went back to eating!

Hopefully our friend will stay outside!

Composer Study: Mozart

Composer and Artist Study is something new we've added in this year. Each month we'll spend a bit of time learning about a famous composer or artist. Right now we're doing this once a week, and my main goal is exposure. Eventually we will do more formal lessons, but at this point I just want him to become familiar with a variety of famous artists and composers and to enjoy them. We started with Mozart because Jack already knew a bit about him thanks to Moonlight on the Magic Flute. Jay put this bulletin board up for me and I'll switch it out each month.

Since I'm trying to keep this fun, we're not doing much written work. If you are looking for lapbooking or notebooking things, Jimmie has some great ideas! As Jack gets older, I am thinking we will start a notebook on composers and artists.

Some of the books we read over the month--we especially enjoyed Mozart Finds A Melody and Mozart: The Wonder Child.

Probably Jack's favorite thing about this time is that we usually have a "tea time" along with it. We have some kind of special treat--though it's never been tea--and read a story and listen to some music. We also listed to some of the programs from Classics for Kids. (Both kids look a little sugared-out here.)

Jack made a request for pumpkin pie--his favorite!

One week we made these yummy acorn snacks.

I keep all of our related books in one basket, which I store under this end table. It works well to keep these together but not out in the school room where Alice can easily pull them out and put them in a hiding spot. When our day for composer study rolls around, I can actually find what I'm looking for!

Next up: Picasso!