Rowing :: Lentil

I'm not sure why I am having such mental block with writing about our week with Lentil. It was such a great book. The boys really enjoyed it. But for some reason when it has come to writing about it...I just haven't. We rowed this book over two weeks ago! And we had a great week together!

Special ::

Lentil can't sing or even pucker his lips to whistle so he saved up his money to buy a harmonica. Before the week started I bought each boy his own harmonica to play with during the week. They were a big hit. Though no one "practiced wherever and whenever".

Patriotism ::

The book has a strong patriotic theme so we took some time to review the Pledge of Allegiance and talk about our flag. We counted the stars and the stripes and colored our own flag. We've been learning the Pledge since the start of school but I admit I'm a little hit or miss with it, this week we made sure to spend some time on it.

Small towns ::

We happen to live in a small town so #3 got the idea. We drew a map and he drew the path Lentil takes as he walks to school and practices his harmonica. His little drawing was so cute.

Lentil's hometown is the fictional town of Alto, Ohio. So we found Ohio on a map and found Oregon and talked about how far away they are and which direction we would have to travel to get to Ohio.

Lemons ::

Of course, rowing Lentil would not be complete without talking about lemons. We tasted something salty (salt water), sweet (simple syrup), bitter (unsweetened chocolate) and sour



And we squeezed lemons to make lemonade. We've made this homemade lemonade before, once at my mom's and once at home. At home we didn't have a juice squeezer and it took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to squeeze all the lemons. So this time I bought a new juicer, they were all so excited.

All the lemon squeezing gave us a nice lesson in halves and wholes too. We put the halves back in pairs to show that they make a whole and counted how many halves were in all the lemons we used.

And because it was so easy to squeeze the lemons we squeezed enough to make lemon bars. I've always wanted to make these but have never gotten it done. They were delicious, though better the second day, I overcooked the crust a little.

Whittling ::


Old Sneep, being a lemon sucking, grumpy old man is also a whittler. So I got the boys each a bar of Ivory soap and a plastic knife and they whittled away, just like Old Sneep. Quite a messy project but they all loved it and our little room smelled really good afterward. They each saved the largest piece that was left to use in the shower...they were so proud.

#2 even joined us for this project. He'd whittled soap in Cub Scouts and had a lot of fun getting to do it again.

Parts of a Story ::


This story had a nice clear storyline which gave us a good chance to talk about the beginning, middle and end of a story. I couldn't find a worksheet so I just made a simple one in Word. Just boxes to draw a picture of the beginning, middle and end of the story. I wrote down what he told me.

Links ::

Teaching Stars - inspiration

American flag to color

more great ideas at delightful learning
homeschool share - most of the worksheets/mini books