Our Last "Row" :: Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?

Weeks ago now the boys and I "rowed" our last book  of the school year. I kept waiting to post about it because there were a couple more things we could have done, but we haven't and so I'm ready to put it all away for the year. I'm really ready to start planning next year...

But, Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? was a great book. The boys enjoyed the rhyming and could relate to Jesse Bear's day.

Dress Jesse Bear ::

I printed out the bear and clothes for the boys to color. The intention after that was to cut apart the pages, laminate, and put velcro on so they could play with them. The coloring happened, but nothing else. They didn't ask about it so I'm thinking they are missing anything but it took me a couple weeks to put behind me that I flaked that one.

Rhyming Pairs ::

Another item from HomeschoolShare. This was just right for #3 and took a lot of guidance for #4. They love the activities that have their own little pockets so right away this was a hit.

Eat healthy like Jesse Bear ::

In the book Jesse Bear has a healthy lunch. I would have been dreaming if I thought my kids would eat sprouts so I didn't even buy any or try it out. We did have an apple and carrots for our morning snack. The boys each got to help with making the snack and shared it with their brothers and sister.

Later in the week #4 was drinking milk with another meal or snack and pointed out that he had a mustache just like Jesse Bear. "Hurry, get the camera! Take a picture, Mama!" Who am I to deny his brilliance?

The boys and I had an incredible year rowing these books together. I think they have learned a lot but in such a gentle way that they don't even realize it was school or work. We just had fun! We just cuddled together and read books, great books, and did some great projects together.

Next year I'm planning on continuing with Five In A Row for #3's Kindergarten and integrating #4's preschool alphabet focus with it. I'm planning and planning and trying to get as much as I can ready...remember when I was prepared we had even more fun! And #5 isn't going to be taking two naps next year, I'm going to need all the pre-planning and preparation I can get.

Links ::

Homeschool Share

Delightful Learning

Rowing :: Caps for Sale

We took two weeks to "row" our latest book, Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business. The boys didn't seem to sure of it when we started but right from the first reading it became a treasured book. And they loved the activities we did. I didn't get to everything in the first week so we used a couple of days in a second week to get everything done. I also got Circus Caps for Sale at the library and we enjoyed reading that go-along.

Fun ::

The peddler balanced his caps on his head so we practice balancing a stack of pillows on our heads. Oh, the boys thought this was great! And the big kids abandoned their independent work to join us too.

Seatwork ::

Whose Hat, printed from homeschool share. I should have colored it myself and just let them play with it. The coloring was too complicated and there was too much of it, so they lost interest pretty quickly and didn't really get the idea behind the activity. Cute book though.

Making $.50

I got this idea from Michelle at delightful leaning. I made up a word document with space to rub coins that equaled $.50. #3 got it and enjoyed it. #4 just made a mess, though #2 tried hard to help him. It was a tad difficult to rub the coins, everything tried to move but #3 got the idea.

Painting ::

Another idea from delightful learning. The boys painted a tree during our first week, actually #4 completely covered his entire page with brown paint. During the second week I cut out the tree shape and they glued them to a clean page. Then we used an ink pad to make fingerprints that we turned into monkeys, Ed Emberley-style.

I love how he held his hands together...getting the most control? Concentrating? Adorable.

Links ::
homeschool share - lots of activity ideas
delightful learning - inspiration and ideas

Rowing :: Yellow Ball

We "rowed" Yellow Ball by Molly Bang last week. An out of print book apparently as the link will take you to the amazon listing asking $51.89 for a used book. I was unaware of its rare status as there were many copies at our library...didn't know had I wanted to buy it would be out of my price range. It is a delightful book. Simple words. Beautiful pictures. All of our favorite part was the storm...

We had a nice week with this book. The above photo is of #3's pastel drawing of the cover. He did a pretty great job though had to add some more color (the green and purple do not appear on the actual cover - artistic interpretation).

Seatwork ::

lacing card
color by number
color by number ball - so much better fitting with the ball theme instead of the yarn theme - gave them a choice
Y is for... from the Homeschool Share

Painting ::

I got out the paint again for this book and let them use different balls around the house as their "brushes". It wasn't as popular as I would have thought. There was plenty of paint on their tee shirts though!

Special Memory ::

I don't know if this will last as a special memory in thier minds but my boys do like balls and Winco had perfect yellow balls right before Easter. On Friday, after a week of reading and enjoying this book, I gave each of the boys a yellow ball.

Found. Hug. Home.

Links ::

Delightful Learning - my jumping off place
So many good things at Confessions of a Homeschooler
Homeschool Share

Linking up ::

Rowing :: The Little Rabbit

We "rowed" The Little Rabbit by Judy Dunn this week. I thought it would be a good row before Easter. It was sweet and the boys liked it. We had a nice discussion about illustrations verses photographs in books and talked about having a bunny...we'd all like one. Otherwise it was a light week as far as rowing goes.

So light, in fact I have no pictures of us doing any activities...

We did do a little booklet from homeschool share about rabbits.

And we read some other library books about rabbits. And the boys do a narration page about the book. But I guess that's it. Kinda boring now that I'm writing it out.

Next up: Yellow Ball (out of print but my library had it) - I promise I'll do more with that one.

Rowing :: Blueberries for Sal

We rowed Blueberries for Sal this week. What a great book! I had never read it before and LOVED it! (Now I understand Soulemama's title for blueberry picking last summer.) Little Sal goes blueberry picking with her mother which is something my kids are very familiar with and gets all mixed up with another mother and child who are also at Blueberry Hill. Both boys told me when we did their narration about everybody being all mixed up - so that part must have stuck.

Scrapbooking ::


Since we couldn't go blueberry picking right now I thought it would be fun to make scrapbook pages of pictures from last year's trip. I printed some of the general photos for each boy and printed ones of themselves so their pages would be just them and would be a little different. I got out my personal trimmer, and though it drove me crazy, let them trim their own photos. I put adhesive on the back of each picture and let them place them where ever they wanted to on a 12x12 piece of paper. They had a great time with this and felt proud of their pages.

Math :: 


I printed off the Math Mat activity from homeschool share. We didn't "pick" the berries but the boys both liked this. #2 helped #4 as this was a little over his ability and #3 had it a little easy but they enjoyed the activity.

Playdough ::

I made blue play dough. Using this recipe. I used berry kool-aid for the coloring...gave it a GREAT smell as well!

The *best* thing about play dough? They were busy for over an hour! I took this photo while #1 and #2 got their math and grammar done...still playing, getting along and happy. (Don't mind the kitchen...)

Food ::

One thing I found for this book was bringing in some food to tie in. And that was fun. Of course we had frozen blueberries with lunch on Monday. Freezing is my preferred method for saving our blueberries each year though I am thinking a batch of blueberry jam is necessary this year. 

On Wednesday we had some blueberry jell-o. A huge hit!

And on Friday while we read our book we tried dried blueberries. Only the baby liked those. I'm not too heart broken...I don't have a good way to dehydrate berries and they are over $9/pound at the store! 

The dried berries did provide us a great way to talk about all the different ways of preserving food to last for winter. Our method of freezing, Little Sal's mom who cans her berries and Little Bear's mom who eats the berries to store for winter and the store's way of drying the berries. A little bit of real life learning and a little bit of hibernation discussion.

Art ::


Of course, no unit on Blueberries for Sal would be complete without some blueberry painting. I drew a quick bush shape on the papers and invited them to color the bush while I got out the paint. I gave them each a little bit of blue paint and a unsharpened pencil. Showed them how by using the ereaser the blue paint would look like a berry. I think the different method was fun but a little frustrating. They had to be more controlled and couldn't just smear paint around. #4 lost interest more quickly since he didn't have enough paint nor a brush that would allow him to just spread paint over they entire page. #3 was very systematic about his blueberry placement and was very proud of his finished work.

I had gotten this book as an audio book as well from the library so they listened to it while they painted.

Links ::

delightful learning - I got SO many ideas from her!

counting coconuts - play dough recipe

homeschool share - math mat

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