Books in our Christmas Reading Basket This Month:
Snitzel's Cookies by Jane Flory
Jesus and the Very Best Birthday by Sunny Griffin
Kitten's Christmas by Dick McCue
The Happy Snowman (a board book)
A Very Special Night by Gil Davies
Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (FIAR)
Boxes for Katje by Candace Fleming (FIAR)
If you take a Mouse to the Movies by Laura Numeroff
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski
Grandma's Christmas Tree by Grandma Janet Mary
Disney's Winnie the Pooh's Night Before Christmas
Disney's Winnie the Pooh Jingle Bells


Pitty-pat found one of my cooking magazines with 101 cookies. All three kids "read" it today. Too cute. "Hey, Mom, Can you make this one it looks like a hamburger?"she asked. I guess they never saw a sandwich cookie before. Maybe this summer I will make scooter pies.but not now.

FIAR The story of Ferinand

The Story of Ferdinand is a favorite of mine. We are rowing this story this week. I love the reference to this book in the movie where Sandra Bullock fosters a boy who becomes a professional football player and they are reading this book to teach him to read. My oldest daughter went to Spain so we have gotten out her pictures to study Spain. I love rowing books with my first grader, third/fourth grader and preschooler all together. This system is working quite well with our relaxed attitude that learning is a way of life not eight hours in our day.

Presents in the mail

I bought a box of books from ebay.  All of them are FIAR books. In no order they are Roxaboxen, Another Celebrated Dancing Bear, Three Names,  The Bee Tree, Climbing Kansas Mountains, Grandfather's Joourney, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Day, and Follow the drinking gourd. I am so excited to get the first manual which I also ordered this week. We have really enjoyed rowing and have jumped in with both feet and committed to using it for most of our curriculum this term. I know we already did stopping by Woods last year but these are all library editions. these books are in great conditions.

Artist Study-Henri Matisse

With our "rowing" of Boxes for Katje we are studying artist Henri Matisse. We looked at several of his collages and compared them to the illustrations in our book.  Then we used my scrapbooking paper stash to make some collages. I also found this coloring page here.

How do we study art? Well it may sound crazy but I bought a calender of art and scanned it into my computer. I downloaded the pictures to a digital photo album that I hung in the playroom. I call this "subliminal art learning". I have been dying to try this since we bought a digital photo frame for Grandma last Christmas. I knew it would be a great way to introduce some art images to the kids with little effort on both our parts. I change the photos in it monthly. Think of it like a slow flashing bulletin board. The bonus is it takes up less room than a wall of art all hung in individual frames. We focus on just one artist at a time. Please realized that I have my copy right on this original idea and if I see it on a page without a link back to me I will enforce copyright infringement! [You know who you are--- cause you stole from me once already----- "mama" (name changed to protect the guilty) Don't think you can dare steal another idea from me just because your blog is bigger! Take notice my oldest is in law school now!] That is why I try to link everything I use that I find on somewhere else back to the original place I saw it. Anyone else also hesitate to share great ideas because you saw your idea posted on a bigger blog the same week as your post with no link back and a claim that it was their idea? Sorry for the soap box, getting off the box and back on topic again. No pun intended since this is boxes of soap for Katje not soap boxes for Mitten Mom.

A Short Biography
Henri Matisse was born in France in 1869. He first studied Law. At age 20 he underwent surgery on his appendix. During his recovery his mother gave him a paint box. Matisse discovered a love of painting and became an artist. He is know for his use of bright colors. After he became wheelchair bound in his old age, he did collages with paint backgrounds and cut paper.  This is called drawing with scissors. Source-More about Matisse. 

Windmills

 I have two plates hanging on the wall in the dining room where we do school that are blue delft. They depict windmills in the Netherlands.  Near where we live giant modern windmills for wind farming have popped up almost overnight so we have taken the kids to see them. It is kind of a weird looking thing all these wind towers. We also have an old style giant windmill near us north of St. Johns, Michigan. I couldn't resist taking the kids so they could see the difference. We also made our own  pinwheels. This led us naturally into a study on the wind and weather. We are really enjoying "rowing" Boxes for Katje by Candace Fleming. The "rowing" style of reading a book seems to be really working for us. We plan on doing the Homeschool Share lapbook to go with this book too and I have printed out all the pieces and put them in folder for the kids to lapbook on the last day of this book. They enjoy coloring and using their lapbooks to remember all the things we did while reading each book.

Boxes for Katje

Homeschool share has a great lapbook here for Boxes for Katje which goes along with our Samaritans purse giving activity we are doing this month. We have been assembling the boxes for the deadline. I am so excited for the kids to have 30 days of giving this month.

Peter Rabbit

We are rowing Peter Rabbit so here are some of our activities we are doing.

• I bought several plastic fruits and veggies from Walmart and the dollar stores. I found some three part cards and printed them out. The kids loved it. They sorted fruits from vegetables. Used the cards for a shopping lists to play farm market and grocery shopping. 
• We cared for our plants that we planted last week. We got our garden raked and did spring cleaning outdoors. I think a Mr McGregor's garden theme might be a fun project I saw one online. I need a wooden gate, clay pots, watering can, flowers, herbs and veggie plants--so I really have nothing I need for this project. Pitty it looks so cute.
• I printed out some bingo marker pages, and some cardboard stick puppets of Peter, Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton Tail and Mother Rabbit.

Ireland Lapbooks

For March we are doing Ireland lapbooks. The kids are excited to get started. We took a week off because of Trent's graduation and Aaron and I visiting Columbia,SC. While on vacation I found some Irish money to use with our unit study. I also found a board book copy of Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel and started reading it to the boys at bedtime last night. I remember reading it to myself when I was Tippy-toes age or a little younger.

My computer is down

     Sorry I won't be able to blog much this week my computer is down but I will save all my photos and back post some of our activities.
     This week will be doing a unit study on dinosaurs. I printed cards from ABC teach and Montessori Print Shop. I also printed out an alligator life cycle worksheet that I laminated so both kids could use it as an activity from ABC teach.
      In our learning book basket is Fossils, a golden guide; DK pocket Dinosaurs,DK readers Dinosaur's Day by Ruth Thompson, Digging up Dinosaurs by Aliki, The Magic School Bus in the time of the dinosaurs by Joanna Cole, To Get A Dinosaur by Tim Johnson, The Question and Answer Book discovering Fossils, Dinosaur Explorer by Douglas Dixon, The Natural History Museum book of Dinosaurs by Tim Gardom and Dinosaur Dream by Dennis Nolan. I wish I owned the book Paul Strickland commented on for use with this unit. I am waiting for it on paperbackbookswap.com.


We are reading  the FIAR  book What will You Wear Jesse Bear by Nancy White Carlstrom.

FIAR-What Will You Wear Jesse Bear?

I found this book on sale in hard cover this weekend! I remember reading it over and over again to my daughter Jessica who we call "Jessi". She loved how she and the bear had the same name. It doesn't seem like that was over 20 years ago. Who would've thought after 20 years I would still be reading the same book to my 6 and 8 year old children. I can't wait to read it to the kids.At least T.C. still has a decent book store downtown I hope book stores never go the way of other small businesses. Our  town no longer has one and there is only two used ones in the biggest town near us. Now I just need to start looking for the go-togethers for this book. Oh and get ink for the printer.

o is for owl

I got his idea from "no time for flash cards's" blog but my computer locks up because of all the bells and whistles found there... so I am not including a link.(and I have high speed internet too lol)
But here are our owl crafts we made..

Tippy-toe's owl

Pitty-pat's

Cam's

I think this is Em's (who was visiting us) and made one too.

FIAR Book lists-- all volumes for my check sheet

I will keep this list updated as I add these books to our homeschool library.

FIVE IN A ROW BOOK LIST


Volume 1:
*The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese (can be found online in color and printed free)
Lentil by Robert McCloskey
*Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (found a hardcover copy for $2.95 found a 4 book-volume for $1.00)
A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno
The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills
Who Owns the Sun? by Stacy Chbosky
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
The Glorious Flight by Alice and Martin Provensen
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman
Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say
*Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin (found at used book store hardcover $2.95)--oop
Another Celebrated Dancing Bear by Gladys Scheffrin-Falk--oop
Papa Piccolo by Carol Talley
Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews
The Clown of God by Tomie DePaola
Storm in the Night by Mary Stoltz
*Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton(kids already had a copy)
Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Shasha
*Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (with illustrations by Susan Jeffers)(borrowed from our public library read in  2009 to the kids)



Volume 2:
The Giraffe That Walked to Paris by Nancy Milton--oop
Three Names by Patricia MacLachlan
Wee Gillis by Munro Leaf
*Owl Moon by Jane Yolen (found paperback $0.95)
A New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert
Mrs. Katz and Tush by Patricia Polacco
Mirette on the High Wire by Emily Arnold McCully
They Were Strong and Good by Alice and Robert Lawson
Babar, To Duet or Not to Duet based on characters by DeBrunhoff--oop
The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
Down, Down the Mountain by Ellis Credle--oop
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
*The Tale of Peter Rabbit written and ill. by Beatrix Potter(found at dollar daze $1.00)
Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car by John Burningham
All Those Secrets of the World by Jane Yolen--oop
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
The Little Red LIghthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde Swift
Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter
*Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson(already had a torn copy)
*When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant (found paperback $0.95)
Gramma's Walk by Anna Grossnickle Hines--oop


Volume 3:
The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco
Andy and the Circus by Ellis Credle--oop
The Wild Horses of Sweetbriar by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock--oop
Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ill. by Ted Rand
Henry the Castaway by Mark Taylor--oop
The Finest Horse in Town by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
Truman's Aunt Farm by Jama Kim Rattigan
The Duchess Bakes a Cake by Virginia Kahl
Andy and the Lion by James Daugherty
Daniel's Duck by Clyde Robert Bulla
Warm as Wool by Scott Russell Sanders--oop
*The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer(garage sale $0.25)
Climbing Kansas Mountains by George Shannon
Amber on the Mountain by Tony Johnston
Little Nino's Pizzeria by Karen Barbour



Volume 4:
Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran
The Raft by Jim LaMarche
Mailing May by Michael O. Tunnell
*Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin(used book store$2.95 second copy garage sale $0.25)
The Gullywasher by Joyce Rossi
Arabella by Wendy Orr--oop
Higgins Bend Song and Dance by Jacqueline Briggs Martin---oop
Cowboy Charlie by Jeanette Winter--oop
Grass Sandals by Dawnine Spivak
Albert by Donna Jo Napoli
The Hickory Chair by Lisa Rose Fraustino
Hanna's Cold Winter by Trish Marx--oop
The Hatmaker's Sign Retold by Candace Fleming--oop
The Pumpkin Runner by Marsha Diane Arnold
Angelo by David Macaulay

*means we own it
oop means out of print

Madeline Fiar study

We have started our Study of Madeline by Ludwig Bemelans
I chose this book this week because Flat Stanley sent us a post card from Paris. (Thank You Dick and Sue D. from work for helping  Flat Stanley to send us card while you were on vacation in Paris.) the post card arrived yesterday to much excitement. It has a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it. I am doing my own modified version of the  Flat Stanley Project.where anyone I know goes on vacation and I as them to send us a postcard from Stanley. The kids love getting mail and looking up on the map where Flat Stanley is now! So far our Stanley has sent us cards from as far west as South Dakota and as far south as Arizonia, and from other countries like France.  Rumor has it he is in St. Lucia right now and we should be getting a card soon in the mail. what a fun way to study geography.

Our  Bible verse this week:
 Philippians 4:8 Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.:


 I have a couple of coloring pages of monuments to color. And a couple of Madeline book pages to color.We discussed a little bit regarding Bemelmans' use of color in the illustrations like  how there were a few pictures in full color, but most were done simply in black, white, and yellow.

We already know Je t'aime is I Love you in french so we will study a couple more french words this week

I plan to continue our study of the human body with a discussion of appendicitis. Easy peasy when your mom is an Operating Room Nurse.

I also plan to rent the 1998 movie version for the end of week movie night.

The Story about Ping - day 4

Today we made these wooden dolls with hats that look like the man in ping's story. This lead us to make some cute little peg dolls. That led me to a website Twig and Toadstool with the cute toad stool stools for the garden. I will make these as soon as I find the wooden salad bowls at the thrift store!!!! we camp out alot in the summer so these should appear on our next camp trip to keep the kids out of the adults seats! They will look good in our play house too. I am so excited. Aaron I need help cutting a few stumps for the base do we have any already down in the woods? I am sure he can find a few while he is hunting deer this week. I just need 5 or 6 dear.

The Story About Ping-day 3

Today we watche a video about people fishing with comerants on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7l6Pe0CKsg&feature=fvw  it was interesting and great for the little short attention spans. Then we discussed it and watched another one showing how comarants really expand their throats to swallow very large fish.Pitty-pat also noticed how the boats were made of bamboo poles in the first video.

Dollar store find

I found a "Tales of Peter Rabbit" book at Dollar Daze for $2.00 since I plan to use the FIAR this is a great find for me. It has reposable stickers on each page with heavy pages which makes it more durable for my wild bunch to use. My note book system for keeping each Fiar book in a ziploc bag in my three ring binder with the worsheets and go alongs is working out great. So far I have searched the house and found four more books I already own. ( I would have all of them if my older kids children's books hadn't been stolen out of moms attic after she died!!!!!!Thanks"Big Bro"!)

The Story About Ping-Day 1

All 3 of the little ones listened to the book today. They were quite excited to find the sink or float experiment set up on the table without the water at breakfast this morning. I told them we would add the water after Daddy got back home today. He went out to help at his parents. Today for lunch we ate my version of chinese minus the duck-ha ha! I served white rice cooked in chicken broth with parsley. I then made some mixed vegetables in the microwave and let the kids scoop out what they would eat over the rice in their bowls. Surprising since last year they didn't eat vegetables! Little man got his everywhere in the dining room including his pockets.I don't know how the chinese do it-- feeding rice to two year olds sometimes three times a day. To go alond with the story we colored a chinese flag (Geography)and counted the ducks in the story on our 100s board(Math). Pitty-pat did well counting this way but Tippy-toe was stuck on how to make an x right.

Tammy's Chinese Lunch Recipe
Boil 6 cups water in large pan with tight cover. When water boils add 2 chicken bouillon cubes, 3 Tblsp Parsley, and 2 cups rice. Boil 5 minuets then turn heat to low or off and let set until rice is done about 10-15 minuets.
While rice is cooking put broccoli, greenbeans, corn, carrots, and potaotes from can or frozen into microwave and cook 5-10 minuets until hot.
Let the kids serve themselves so they can't complain about which veggies are in their bowl.

We did a pushpin activity for the first time today. I gave Pitty-pat and Tippy-toe each a cork board mat and an apple picture and the pin. Pitty-pat was able to complete it but Tippy-toe got frustrated and didn't finish. He really needs to work on fine motor skills. He is still a little delayed in this area. They have both came a long way since they came to live with us three years ago. I love the montessori activites for motor skills. I just stumbled on pushpin activities or maybe just ignored them since a year ago I wouldn't have given either of them a sharp object!

After lunch they each picked out a book to read to themselves. Kung-fu Panda for Pitty-pat she recognized the china theme thing and batman for Tippy-toe. Not a bad day at the homeschool today. Tonight we go over to my daughter Aimee's house for cake and icecream since tommorro is her Birthday. I have to work tommorro so tonight works much  better for us to go so far away.

The Story about Ping by Marjorie Flack, FIAR

I am putting together a unit study on The story about Ping, a FIAR book. The little boys will do this together but Pitty-Pat may join in if she wishes. I have been rowing with the boys and it is going rather well we did Corduroy last week so Ping is next. I think one BFIAR then one FIAR will be nice for both.There are so many resources out there for Five in A Row books I have printed a list and will be hunting the used bookstores and garage sales for the books  I am missing. I will update this post as I find resources to list.

FIAR volume 1 reading list

Here is the book list for FIAR Volume 1 -


The Story about Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese( found free online)

Lentil by Robert McCloskey

Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans(already had a copy)

A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno

The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills

Who Owns the Sun? by Stacy Chbosky

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton

The Glorious Flight by Alice and Martin Provensen

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman

Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say

Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin (bought for 3.95 at used book store)

Another Celebrated Dancing Bear by Gladys Scheffrin-Falk

Papa Piccolo by Carol Talley

Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews

Clown of God by Tomie dePaola

Storm in the Night by Mary Stolz

Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton ( we have a copyalready)

Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Shasha

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (Susan Jeffers' Illustration) (Public Library has a copy--- we read last winter 2009)