FIAR Vol. 1–Lentil

Lentil is a really cute book written by Robert McCloskey. “Lentil cannot sing or even whistle; longing to make music in some fashion, he provides himself with a harmonica and practices constantly wherever he is, especially in the bath tub, because there his tone is improved 100 percent. A book that, along with its fun, truly illustrates the American scene.” –The New york Times

There were many lessons to be learned in this book. We only touched the surface of the possibilities found by reading this story.

Math: Fractions, Money, What Make $1

“But he did want to make music, so he saved up enough pennies to buy a harmonica.” –Lentil

For this lesson we pretended that the harmonica cost $1.00. I taught Christopher the value of a dollar, and what makes a dollar. First we counted out 100 pennies, then 10 dimes, 20 nickels, 4 quarters. Then we went to the Dollar tree to purchase a harmonica for $1. Turns out they no longer had them, so he got something else.

Our lesson on fractions was completed using one lemon, and a work sheet found at Homeschool Share. We used the lemon and worksheet to learn: 1 Whole lemon = 2 Half lemons / 1 Whole note = 2 half notes, 4 quarters = 1 whole

Food: Old Sneep’s Lemonade

Each FIAR lesson has a cooking component. This lesson called for lemon bars. We did not have the gluten free ingredients to make the lemon bars, so we decided to make lemonade instead. Christopher made this lemonade all by himself, but all of the kids enjoyed drinking it.

Science: The 5 Senses

We talked about our 5 sense. Sight, Touch, Taste, Hearing, Smelling. We only briefly touched on the senses mainly talking about them. We did have good conversation about each sense though. We primarily focused our activities on Taste. Salty, Sour, Sweet.

“There sat Old Sneep, Sucking on a lemon. Old Sneep knew that when the musicians looked at him their mouths would pucker up so they could not play their horns.” –Lentil

Social Studies/History: Small Town, Patriotism, Fourth of July 

We rowed this book the week of the Fourth of July. Naturally we studied about the Fourth of July. The kids liked reading the book Yankee Doodle

“One day news got around that the great Colonel Carter, who had been away for two years, was coming home. People began to plan a grand welcome.” –Lentil

“Colonel Carter was the towns most important citizen…..”

We talked about how Lentil lived in a small town. Everyone knew each other. There was only one doctor, baker, police man, postman, ice cream man, school teacher, etc….. We talked about how in our town we have a lot of people for each of those jobs. In Lentils town Colonel Carter was a special man, who did a lot for the citizens of the town. He built a Library, and a few other things.

Since we had learned about the Fourth of July, we tried to think of all the people we knew who had served or are currently serving in the military. We decided to make cards thanking those people for their service to our country.

Geography: Ohio

Lentil lived in Ohio so I decided that the first state we would learn about in geography would be Ohio. We used a coloring sheet from a My USA notebook I had used when I was in school, and we talked about the state capital, and the state bird.

Music: She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain, Onward Christian Soldier

In the book Lentil saves the day be playing She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain when she comes, so I taught the song to the kids, and then told them about how when I was little I learned the song a different way. When I was taught the song we replaced ‘she’ with ‘he’, and the song was about the second coming of Christ.

With each FIAR book, I have decided to teach the kids a corresponding Hymn. This was the fourth of July, so we sang Onward Christian Soldier. We talked about the war and then talked about how we as Christian fight a spiritual war daily. It was really a special time.

And BTW we sang these songs in the bath tub. Lentil’s favorite place to practice.

Art: Shading, Identifying the tool used

All of the pictures in this book were drawn with charcoal and pencil. I asked the kids to look at the picture, and to tell me what art tool was used to create this. To my surprise Christopher said pencil. We talked about shading, and they each practiced using their pencils to shade a balloon they had drawn.

Bible: Jealousy, Grumbling

“…everyone in the town of Alto liked Lentil’s music; that is, everybody but Old Sneep. Old Sneep didn’t like much of anyone or anything.” –lentil

There had been a lot of grumbling, and complaining going on in  our house. So we took this opportunity to talk about how when we grumble and complain about everything we are not being very good witnesses. Everyone in the whole town knew Old Sneep as the town grump. We talked about how we want people to know us. Will they know us as a grumbler, or as someone who has a heart of gratitude? All week when we would have a problem with grumbling, I would ask them if they wanted to be like Old Sneep.

In the story of Lentil, Old Sneep was jealous of Colonel Carter, and tried to ruin his welcome home party.

We read the Story of Cain and Able from The Family Bible Time in pictures Bible. (Genesis 4). We talked about how Cain was jealous of Able, and that jealousy caused him to be angry, and to do something he regretted. We talked about how jealousy affects our lives, and friendship's, and keeps us from experiencing God’s blessings for our lives.

Language Arts/Reading: Sight Word Find, Reading Aloud, Comprehension

We did not do the LA lesson found in the FIAR manual. We did however look through the book and find our sight words for that week. And, The, What, Is.

We worked on reading comprehension by having the kids answer questions about this book.

Our FIAR book units are mostly focused on Christopher. I try to include Hailey and Sammy as much as possible though. Hailey really liked this book, so to help her with reading fluency, I had her read the book to the boys on the last day of the Row.