Jacks Academy: FIAR- The Clown of God

There are things I liked and did not like about this book. Had it not been a FIAR selection it’s not a book I would have hosen myself. We did not do a lot with this book but we had fun doing what we did. The book is about a little orphan boy who can do something special. He can juggle. He makes a great life for himself juggling. When he is old he goes home to his old town, and finds shelter in a monastery. His last moments of life are spent juggling to the glory of God. (well, I think that’s point they were trying to make, and that is how I presented it to my children) This book is dripping with religious preference. I don’t really feel that my younger children are really ready to learn about religious theology other than what we believe, so I simply did not get into all of that. I did talk with my older daughter about a few of the questions she had. The littles didn’t ask questions, so it was a non issue. If you should wonder if you should row this book, I would strongly suggest that you read it first and decide for yourself if you feel it is appropriate.

Math: 1st – 10th place

This book talks about the order in which the clown juggles his colored balls. So I thought this was a good time to really talk about this and make sure that Christopher understood. I laid out colored tiles and would ask him to point to the 6th tile, or the 10th tile etc. he did a great job.

Language Arts: Building sentences, Folk Tale, ow as in clown, ow as in sow, Rhymes with Clown

We already had the colored tiles out so I thought we would build some sentences

We got out our phonics cubes and did a little phonics work.

This book is a folk tale. It is based n a true story or event, but the story was embellished to make it more interesting. We talked a bit about other stories we had that fit this category,

Social Studies/Bible/History: What is an orphan and what does the bible tell us to do?, Ways to give glory to God

The clown in this book is an orphan boy. We talked a bit about what that meant, then we read a book we have call The Train to Somewhere (this is a folk tale). At the end of the book The Train to Somewhere it tells a bit of the history of the Orphan Train. We read that and talked about it.

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” – James 1:27

We talked about different ways that we can care for orphans. we also talk a but about adoption and how Christopher and Hailey came to live with us.

Geography: Italy , Idaho

We did not do a big Study of Italy. However the kids did look it up in their big Geography book. Hailey read everything the book said about Italy. We talked about how Italy looks like a boot, and then we looked at out map of the USA and they found the state that looks like a book IDAHO. They colored their Color the States Idaho page. (sorry no pics.)

Food: Alphabet Soup

In this book the little orphan boy juggles for soup. When I asked what type of soup they would like to make they said, “Alphabet soup” so that’s what we did. It worked out well since this book is based in Italy.