FIAR/BFIAR- Stopping by Woods and The Snowy Day

Both of these books seemed to fit nicely together. We had fun doing projects to go along with Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. My youngest boys didn’t really understand the poem so that’s where I tied in The Snowy Day. We did not cover every subject with these books, and kept our projects simple and fun. Here’s what we did.

Hailey and Christopher made animal classification books

Hailey, Christopher, and Sammy made Borax snowflakes.

The kids all made paper snowflakes and we talked about how each snowflake is different, and how God created each one of us different, but we all serve a purpose.

We all (including me) painted a scene from the book Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Hailey and Christopher learned about different types of Poetry. They had a blast with tongue twisters. They each wrote a poem as well.

I picked up some “make your own snow” from the Dollar Tree and the kids had fun playing with that.

I printed a few things for the boys to do. They matched animal tracks, sorted animal classification cards, and matched up snowflakes.

BFIAR–Angus Lost / Dog’s Colorful Day

As we came upon letter D week, I thought this would be the perfect time to Row the book Angus Lost. Sammy loved the book, but since it was about a dog, and letter D was for dog, he begged to do the book Dog’s Colorful Day. I figured they would go nicely together, so we rowed both of these books.

Angus lost is a story about a dog who wonders away from home and get’s lost. Dog’s Colorful Day is about a dog who has one spot, and as he goes about his day, he get’s spots in many different colors and in different ways. Both stories are really cute, and offer many learning opportunities.

To kick off our letter D week, we did our Letter D page from All About Reading Pre-Level 1. He used bird seed to represent dog food on his picture.

We then did a few pages from the Animal ABC’s Unit from 1+1+1=1. If you can’t tell by now, Sammy was really into the color grey and painting. Since Sammy was painting, Liam wanted to paint too, so Hailey set him up with some eatable finger paints, and tried to get him to say the name of the colors. He did say “Red”, but that’s it.

The next day we read each book and both boys sat to listen. Sammy enjoyed counting to ten with the book Dogs Colorful day. We then worked on Colors, and direction (under, over, behind, above, beside..) using some printables from Homeschool Creations. These activities also allowed him to work on his gluing skills. Just for fun he pulled out his cutting skills busy bag.

We met dome friends at the park, and made them all dog ears, and had a little fun. We pretended that they had lost their snack, and had to use one of their five senses to find it. Dogs use their nose (sense of smell) to find things. So the kids sniffed around the park until they located the brownies (GF). They were so cute in their dog ears.

We enjoyed learning a little bit of sign language though that was mainly for the older kids. We also used the felt pieces we got at a busy bag swap to retell the Dog’s Colorful Day story.

Because no row is complete without great snacks, I made some dog bone scones. They were great!

For more Angus Lost fun visit:

BFIAR- We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

 

This weeks letter was “B”, so naturally the theme was bears. I let Sammy choose from the 4 bear books we plan to do this year (haha) and he chose We’re going on a Bear Hunt. We had a great time rowing this book. I kept it super simple and that was nice. sometimes less is more.

First we watched this video on youtube at least 15 times a day. (no lie)

Sammy surprised me and decided that he did want to do the Animal ABC printables I printed for him. He painted using multiple paintbrushes and colors at one time. He insisted that he cut out his bears on his own. He traced shapes and we talked about their names. He colored a bear picture and called it his rainbow bear.

 

Sammy seemed really focused on colors this week so we did a few little activities focusing on colors. First we replaced all of the marker tops onto the correct marker, then her played with a cute little fishing game he got at a busy bag swap.

For a little interactive memory making, we decided to go on a bear hunt. The kids made toilet paper roll binoculars and we all went on a little hunt with daddy. We went through the high grass, and the forest, and after we located the bear daddy chased them around the yard with it. Sammy was so serious looking through his binoculars.

 

After seeing this idea on Delightful Learning, I ordered my samples of Yuck! and they came in just in time for us to tie it into this row. We used three of the samples to represent the, "icky sticky mud," "deep cold river," and "swirling whirling snowstorm!" Sammy only liked the snow, but the older kids played with the gooey Yuck! for over an hour.