Our Adventures with Before Five in a Row - Blueberries for Sal

This week we are rowing the classic story Blueberries for Sal.  This story has so many great lessons and things to learn, from staying with your parent, to making food from what we grow, learning all about bears, etc. 

 

Although we did not have any blueberries in season to pick we did find raspberries and decided that it was just as good!  We were lucky to have extended family in town as well this past week so we were able to include them on our fun as well!  Plus, our children's Grama graciously made some yummy jam with all of the raspberries that we picked!

 

We also have continued our kind of on-going theme, learning about Bears from our book last week (We're Going on a Bear Hunt) and also the study we are doing on North America with Explore the Continents and two of the books we are reading with that program The Biggest Bear and The Three Snow Bears.  This week we talked all about hibernation, what bears like to eat and all of the different types of bears.  We even went to the zoo to look at some of the bears!

 

We continued with some fun learning activities from Homeschool Creations this week!  The boys worked together to match up the numerical numbers and written numbers for how many blueberries were in the pails and put them in order!

 

 

We made fun directional books of "Where Is Little Bear?" using glue sticks to paste little bear in different directions (near, under, above, next to, going up, etc) on each page.

 

 

We then continued with the rhyming pages, what is different pages, what letter different words begin with and tracing words and lines!

 

 

From the Before Five in a Row manual this week our Bible lesson was from Ruth 1:16 "Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you; For where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay."  This was a great way to talk about how in Blueberries for Sal the little girl Sal and the Little Bear both got lost from their mothers and how dangerous it is to be separated from a parent.  We also discussed how God will always be with us and never leave!

 

We also did an activity for math where we put small objects in a pail and counted them as we added them or took them away.  We then did math games such as "If you pick three berries, and eat two of them, how many do you have left?"  Again, we had such a fun week of learning!  I am so blessed to be with these young men to watch them learn about and explore the world!

 

 

 

 

See more books that we have "Rowed" on our Homeschool Page!

Explore the Continents - Geography and History

 

If you read my original 2015-2016 Curriculum post you would know that our oldest son flew through Seton's 1st grade History book in about a month and I was looking at something else to use to teach History.  I looked significantly at RC History and really loved it.  I love that it has a literature based approach to learning History that you re-examine each time period on a 4 year rotation.  BUT, it is a very intense program and almost can be used as a core itself, which is way to much for me and my children right now.  So, we may come back to it in later years, but I knew I still had to search for something else.

 

 

We have loved everything that Seton provides, but also have really been loving so many of the resources from Catholic Heritage Curricula as well!  Looking around I finally saw a curriculum that CHC has called Explore the Continents listed in their 2nd grade curriculum (by the way I am learning not to look to much at grade levels).  I decided to take the plunge and get it and I am so thrilled that we did!  It is a fantastic combination of geography, history, religion and great literature! 

 

 

What you do with Explore the Continents is you go through each different continent and learn about different geographical landmarks such as oceans, rivers, mountains, etc.  You then learn about the animals and different habitats in the continent.  You learn about famous landmarks and places in history and then end with learning about famous saints from each area!  Plus, one of the indexes in the book includes fantastic book lists for each continent to explore and learn more!

The Extra Book List for Studying North America

The first thing that I bought after getting the curriculum was a set of bright and vibrate poster maps of each separate continent.  The book suggests drawing on poster board each continent, but this helped take a little work out of the process.  I also got some fun extras for our little guys to help their learning as well like the Teach My Continents and Animals set for Toddlers which includes animal flashcards, a great puzzle and board book! 

 

 

We got to work and started with North America and we are simply loving it!  We learned about lots of the big geographic landmarks and then also famous monuments like Mount Rushmore, the Statue of Liberty, The Golden Gate Bridge and more!  We are so lucky to live in a time and place where we have the world at our finger tips.  When we were learning about Mount Rushmore we were able to get on the History Channel app using our IPad and watch a great video about building Mount Rushmore!  We are also using a few of our new Usborne books including Look Inside Our World and Usborne's Children's Picture Atlas to help us learn and explore!

 

 

Since we have PLENTLY of time we will just slowly move our way through each continent and explore and learn as we go.  We are blessed with one of the world's best zoo's in our town,so we will take lots of zoo trips to explore the animals from different regions throughout the year.  We will also continue to relate our learning here with our Saint of the Day learning, Saint Mail and Catholic Mosaic activities (about where the Saints are from)!  Beyond the fantastic book lists for each continent they also include ideas for making food from each continent and exploring the history of the people!  I know that this curriculum will provide us with a lot of fantastic learning opportunities within the next year or so!

What We've Been Reading - August 2015

"What We've Been Reading" is a series here at Children of the Church to both keep track of what we are reading and to share with others what we have been reading in our home.  Reading is such an important part of our daily lives and also our homeschooling journey.  Thank you for following along and please feel free to share what you have been reading as well so we can all learn together!

August 2015

Children's Book List (Our children are 5 1/2 years, 3 1/2 years, and 2 years old):

• Chapter Books (Our oldest son and I usually go back and forth each reading a page for Chapter books, and sometimes I just read them aloud to the children)
• The Secret of the Shamrock - Chime Travelers #1 by Lisa Hendey
• The Sign of the Carved Cross - Chime Travelers #2 by Lisa Hendey
• Dinosaurs Before Dark -Magic Tree House #1 by Mary Pope Osborne
• The Knight at Dawn - Magic Tree House #2 by Mary Pope Osborn
• Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Started this book)
• Children's Stories
• Pete the Cat and His White Shoes by James Dean
• Bread and Jam for Francis by Russell Hoban
• Lyle the Crocodile by Bernard Waber
• A Chair for my Mother by Vera B. Willams
• Freight Train by Donald Crews
• Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
• Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag
• Guess How Much I Love You by Same McBratney
• Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
• Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
• The Napping House by Audrey Wood
• Happy Birthday, Moon by Frank Asch 
• The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton
• Opposites by Sandra Boynton
• A Kiss for Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik
• Catholic Mosaic Books
• Juanita and Our Lady of the Angels
• Sister Anne's Hands
• Before Five in A Row (See Links to Read the Post about our "Row")
• If Jesus Came to My House by Joan Thomas
• Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
• Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
• Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
• Usborne Books:  I had a Usborne Party earlier this month and earned a fantastic collection of books that we have been loving to explore
• Telling the Time
• On the Construction Site
• Very First Reading Set (Books 1-15) - with oldest son
• Big Book of Collection:
• Stars and Planets 
• Big Animals
• Big Trains
• Big Bugs
• Big Dinosaurs
• Explore the Continents Booklist: (North America)
• Winter on The Farm  - My First Little House Books
• Going West - My First Little House Books
• Prairie School by Avi
• Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express by Eleanor Coerr
• Catholic Treasure Box
• Books 1-4

My Book List:

• The Domestic Church:  Room by Room by Donna - Marie Cooper O'Boyle
• The Temperament God Gave You by Art & Laraine Bennett
• A Catholic Mother's Companion to Pregnancy:  Walking with Mary from Conception to Baptism by Sarah Reinhard
• A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms by Lisa Hendey

*This post contains Amazon Affiliates.  Thank you for supporting us at Children of the Church!

Our Adventures with Before Five in a Row - We're Going on a Bear Hunt

 

This week our book that we are studying with Before Five in a Row is We're Going on a Bear Hunt.  We adore this lovely story of a family who goes on a fun adventure in search of the bear and the journey that they are on!  Here are a few things that we did this week for learning fun!

 

First, we decided that it was proper to go on a Bear Hunt of our own, so out we went to a park right behind our neighborhood to re-create our own story and Bear Hunt. 

We went through the long, wavy grass!

 

 Through the deep, cold river!

 

Searched the thick, oozy mud!

 

Through a big, dark forest

 

 We didn't find a snowstorm in August (like in the Book), but we did do some super awesome nature exploring along the way with flowers, spider webs and animals who do live in the woods near our home.

 We were getting a little scared that we MIGHT run into a bear!!

 Finally we found a cave at the nearby park and our middle child graciously decided to act the part of the bear with a giant ROAR!

Then for our afternoon snack we had Chocolate Pudding (or MUD) and Teddy Grahams as we read the story again and talked about the sequence of the story!  This was such a fun way to incorporate the story to our snack time!

 

 

One morning after reading the book we worked with these sequencing cards to see if they remembered the order of the story and where they went on their Bear Hunt.  Our 3 1/2 year old put the pictures in order and then our 5 1/2 year old matched the correct phrases with the pictures!

 

 

We always talk about a Bible Verse or idea that also relates to the story and this week we learned Isaiah 41:10 "Do not fear for I am with you, do not be dismayed for I am your God."  Our children discussed how they can talk to God or their Guardian Angels when they get scared!



 

We continued with fun activities from Homeschool Creations and again worked on our tracing, word/letter recognition, re-telling the story and lots more fun!

 

We have big plans for next week to go to our city zoo to explore and learn more about the Bears in combination with this story and our book for next week Blueberries for Sal.  Plus, we have started CHC's Explore the Continents and we are currently studying the animals of North America!

 

See more books that we have "Rowed" on our Homeschool Page!

Pregnancy Update

 

I am officially in my third trimester now and doing well!  As we are only a few months away from meeting our newest member of our family I think often of what he will be like and about what God's plan is for his life and talents.  I think about how he will fit in to our family and join the crew of brothers that he has.  I cannot wait for those sweet little moments in the first days, weeks and months of his life!

 

We were lucky to get another little glimpse of our little guy this week and he is growing, growing, growing!  He is approximately 2 lbs 11 oz and is simply a little miracle!  I do need to ask for your prayers though, as he is currently in a breech position (with his buttocks down instead of his head).  Because of the past history of my other pregnancies and deliveries and our oldest son resulting in an Emergency C-section if this little guy does not turn on his own in the next handful of weeks I will need to have another C-section.  I know that it is not the end of the world to have a C-section, especially if the baby and I are both healthy, but I would prefer not to!  Your prayers would be greatly appreciated!

 

Our sweet little boy, we cannot wait to meet you!