FIAR - A New Coat for Anna

We recently rowed A New Coat for Anna.  There are so many wonderful ideas (1) for rowing this book in the FIAR community, unfortunately, this week we had to do what we could and didn't get to do all those wonderful ideas (2).  (See my post about getting discouraged.)


Here's what we did get to:
Day 1 - Language Arts/Math
After reading the first chapter of The Write Start free through Amazon Kindle, I learned that writing is what's missing from teaching Miss 4 to read.  We've tried a few different ways, but Jennifer Hallissy (Author) breaks it all down in the just the first chapter why writing should come first.  So throughout our rows, we've been practicing writing as much as possible.

Writing new vocabulary words (shear, weave, tailor, ripe, twirl)

Today was also about sequencing. A few activities:

Sequencing/Step-by-Step "How to make a peanut butter sandwich."

Playing Simson Free - sequencing and memory game

Sequencing how Anna got to make her coat. What comes first? From Homeschool Share

Day 2: Art
I really wanted to weave paper, but the girls were having a hard time getting interested in school that day, so after reading A New Coat for Anna while they played in the room and listened, I showed them their own Sewing Basket.  It included: pipe cleaners, beads, balls of yarn, fabric, buttons, and sewing cards.  I wanted to add a plastic needle, mesh, and embroidery hoop, but the mesh I got was too small for the large plastic needles and I went to the wrong store for the hoop... nonetheless, the basket was full of fun and it kept them busy while I slaved away on a sewing project of my own for them.

Genius. I didn't even think to put the buttons on the pipe cleaner! Love that concentration face.

A little late taking pictures of the basket. Destruction and mess was eminent. 

It was a couple years ago that my friend made library bags for her kids.  Of course her kids show up with these adorable library bags that hold just the right amount of books and are just the right size for kids and I love them.  Do I make them, no - I add it to the list of things I'll eventually do.  Once again, it took me deciding to homeschool, searching blogs for ideas, finding and choosing FIAR, and finally reading A New Coat for Anna to actually make these library bags for my own children.  I am so thankful I decided to homeschool.  It brings such a purpose to day, week, and yeah, life.

Cute Owl bag for Miss 2. Made from scraps and they picked their own fabric. Love it.

Miss 4 modeling her lovely butterfly library bag.

Miss 4 felt the need to "accessorize" once her bag was done and mom was taking pictures.  Where does she get that?  I certainly don't accessorize...  Haha, Too Cute!

Ironically, we skipped story time at the library to make the bags.  We attend story time at two different libraries every week.  I feel it is a great way to interact with other moms and kids their age while also learning to listen to a teacher and follow directions.  Also, attending the libraries each week teaches self-discipline while in a quiet place and hopefully ignites a love for learning through books.  I love that they pick out their own books and now fill their bags. Sewing the bags also taught the girls a principle from the book. Anna had to wait a year before her coat was ready.  My girls had to wait a day, but it sure felt like a year.  I think they really enjoyed seeing how it all came together - it's no "wool from sheep" process, but seeing how scraps of fabric can be put together to make something useful was definitely a lesson.

Day 3: Science

My girls love animals; what kid doesn't?  They're fantastic.  We got a lot of books from the library about sheep. 

After reading about sheep, which was a lot of fun and I even learn a lot too, we moved onto seasons.  We read some books on seasons - I wasn't thrilled with any of them, so we moved onto dyes.  Now I totally should have followed directions on this.  This book is full of fun dyeing projects.  I just didn't plan ahead and go to the store for the necessary roots and leaves.  We got one thing to turn out though with the supplies we had on-hand.

  

We used raspberries, blueberries, orange peels, and peas (what was I thinking... peas??) Oh well.

Supplies

Boil water, add "dye," add to jar with cloth and some salt- yeah, I know peas... yuck.

Blueberry, raspberry combo - Success!  I should have also separated them, but Miss 4 requested purple. So we did that. She also wasn't feeling well so our time was limited for school and dyeing.

Day 4: Math

We compared a yard stick, measuring tape, and retractable measuring tape.  Measured a few places around the house and ourselves with each and determined which instrument was best for each (sorry no pics).  We made patterns with cardboard shapes - tracing, a very awesome skill to work on, inexpensive too! 

Day 5: Social Studies

Honestly, we skipped this day. I had planned to get out the map and point out Europe, WWII places, talk about WWII (war in general) emotions, effects, reactions, and pull other elements from the story, but these subjects are difficult.  I was really going to scale it down to talking about emotions, looking a pictures of emotions, etc. (EQ is all the rage, right?), but Miss 4 requested no school that day.  I figure, we had a good week - I'm okay not doing day 5 too.  At the end of the day though, she reported to Dad that we didn't do school and was sad.  Emotions... check!