Welcome to my blog. This blog pretty much reflects me, and I am one eclectic person. I have restaurant reviews, shop reviews, posts about human trafficking, poems (written by me or just appreciated by me), reflections from sermons, events, old mission trip newsletters – and much more. There’s a whole category of posts on the wedding planning and I am now homeschooling our two kiddos, so there’s a smattering of info about that as well.
If you are lost, don’t feel bad. I’m still glad you’re here.
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The kids could recite parts of this by the end of the week. And the illustrations are evocative – seeing how much detail can be made with just black and white drawings. Robert Frost is a favorite of mine too – his was one of the first poetry collections I bought myself. I especially meditated quite a bit on his poem, “Mending Wall,” particularly when I was struggling with knowing how and when to set personal boundaries.
Language Arts
Teaching my kids to enjoy poetry is a passionate goal of mine. I want to do it in a way that sparks imagination and not frustration. Kwame’s book is great for that, as is the book “Kiyoshi’s Walk” (not pictured) for learning about haiku. My kids were not readers at this time, so “Joyful Noise” was a little lost on us. If your kids are readers, reading poetry for two voices is great for practicing rhythm, inflection, and timing while reading aloud.
Science
Snow is fascinating and can be just a joy all around for kiddos. These books – learning the mechanics behind it and how animals interact with snow – are great for littles learning how the world around them works. There are some excellent books on animal tracks in snow or mud.
Other books
Soon after we started this curriculum, P.J. Lynch came out with another illustrated version of Frost’s poem. We were excited to get them and compare and contrast the two versions! These poems by Bob Raczka are incredible too, as are the illustrations. We enjoyed reading the words as they twisted around the pages, demonstrating the action of the words. For example, one was about a mouse going through a maze and the words were typed out within the framework of a maze with a piece of cheese as the final prize. Another poem is of hitting a home run and the words crash into the wall of the page and bounce off turning the words backwards as it flies to the top corner. People are so creative and I LOVE it!
Disclaimer:This site uses some affiliate links. This costs you nothing, but helps supplement our homeschooling costs.
I love “First times!” in life, don’t you? My husband and I have a running gag whenever we drive down a new road – I usually shout out “First time!” and it’s exciting! This book was a fun read for us, as we do not live near the ocean, tundra, or a fishing community. But we know what it’s like to experience something for the first time, or to finally be “big enough” to do something by ourselves.
Jan Andrews, the author, is not indigenous so the story is from her observations and gleaning the traditions around her. There can be value if that is done respectfully, but I was able to find some stories by indigenous authors and illustrators.
Social Studies
I pre-read the book “A Promise is a Promise” before reading it with the kids. It is a cautionary Inuit tale of the Qallupilluit, mythical creatures who live under the ice near the Arctic coastline and threaten to capture any children who come too close to the water’s edge. This story reminds me of the book “Hunt, Gather, Parent” by Michaeleen Ducleff which highlights (among other things) how ancient cultures often told scary stories to keep children within certain boundaries of protection in the community. It is a really interesting read and I was surprised when our family went to the Great Lakes for vacation and my daughter told me she couldn’t get too close to the water because the creatures might take her. I guess it worked!
Art
Ian Wallace integrates a kind of pointillism with impressionism to express fine details in the landscape in this book. I remember when I first saw a pointillist drawing and was fascinated! Katie’s Sunday Afternoon builds on that technique and introduces some famous pointillists and impressionist painters.
Math
We learn our numbers and then learn what we call those numbers when they’re in a series, or our ordinal numbers (numbers in order). This book had a lot of great number facts and even some concepts that were a little advanced for my kiddos at the time.
Science
I am definitely a summer kind of person, so the tundra life is something I really only want to read about unless it’s warm-season visit. Water Can Be… is a simple language book, but opens the imagination and gave us lots to talk about. Plus, the illustrations are lovely.
Other books
Kids are always finding small things and examining them intensely – puddles, ants, one year we have leopard slugs on our front stoop and we spent the better part of an hour watching them zip around the stone and finally into the grass.Hello, Puddle! is an excellent book to remind us to look smaller to see how big our world is.
Crab Cake is about a community coming together with all their skills to restore their habitat. And, of course, poetry is always a good time!
Disclaimer:This site uses some affiliate links. This costs you nothing, but helps supplement our homeschooling costs.
I really thought my daughter would be captivated by this book – she LOVES cats and longs to have one badly! Alas, I am allergic, but it’s a good exercise in patience, of which she is sorely in need. She is already planning out how many and what color, etc, she will have when she grows up.
No, it was my son who was most interested in this story. I will say, the book itself is hard to find. I love it and I hope that FIAR can find a way to keep it in the curriculum, but sometimes they revise the volumes based on availability. This one, then, may be relegated to the older editions. That said, you can find it being read aloud on YouTube and I believe it is available in digital form. I personally love holding the books and we were able to find a reasonably-priced copy to have in our records. Honestly, we have the hard-copy of just about all of these books as they were just so sweet and bring back memories, even after a few years.
Social Studies
When you can’t get to Venice in person, the next best thing is to travel with a book! The pictures and iconic sites encouraged us to chase lots of rabbits in learning more about Italy and this beautiful city as a whole. The Disney movie, Luca, was also fun to watch along with this study. If the kids were older, I would consider watching The Italian Job as there’s an excellent chase scene through Venice. This is also an excellent time to play the tag game “Marco Polo” where the seeker is blindfolded and calls out “Marco” while the others respond with “Polo!”
Art
This book has come up a lot in this series of posts – it’s just so good! When studying Papa Piccolo, we discussed complementary colors and also how you can use color to depict changes in light in artwork.
Science
Our bodies are so interesting and the best thing is, especially with our senses, we can test and learn very easily. So, this week, we learned about peripheral vision and practiced seeing things in our periphery. I wasn’t sure how it would work for my son, as he has no (or very minimal) depth perception, but the two types of vision are not necessarily related.
This little pocket book of cats was so much fun to see all the different types of cats found out there!
Other books
Cats are a source of endless amusement – just look at the popularity of Cat Videos online. So, it’s no surprise there are plenty of picture books about cats and their antics. Here are just a few that we found and read along with our main book.
I also found this poem about how cats sleep. I’m more of a dog person myself, and I think dogs run a close second on being able to sleep anywhere and with anything going on around them.
Poem: Cats by Eleanor Farjeon
Cats sleep Anywhere, Any table, Any chair, Top of piano, Window ledge, In the middle, On the edge, Open drawer, Empty shoe, Anybody’s Lap will do, Fitted in a Cardboard box, In the cupboard With your frocks – Anywhere! They don’t care! Cats sleep Anywhere.
Disclaimer:This site uses some affiliate links. This costs you nothing, but helps supplement our homeschooling costs.
Xapa to the World 