Who Owns the Sun?

Today we started Who Owns the Sun?

We've taken a lot of the FIAR books out of order and woven them into our other plans.

We read it over breakfast this morning.  Rachel was stunned that someone thought they owned another person.  You could actually see the confusion on her face.  It simply didn't compute.

Supplemental books this week include:

Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt by Deborah Hopkinson
Virgie Goes to School with Us Boys by Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard
Henry's Freedom Box by Ellen Levine
Unspoken by Henry Cole
Barefoot by Pamela Edwards

Additional Library Books include:

Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman
Rikki-Tikii-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling and adapted and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
Loon by Susan Griek
Little Red Riding Hood by Jerry Pinkney

Chosen by Rachel to read by herself:

Wiggle and Move
Barbie: I can be a ballerina
Barbie: I can be a teacher


Art:

We made sun-catchers out of melted pony beads. I did them on the grill outside.  The melted plastic fumes are probably toxic, so I didn't want it in the house.

 


Math:

We did several pages of the MEP 1a book. Most of it was review, but she did learn how to combine the greater-than and less-than signs with an equal sign.

Science:

We started a sundial, but it became cloudy after a few hours. We're going to try it again when this front moves out.

And, we got her signed up and started in the summer reading program at the library.

This week's books are:

How to Teach a Slug to Read by Susan Pearson
Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty
The Busy Beaver

Very Last First Time

The book we're doing for FIAR this week is Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews.  It is a book about a girl who harvests mussels from under the ice by herself for the first time.

We explored pointillism.  I cut out some images from one of her colouring books and we used cotton swabs to make the dots.

In addition to playing out the story in our basement, she did more traditional things. She watched the Magic School Bus episode on mussels...several times.  She worked on writing her numbers and lowercase letters.

We took a "field trip" and grabbed the Go train to Union Station.  We went to the St. Lawrence market and purchased mussels.

We cooked the mussels using Jaime Oliver's recipe.  It uses smoked bacon, hard cider and crème fraîche.

She wasn't too sure about eating them.  She did manage to taste one, but then opted for the garlic bread.

We also recently did colour mixing experiments.  We filled clear plastic containers with water and then Rachel mixed various food colours.  As with all good science experiments, we learned from it not doing what we thought it would.  Our hope was for coloured blocks of ice we could play with in the yard.  However, we learned that food colouring (at least the kind you buy in our grocery store), contains propylene glycol. Then never totally froze.

I threw out the rest of the food colouring.

We also had a deer recently that came to eat bird seed on a daily basis.  We watched it through the front window.

Beginning FIAR

Rachel and I have started FIAR.  I've tried before, but it was too soon.  She wasn't ready.  However, this fall we noticed lots of boredom at playschool.  Also, she seems hungry to learn new things, so I thought we'd try it again.

We started this week with Very Last First Time.  It took me a couple of tries to come up with a planning mechanism, but I finally landed on using a grid with days at the top and subject areas on the left.  I never schedule more than 45 - 60 minutes of "Learning" activities a day, and all of those can be done in ten minute chunks, done when they fit naturally in the day.

We are referring to our studies as "Ginger Kindergarten" because she misprounounced Junior Kindergarten, and since she is a red head, it stuck. :)

We also commemorated the start by giving her GrandmaBetts' old iPad and had the cover engraved with "For Rachel Clare, Keep Learning and Exploring".