Lentil- Week 3!

 This week we read the book Lentil about a boy in small town Ohio who can't sing and can't whistle, so he learns the harmonica. The town hero, Col. Carter is arriving back home, but Old Sneep has plans to thwart the celebration. Lentil ends up saving the day with his harmonica skills.

 Since this and next week focus on America as location, we started the Pledge of Allegiance. Colin was the first helper to get to hold the flag. We're also singing a couple of folk tunes from the book and The Star Spangled Banner.

 For Social Studies, the kids found Ohio on the U.S.A. puzzle and made a construction paper project of their address all the way from our house number to which planet we live on. The next day we talked about how good stories have a beginning, middle, and end. After knowing that in the middle, there must be a problem, and in the end, the character with the problem has to solve it. We all drew from a hat to see which part of the story we would write. Here is the end result- haha

 Hannah later got motivated and wrote her own entire book about a girl who struggled with gymnastics. She believe it or not followed the general rules of storytelling, illustrated each page beautifully and took 2 days to complete it. I was very surprised. Good for her!!

 We also tried a fun activity I saw online. In Lentil the author is very descriptive about town of Alto- where the barber shop is, the library Col. Carter built, the monument in the park, etc. etc. So we drew the streets of the book as described and got out all forms of blocks to place the buildings and train station.

 Col. Carter's house was the most magnificent in town. Hannah called that one. (I like the modern cars added to the mix).

 They decorated Main Street with flags for his return- my amazing handiwork.

 Colin constructed the train station.

 We had a lot of fun with this and it occupied the kids after school time was over, too. An added bonus.

 Hannah' handwriting is improving...in an interesting way. She started adding curly cues to her letters, which reminded me of myself copying Burt from 1st grade and his interesting style of writing until I got a note sent home. Anyway, decorating her letters actually makes her go slower and form them more correctly, so I just let her keep going.

 We reviewed the months of the year for an activity in the math workbook, clearing away the chairs so we could walk around and stand behind different months according to directions I gave. Chloe only wanted to stand by her beloved October- the only wonderful month that exists in her mind. Hint: her birthday is in October.

 The kids have been enjoying the Saint of the Day of Bible Story of the Day and are just getting familiar with many of the Old Testament stories. But we've also been reading "Stories for the Children's Hour." I read this over and over again as a young child and even as a teenager, so these are all implanted in my mind and such fun to read to the kids now. They are Christian based and all show children in tough moral situations and how they decide to act- some make wise decisions and some don't but all end up looking to Christ to learn from everything that happens. One of my old favorites was Mr. Bert, the Cat, who was stuck in an abandoned house until a boy spent his savings to purchase a new window after deciding to break this one to save the cat. It's an old book, so I love how the window cost $1.

 For art day, we looked at all the interesting facial expressions drawn in Lentil. I set up a drawing station in the bathroom so the girls could make their own in the mirrors and try to draw them on face templates. Hannah worked on several faces and now has a whole collection.

 I'm guessing-  "skeptical" and "confused?"

 All of the drawings in Lentil are charcoal. So we tried a little ourselves. We mainly talked about how you could shade things dark, medium, or light and just sampled them in circles.

 Lentil played a harmonica and immediately Chloe had her heart set on one, especially after we watched a few YouTube videos. Luckily, Dax was making a trip to a music pawn shop the next day and she got to pick on out of her very own.

 On Friday we spent the whole day out. We headed to the town square for our field trip. We looked at all the shops and compared them to the type of stores in the books and talked about what a town square really is.

 There's an awesome new candy store and after browsing the whole place, the kids picked 10 small items to put in a sack, mostly gummy and no melty chocolate on that scorching day. They were in heaven. Dax and I have been there before and decided we would try a different root beer every time since they have coolers full.

 Hannah picked out this funny one shaped like an egg, but tasting like a peach. We also visited the antique store and used book store.

 In our town, there is 1 street full of maintained historical homes. Most of them are Victorian, but we found one that looked a lot like Col. Carter's in the book. Dax thinks he heard that a retired Colonel might actually live there. Any large house the saw, they called out Col. Carter! Colin's version was, "TURNER TARTER!"

 Colin is still in a toddler bed and could stay in it for awhile, but I've really liked the idea of the Ikea loft bed for several years now, and it was on sale, so we headed out to Ikea for the rest of the day. Swedish meatball lunch for them.

 It took me several hours last night to put it together, and still only finishing this morning, but it's a lot of fun. We hung a little lantern underneath and now he has much more playspace in his room. The girls hardly have any floor space at all in theirs due to the trundle bed, so this is really for them all.

 Math with beans is always fun until you remember that beans get everywhere.

 Our Science for this week was tasting and taste buds. Old Sneep sucked on a lemon in the book, so that was our jumping off point. I showed the girls a basic chart of tastes on the tongue then set up a bunch of samples. They loved that they had to close their eyes and see what I would put in their mouths. I had no idea it was so difficult to describe and distinguish sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. I just assumed they would know right away, but their guesses were all over the place! Last I checked a tortilla chip was no bitter. haha  Anyway, we lined up the "supposedly" correct tastes and they drew lines on a little tongue diagram to the foods they ate.

Next week we head out of town and will attempt to homeschool a bit on the road and in Tennessee It's 4th of July after all, and there are several fun things we can do to learn about the holiday. And many hours in the care to take up with books and activities...  Happy 4th of July!