How we do Five In A Row...

There seems to be some questions on how people use Five in a Row. Here is how I use it with my daughter....
As we finish our row I am already looking to see what will be our next book.  Once I pick a book I then look at all the manual has us doing.  Since my daughter is on the older end of using FIAR I try to do most of the lesson the manual has to offer.  Then I look on pinterest to see what other fun stuff people do. I look on You tube for anything to do with a book we are doing.  Example: Wee Gillis I found videos on bag pipes how they make them and to listen to people play them, videos of the highlands, of Scottish dancing, of Kilt making and a farmer shearing a sheep.  Then I look to see if there is any hands on crafts and lap books.  I even found fun videos of vacationing in Scotland on Netflix.

Each day we do a few activities.

When we lapbook I don't use folders I put it all on card stock and then into our binder...

This is where I put the story disks. I don't have the room in my house for the wall map so we do look at the map to where we are studying. So we kind of use them as our table of contents.

Here are examples of  2 books we have rowed.

title page

 She does this for most books

 some lapbooking and a story about flying

Title page

 science experiments

 some art

 story elements

 some basic math (this book we did early on our adventure in FIAR)

 art lesson

along with what you see here a lot of the lessons in FIAR is verbal.  We both love a mix of types of learning. after this school year is over we are moving on to the last volume in FIAR.  After that she will move onto Beyond FIAR.   I hope you have gotten some good ideas from my blog post.  One little secret I will let you in on I don't do a whole lot of scheduling FIAR.  I love to let it all fall into place.  Our lives are on the crazy busy side so each day I do what seems to fit best instead of having the whole week or 2 planned out for us.  Some rows take 1 week and others take 2.  It seems to work for us. 

Peep Science Experiments....

Following a blog post on Facebook I was excited for Samantha to do some Peep Science. The blog is Lemon Lime Adventures.

She wasn't too sure at first as that is one of her favorite Easter candy. But I convinced her it would be fun. She kept trying to lick them. So at first she described the peep in her science journal. She measured the control peep. She guessed what she thought would happen if the peep was put in the microwave.

Then the fun began. In the peep went. He was never the same again.  At first he was very gooey then became very hard and crusty. 

Then Nick came out he wanted to know what crazy stuff we were doing and he joined in the fun.

I asked Samantha to think of what we can use to dissolve the peep completely.

Her idea boil it.  We boiled the water first and dropped the poor peep in. In 60 seconds this is all that was left of it...

NOTHING but yellow water.  

Still thinking She thought maybe vinegar...

only made it a little gooey.

Then Nick suggested bleach

No it only took away all the yellow color and the part that was in the bleach it shrunk.

Now the gross part not sure who thought of it but We peed on it. Yes we did.  That didn't do a thing besides make it a little gooey. Yes we did it in the toilet. We didn't flush the poor peep.  We took it out and put it in the trash. 

Nick then said what about flash freezing it. Out came the can of compressed air. Didn't take long to completely freeze it. then when picked up and dropped it broke into pieces.  Interesting we did put a peep in the freezer forgot about and in a little more then 24 it still wasn't frozen, just cold.  Still edible.  Samantha did  enjoyed it.  

2 videos of the flash freeze peep

The peep in the microwave.

Five in a Row Wee Gillis

Wee Gillis

For 2 weeks we rowed Wee Gillis. There was so much to learn from this book. I don't have that many pictures from this book but here is what we did for the 2 weeks:

• She learned all about Scotland. She learned how their countries animal is the mystical unicorn. She learned about the Loch Ness Monster, We did a mini lap booking in our binder all about Scotland. 
• She woke up most mornings to have oatmeal for breakfast like Wee Gillis did.
• We watched the movie Wee Gillis, I got a copy of it from the library.
• She watched youtube videos on Scotland, kilts, fighting Scots style of the past, how to make a kilt, Scotland's castles, Loch Ness Monster, Sheep, long hair cows and so many other things of Scotland.
• She designed her own family plaid
• did a mini lap book on dears, sheep and cows
• Compared the lowlanders and  highlanders what makes them different and what makes them the same.
• Discussed family names since Wee Gillis name is so long that they nicknamed him Wee Gillis. If Samantha used her family names for her name this is what it would be Samantha Abbie Blais Baptista Demeres Mathias and that is only going back to the grandparents names.
• Did her own artwork and we made a copy of it in black and white to show the difference it makes in what stands out. The book is in black and white.
• Talked about the poem My Heart's In The Highlands. She recited it to her father.  She also wrote it in cursive.
• We talked about fog as Scotland has lots of fog and lucky for us a few of the days it was very foggy in the morning.  She said she wouldn't want to live where there is fog a lot of the time. 
• We cooked a traditional Scottish broth.  Next time I will make it with beef not lamb.  We all didn't like the lamb part but enjoyed the broth.
• Se had a snack of Scottish shortbread cookies.
• I brought out a bag I had knitted with wool and then felted for her to feel as we learned about sheep.
• She also enjoyed learning some Scottish words and their meaning. 
• She was excited to realize one of the songs she was learning in the children's choir is a Scottish folk song.  

 We really did enjoy this row.  There was more that we did but these are the highlights.

Here are the educational books we used to learn all about Scotland, sheep and deers.

Fun books we read along with Wee Gillis

 Here is Samantha's Loch Ness Monster she actually made this for 2 subjects.  For Wee Gillis and learning all about the Loch Ness monster and for our states study. I taught that week about Vermont and much to our surprise Vermont has their own version of Loch Ness Monster. 

 Here she is helping me prepare the ingredients for our Scottish broth. She looks happy here because I didn't tell her yet that we were putting lamb in it. 

Her title page for our FIAR binder. She used some of the art techniques she learned... Crosshatching to show the cheeks and using black and white to make the main parts stand out.  

The completion of Owl Moon Five in a Row

Well we wrapped up Owl Moon. We took 3 weeks to cover this book.  It was a lot of fun.

There was just so much to learn.  

Samantha and I played with shadow puppets one night. She had fun trying to play out the story a little minus the people of course.  We talked about the creatures of the night and had fun with the puppets. My camera wouldn't take a good picture of it.  Although it was totally dark with the flash on my camera it looked like the room wasn't dark and others were too dark to even see the shadow.  

 pretending her monster hand was eating the fox

 We also went to the Trustees of Reservation and made an owl nesting box. It worked out so perfect I found out 3 days before we ended this book they were doing this.  Samantha did a great job she did almost the whole box herself.  A lady that came alone asked me to hold her box for a minute so she could hammer in her nails and I turned back and Sam had it almost completed.  Samantha and Grandpa are going to hang it in the woods behind his house.

She painted a picture using different techniques. She started out with a dark blue then kept adding white until it was almost all white for the moon.  Then she used a paper bag to create the tree.  Last she painted an owl to later be cut out and glued on the picture.  I think she did and awesome job.  She wasn't too happy with how her moon looked.  

 One day I made lunch. This  idea was from a mom on our facebook FIAR page. Samantha enjoyed it.

I also took a side trip to the stars with Samantha. In the book it says "He looked up, as if searching the stars, as if reading a map up there."  we just went to the planetarium and the teacher talked about how people have used the stars as a map and direction.  So we did a short study on the stars and of course the moon.  She drew all the moon phases. `She also learned about how gravity on the moon is different and you weigh much less there.  On earth she weighs 63 lbs and on the moon she would weigh 9.92 lbs.  

We also have been studying space with the magic school bus kit.  One activity was to make a star view finder and look at the star map and try and find the constellations. It also gave blank ones to make up your own and tell a story of how it became.  

Here she is looking at one of the constellations.  (yes a pj day it was snowing out) 

I couldn't get a good picture of her constellation but it was 3 diamond shapes together and her very short story of explanation.  

One day there was a queen who ruled over a kingdom called the Three Diamonds. Once day her crown fell and the three diamonds from it flew into the sky creating the constellation the Three Diamonds. 

Ask her to tell you a story and she goes on and on. Tell her to actually put it to paper and that is what I get.  We will be working on that.

These are some of the books we used while rowing this book.  We also read together a Magic Tree House book about the moon.  If you go to my pinterest page you will find a few more of the resources we used like youtube videos and websites.  

We were very sorry to see Owl Moon come to an end.  But we are so excited about the new FIAR book we are rowing  Wee Gillis.