Five in a Row Curriculum - Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

* Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel  

This is the story of Mike and his steam shovel Mary Ann who put in many, many productive busy working days.  But new technology has sent most of the steam machines to the trash heap.  Mike's determination and ingenuity saved both of them from unemployment.

Having spent much of their lives in an institution, my kids didn't know a lot about different types of power or even different vehicles.  And it seemed a challenge to find out much about steam power.  One book we liked was Inventions That Shaped the World: The Steam Engine by Tamra Orr.  You will also find a few things about steam by searching on YouTube.

The FoldnLearn from the FIAR BLOG had some information on steam machines as well.

We made our own steam power which seemed to get the point across better than any book or movie we could find.  The plain ole tea kettle released steam and as Isaac held his pinwheel near to the steam it turned the wheel.

I have been thankful many times this school year when the book we were studying
gave us a natural setting for discussing life values.  This time it was stewardship.  Mike took such good care of Mary Anne that she was in great working condition long after machines of her type had been junked.  A challenge that is fairly common with institutionally raised kids is teaching them the value of their belongings and the need to take care of them.  And more yet, they must be taught to respect other people's belongings.  Good discussion.

We talked about the elements of a good story

and also what "personification" is in literature.  But I think only Isaac was able to understand these concepts.

 Most of the units in FIAR have art incorporated too, centering around either the illustrations in the book or a concept mentioned in the story.  In Mike Mulligan our attention is drawn to the countryside and the different way trees are drawn, whether they are aerial views or seen from close up.  

And for those more advanced try out this link. Guide to Tree Sketching  I only printed that one for Isaac who is actually a pretty advanced artist.

In the story the cellar is completed "four corners... neat and square."  We looked for things in magazines that were square.

 My younger kids are still grasping the terms for shapes so we did a hunt around the house for things that are square shaped also.

Looking at the bookshelf for square things.

Hunting in the living room for squares.

On the final day of our unit study, instead of reading the book again, we found a "movie" version of it on YouTube.  It was the book being read plus some songs, and was about a half an hour long.  My kids loved it!  You can find it AT THIS LINK HERE!

Fun book enjoyed by the girls as well as by the boys.

*Amazon affiliate link to book

Five in a Row Curriculum - The Story About Ping

I was especially excited to do The Story About Ping.  Not only was it a personal favorite from when I was a little girl, but it takes place in China on the Yangtze River.  What a fun way to incorporate some Chinese history and culture into our school day!

When I asked for a volunteer to point out China on our world map, I expected Isaac (the thirteen year old) to volunteer.  Nope!  Abigail - the youngest - hopped up and pointed it right out!  Wow, was I surprised, and she was thrilled that she got to put the FIAR story disk on the map!

We looked at how large the country is.  There are only two countries larger and Isaac was able to name them. (Canada and Russia).  They colored flags of China for their lapbooks.  Sources for this unit were from the FoldNLearn which is a free download from the Five in a Row publisher's blog and searches for Ping on the Internet.  There are all sorts of things available for this one.

It is the story of a young duck who, in order to avoid a spank as the last to return to the boat, decided instead to HIDE.  He faced all sorts of danger because of that decision.  I loved how the serious discussions that I NEED to have with my kids happened so naturally as we talked about the characters in the story.  A new vocabulary word was DISCERNMENT, something that children raised in an orphanage are really lacking.  We had a nice discussion about how one has to think all the way through an idea to what will happen as the end result.  The idea may NOT be such a good one after all!

We found it a little funny that part of our "school work" was to eat a Chinese meal.  So I made some super easy fried rice for lunch.  This is something we actually eat frequently in our house.

After lunch we had an easy afternoon of movies, starting with two episodes of Wild China on Netflix. I had originally intended to watch just the first one because it shows the fishermen and their cormorant fishing birds (as was mentioned in our book) but we found it so fascinating that we went on to watch another episode. (We ended up watching all six episodes by the time we finished with this study!)

Bill Nye the Science Guy's episode (library DVD) simply titled, "Buoyancy fit in well with this unit."  The kids liked it so much that they asked to watch it twice.

I introduced the kids "tally marks; and we used them to add up Ping's family members.  Then using a photo of our family that was taken at Christmastime.  We compared how many were in Ping's family to how many were at our family Christmas celebration.

30

68

Then we helped get Ping to his boat just for fun.

 Another new vocabulary word was HYPOTHESIS.  Each child (plus one this particular day as a grandson was with us!) gathered three things and made their scientific guess as to whether the object would float or sink.

Then they put it to the test.

There are a lot of supplemental lapbook/worksheets for Ping.  We did various math and language arts activities with Ping or duck based worksheets. Search online or see Pinterest. You will find many available to print for free.

While we could have spent a lot more time on studying about ducks or floating properties, I chose to focus more on Chinese history and geography in this study.  Whatever you choose, Ping is fun!


Other resources:

BOOKS:

My First Book About China by Christina Calkins
Ducks! by Gail Gibbons
Goodnight, My Duckling by Nancy Tafuri
Whose Chick are You? by Nancy Tafuri
Backyard Wildlife: Ducks by Derek Zobel
Ducks Don't Get Wet by Augusta Goldin
Baby Animals: Ducks by Alice Twine
Little Quack by Lauren Thompson

MOVIES:

Wild China set of 6 episodes by BBC
Listen to the story being read on YouTube

Globe Trekker China. This is a two disc travel guide DVD.

HEADS - UP!  I got a dvd from the library called "Up the Yangtze" a Yung Chang Film thinking it would give a good tour of the Yangtze River and some of the culture around it today.  Please don't make the same mistake! The subject matter, the language, alcohol, and disrespect towards the parents made this a big NO in our family.  We didn't get far into it before stopping it and moving on to something else.

Five in a Row Curriculum -- Owl Moon

Owl Moon* is a delightful story of a little boy who has waited to be "big enough" to go out after bedtime with his dad to look for an owl.  This unit unfortunately fell between Thanksgiving and Christmas so I did a poor job of remembering to take photos or notes, sorry!

An especially good conversation starter for our family was talking about the rules the little boy had to follow in order for the owling experience to be successful.  That led into why WE have certain rules in our household that must be followed for everyone to stay safe and provide a calm and neat atmosphere in our home.

We also discussed flexibility - the father was flexible in allowing the little boy to stay up late -- and how sometimes we are flexible to allow for special events.  With the holidays upon us this was a good discussion!  Our children (who spent years in an orphanage) really depend on routine, but holidays call for being flexible!

It was actually a warm (for winter) sunny day so we went out to investigate shadows.  Here is where I say "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" because I know I took photos and they are just gone.  They had a good time chasing their shadow and guessing what other shadows were from -- ie the van, the house, etc.

Another thing my children really enjoyed was learning about the tracks that different animals make in the snow.  One can find several books along this subject line and here are a few that we enjoyed:

After learning about different types of tracks they worked on pictures where they stamped the foot print of various woodland animals and stamped and/or drew their habitat.

 

We studied a little about the moon itself and its different phases.  For a sensory experience in learning about it check out episode 9 of The Treeschoolers (from Signing Time) "In this episode, Simon gets worried when he sees the moon slowly disappearing! As Rachel and the TreeSchoolers set out to solve “The Mystery of the Missing Moon,” they learn about the sun, moon, stars, planets and the scientists whose questions and curiosity led to important discoveries about our universe."

We read several books about various types of owls (and I regret not getting the titles written down before returning them to the library!)  But probably the most favorite thing about this unit was watching a movie called  Owl Power on Netflix  It was so fascinating that the kids asked to watch it a second time - when it wasn't school time, just for fun!

I hope you won't let my holiday neglect of record keeping give the impression that this book was a dud.  Give it a try!  There is a lot of fun learning to be had!


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Five in a Row Curriculum: Cranberry Thanksgiving

 

 Cranberry Thanksgiving centers around a little girl who lives with her grandmother who is famous for her cranberry bread; but Grandma insists on keeping the recipe a secret.  Both of them invite a friend over to share Thanksgiving dinner and learn a lesson about character in the process.

We watched a short video on YouTube called How Does it Grow? - Cranberries that also showed how they are processed.  Even I learned several things!  In that short video it mentioned that Ocean Spray is the lead grower in the USA, so we went to their website to see what we could see.  They have another short video about cranberry cooperatives  that was worth watching, as well as information on the different types of products that they make from the cranberries.

As always, we had a FoldNLearn to work on.  This is a free download from the Five in a Row publisher's blog and a lapbook downloaded from Homeschool Share.  Today we reviewed the New England states and drawing on information learned in the cranberry video, talked about the seasons.  We noted that fall time is when most cranberries are harvested and eaten.

We obviously HAD to follow that up with tasting some cranberries!  Today it was craisins (dried cranberries) and also cranberry walnut bread.  We gave the thumbs up to both.

We went on to make cranberry/orange cookies for a Thanksgiving party that we went to with our homeschool co-op.

Yum!

One REALLY MUST talk about the origins of Thanksgiving and this book was a good lead in to it.  We listened to a radio drama of The Legend of Squanto (available here on Amazon - affiliate link) and the younger kids continued work on some Native American costumes they began in co-op last week.  

Since it isn't obvious I will clue you in! These are Indian vests, of course!

We had a lot of fun at the Thanksgiving party that our homeschool co-op hosted.  Lots of crafts opportunities...

And snacks too!

Other things we did:  Custom coloring books!  If you have a comb binder (I got mine used on Ebay) you can print off anything and make them into custom books!  Free downloads about Thanksgiving found HERE!

And we practiced handwriting - at this point tracing the letters.

 
Our extended family gathered for a big Thanksgiving feast.

After dinner the family did a reading theater drama of the story of the first Thanksgiving.

Our study on Cranberry Thanksgiving was very timely and helped our newly American citizens understand why we celebrate.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Movies watched:

How Does it Grow? Cranberries

Cranberry Cooperatives

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (The dvd included The Mayflower Voyagers too!)

Supplementary books read:

Squanto and the first Thanksgiving by Joyce K. Kessel

Three Young Pilgrims by Cheryl Harness

The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George (GREAT illustrations, some may want to watch the text for evolutionary references)

Molly's Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen

Thanksgiving Day by Anne Rockwell

 Thanksgiving Is.... by Gail Gibbons

Thanksgiving by Lisa M. Herington



and just for fun:

The Squirrels' Thanksgiving by Steven Knoll

Daisy's Crazy Thanksgiving by Margery Cuyler

Mousekin's Thanksgiving by Edna Miller