Rosie's Walk Craft

Younger Toad loves Rosie's Walk.  He loves slapstick humor and giggles his little head off when you read it to him.  I thought he'd enjoy a project using Rosie's Walk and our chickens.

The booklet itself is construction paper cut to 9" X 11".  The square section not cut away is 2" X 2".  You leave the 2" X 2" tab at the top left and with each succeeding page, move the tab over 2".  I should have done 8.5" X 11" because 1" was too big for the margin.  You can see there's some blank bit at the top right corner instead of being smooth below the last tab.  Dinah Zike's books are great for learning how to make these interesting projects.

I found some leaf foam stickers and large fall foam decorations at the dollar store that we used to decorate our story.  I even had some small fox stickers that all got stuck to the same page.

Toad told the story:

Rusty walked into a wheeler [that's the name he gave our chicken palace.  I did a post about that here].  

Then she was trapped.

Mama ate Rusty.  

I don't eat chicken so I thought this was a pretty funny story.  Older Toad came home from Nature camp and liked his brother's work so much he got himself out some paper and decorated his own story with the materials.  He even called it 'Mama eats Rusty'.  I'm not sure what they're trying to tell me.

If you don't have your own chicken spokesmodels, I've attached the sheet of ours I worked up.  I printed them out on  full sheet sticker paper.  The down side of that is you'll have to help the kids peel the backing off, it's a bit tricky for anyone.  You could always print them on regular paper and use a glue stick after trimming.   Toad did not like that I stuck the chicken stickers to the top tabs  -  just passing on that feedback.Rosies Walk Sheet

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Pareu project inspired by Call it Courage

 
We've progressed to the part of Call it Courage focused on Mafatu staying alive on his new island.  Older Toad made a pareu to wear in his custom built structure. In the story, Mafatu makes a pareu from mulberry fiber. Our mulberry tree is too small to harvest the bark off of so we started with plain cotton fabric. For our decoration, we looked at a book (Made in the South Pacific by Christine Price) of South Pacific art and design for tapa pattern inspiration.  Daddy Toad has some fabric with tapa inspired patterns that he bought in Moorea that we looked at as well.

Older Toad has some experience with plant based dyes because last year we did a unit study on mushrooms and he did some mushroom yarn dyeing with Grandma. I wanted to choose a different plant based dye that was more tropical so we used coffee. Coffee does not appear in the story but pareu were traditionally decorated with plant based dyes so we went with it.  I put a third of a cup of coffee grounds in a cup of water and boiled it for 20 minutes. Then I strained out the coffee and simmered the dark liquid for another half an hour. We had a nice dark liquid for our dye. We have an artist in Ybor City, Arnold Martinez, who paints using coffee and wine. Going to his studio will make a nice fieldtrip in the future. 

The hardest part of the project for Toad was to adapt to how the dye stained the fabric. He's used to the tacky feel of paint that stays where you put it, this liquid spread out more. He was getting frustrated that his pattern wasn't turning out how he wanted, but once he figured out his materials, he relaxed and adapted his design.

He also spent several days working on his structure.  The first version was shorter and got destroyed by our Lab who loves sticks.  

The second version had some help from Grandpa and was taller.  It's still up so the boys have been playing in it every afternoon.

After we read this section Toad was impressed by how much work Mafatu had to do to stay alive.  Since it's Thanksgiving this week, I worked that appreciation into a brief talk of the history of Thanksgiving.  Worlds apart, but I hope he got a little appreciation for how easy we have it these days.  He had fun working on his projects and got to change back into his regular clothes so the mosquitoes wouldn't eat him, and went to the fridge for a snack.  TOUGH life!

 

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Call it Courage 'Clothing' Project

We homeschool three days a week. One day per week is coop and one day is public school. Even though it's only three days a week, by afternoon I am DONE. Sometime between 2:00-3:00 it's required the kids be outside. We have a lovely, big, fully fenced yard so it gives me a break and they get some unstructured time.

This week, older toad decided to spend some of that time making fabric. He found one of the ginger plants in the backyard had very soft leaves on the bottom. He came to me and asked if he could turn them in to fabric. While it did involve my effort to get out the thread and thread his needles for him, I appreciated his self-directed project so I helped him out. The picture below is what he did. He thought it was neat. We've talked about fibers and how fabric is made (wool and cotton) and he realizes this isn't anything close to the real thing, but he just enjoyed the process. I love these projects that they come up with entirely on their own and try to work them in to 'school' to give more validation to what they've done.

We've (he reads aloud one page, I read aloud one page alternating) been reading Call it Courage intermittently so I used his fabric and the book as a writing prompt for a creative writing activity. We don't do enough creative writing, in my mind anyway, which I talked about in a post here. We're trying to do one story that Toad writes, both creatively and penmanship, per month. So this ended up being perfect. Below is what he wrote. I've edited for capital and lower case letters in the correct places in the transcription. I orally helped him with his spelling so that was all correct and the grammar is all his.  He illustrated the first page with Mafatu and Uri in the boat.

Mafatu lost his clothes in the ocean. Then he saw land. The canoe drifted towards the land. The canoe shot up in the air and fell on a coral reef. He swam to land. He saw Uri drinking water from a brook. Mafatu found some plants with soft leaves. He made clothes with the leaves he found. The end.

Hardly Shakespeare I know, but I was thrilled he could recall what we read in his own words so well, add a little of his own writing that followed the prompt so well, and actually write it all himself legibly. It's huge progress for us.

I do have a pareu project planned anyway, which we'll do next week so this was just gravy.

I've included a list of some of the Call it Courage resources I found below:

Biography of Armstrong Sperry maintained by his granddaughter

Geography through literature worksheets based on Call it Courage

Taking Grades albatross graphic organizer

Jumping Brain worksheets

What win/win projects have you done lately?

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Making Rope Inspired by Call it Courage

We've started reading Call it Courage by Armstrong Sperry as our literature study for Australia/Oceania.  For us it's probably the perfect story - there's fishing, hunting pigs, tropical plants, dogs, boating, boys, you get the idea.

Rather than use it as literature and break it down like in English class, I'm arranging our whole study around projects that recreate Mafatu's tasks in the book.  Projects that hit those themes above that are so loved around here.  For chapter 1, we made rope.  Chapter 1 talks about Mafatu making sharklines out of coir.  Toad did a handwriting worksheet with the definition of coir (fibers from coconut husks used for making rope) and then we went outside to make our own rope.

We had a teeny bit of background with rope.  Earlier this year at the state fair, the Toads got to try their hands at making twisted rope.

Mafatu didn't have access to a rope making machine and neither d0 we so we plaited our rope.  It was an opportunity to learn how to braid too by plaiting the fibers rather than twisting.  Our Bismarck palm puts out thread-like fibers so that was the first material we tried.  It's the curly parts below.

Braiding those gave us a small plait.  

 
Toad could tell that the braid was stronger than the individual fibers but that it wasn't the best material since it was brittle.  I showed him how to work in new threads when ones broke or he ran out of room.

Since the Bismarck fibers were only semi successful and we don't have any coconut palms in the yard we talked about what else we had that Mafatu might have had.  Toad wanted to try fibers from a Queen palm next.  He found those easier to braid.  Even though they were stiffer, they were larger, and easier to hold.  He discovered that while easier to braid it didn't make very good rope either since he ended up with a flat band rather than a round rope.  He was really appreciating the rope making machine at this point.

The Toads love fishing for sharks so they learned something about the benefits of the tackle shop for sure.  Trying to make their own rope they learned something about the materials they used, the problems in their technique and gained a bit of appreciation for the challenges involved in having to make all your own supplies.   The project was super successful and we're looking forward to the rest of the chapters and the upcoming projects for those.

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Our Latest Audiobook Comes Without Turkish Delight

I signed up for an Audible account in August. 

This was breaking down for me a bit as it felt like it was an out of budget item and I felt like the library really should fulfill our audiobook needs.  I'm a frequent flyer at the library but it wasn't meeting our needs on this one subject.  

At least half of the audiobooks we were getting were damaged and wouldn't play in some way.  That was annoying for all of us to only get half the story.  Also, some of the titles had multiple editions available.  It was really hard to get information about the individual edition such as the performer who did it or overall quality of the performance.  We  got several books that had actors with voices that to me were like nails on a chalkboard.  The boys were fine with it and enjoyed them, but I'm riding in the car too and I figured out I'm pickier than they are.  Which leads in to the last point that I learned.  I need the better 'quality' audiobooks.  Meaning ones that are performed by acknowledged actors and have reviews to see if other people liked that particular edition.

The one that did me in was a lousy Wizard of Oz.  After that I was desperate for one I would like as well as the kids so I got Jim Dale's version of James Herriot's Treasury for Children.  As a kid I loved watching All Creatures Great and Small and it still reminds me of all my years around horses.  It seemed like something I'd enjoy sharing with the kids but the library didn't even have it.  So I signed up for Audible as a trial and got that for my free purchase.  It's a great audiobook.  Jim Dale's the actor.  He did the Harry Potter series and we'd previously enjoyed his version of Around the World in 80 days.  I like to support the audiobooks we listen to with an out of car activity so for this one I shared the beloved (to me)  TV series from the library with them.

We've since downloaded two more offerings.  Journey to the Center of the Earth and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (we just started this).  Both were well done.  I did a post here about our Journey to the Center of the Earth activity that includes a free vocabulary printable.

So far Audible has worked out great.  One downside, which I wish had been disclosed on the website before I signed up, was the need to have Itunes in addition to the Audible software.  Itunes is the only way to burn the books to CD to listen to in our car.  The Audible software will sync with a player fine but that's not how we use the books.  Itunes is free but you have to transfer the files through the programs and it's extra time.

Another downside is even they don't have everything either.  They didn't have Seven Little Australians.  Our library doesn't have it either but it's a fairly well known book in the greater Commonwealth so I was a little surprised it wasn't available online.  I ended up buying an edition used.  They have different versions of Audible for different countries (like Amazon since it's an Amazon owned company).  If you're an international reader of this blog and going to want books closer to home go with your local Audible service.


In honor of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe we made Turkish Delight.   I first looked in the cookbook below, Once Upon a Time in the Kitchen, which is our go to cookbook for literature based cooking but was really surprised to see they didn't have it.  

I've made Turkish Delight once from a Martha Stewart recipe and it was a failure so I didn't choose that one.  Joy of Cooking of course had it, but we FAILED (cue whiny reading voice)!   So now I'm 0 for 2 on Turkish Delight.  Too runny both times.  If anyone has any suggestions of fail safe recipes please comment on them because I'd really like to finally get this right.

Toads unsuccessfully tackle Turkish Delight

 

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* I did not receive any compensation for writing this review.  All opinions expressed are my own.  If you use the Audible link on the left sidebar of my blog to do business with Audible, I will receive a small commission.  Any monies generated by this blog go into more homeschool supplies.

Lilly the Lash character building books

At our homeschool group meeting this week, there were some vendors.  One of them was Julie Woik, author of the Lilly the Lash books.  They're a series of secular character building books.  Currently, there are three in the series.  I bought the third, Ocean Commotion, which addresses honesty.

One of the things I appreciated about the series was the work she put into background materials for parents.  If you go to the Lilly the Lash website there is a downloadable motivational game board and curriculum materials.  Also there's some Girl Scout materials and a kid's area with games.

I'm looking forward to going through the book and materials with the toads.  We can always use some emphasis on honesty around here and a marine themed package is guaranteed to please. 

Journey to the Center of the Earth

We are listening to Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth for our current audio book.  Audio books are currently required in the car.  In the beginning I got them to calm the car arguing.  They've done that, but now their also a source of stress as they HAVE to be on.  It's still better than the arguing.

I like using audio books as vocabulary stretchers.  Last year, I got the actual book and used the illustrations from it to make puzzles.  I did a post about that here.  Those were fun but the last one sat around a long time before I could convince someone to use it so I thought I'd try something different this time around.  Toad's reading vs. writing abilities are not even in the same league so I've worked up some vocabulary worksheets that are heavy on comprehension but light on writing.  Perhaps you could use them too.

Journey to the Center of the Earth Vocabulary Sheets

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Modern Art II Reading LIst

Hegel's Holiday by Rene Magritte

Tomorrow is open house at homeschool coop and I'll be previewing one of the classes I'm teaching, Lets do Modern Art II.  The class is designed to showcase 1 artist each week with a few slides of that artists work and then the kids do their own art in the same style.  I try to represent a diverse group of artists covering the movements after impressionism, women artists as well as men, artists from many countries as well as give the kids a good mix of art media to build their skills.

I try to keep showcase day to crayons.  Teachers share rooms for coop day so I get families who aren't expecting messy art supplies, lots of little ones and lots of in and out so no one can really finish a project.  A sample of the above, Hegel's Holiday by Rene Magritte, will be out and I'll give them the suggestion to draw objects that sort of go together but are put together in weird ways.  A glass holds water and an umbrella keeps it off you - they're both associated with water but here juxtaposed very oddly. 

Below is the reading list I'll be handing out.  This is not required reading I just like to give the kids ideas in case a particular artist really interests them.  The books are ones that are available through our public library system rather than a complete list.  The kids in the class are 5-8 years old.  Sometimes there's no kids resources available for a particular artist so I suggest an adult art book or don't provide a suggestion.  For the better known artist there are several choices.  I try to provide a balance of biographies, art books, storytelling and inspiration.

The artists we're covering in this class:
Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, M.C. Escher, Henri Matisse, Henri Rousseau, Alexander Calder, Andrew Goldsworthy, Louise Nevelson, Frida Kahlo, Margaret Preston, and Diego Rivera

Birthday Books for the Library

Older toad just had his birthday as you've heard, and we have a tradition of collecting books for our local library in lieu of gifts.  The library asked us to beef up the biography section.  People were very generous and here's the diverse list.