Showing posts with label Winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Winter. Show all posts

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening {FIAR}

In February we rowed Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening, a poem by Robert Frost.

Whose woods these are I think I know. 
His house is in the village though; 
He will not see me stopping here 
To watch his woods fill up with snow. 
My little horse must think it queer 
To stop without a farmhouse near 
Between the woods and frozen lake 
The darkest evening of the year. 
He gives his harness bells a shake 
To ask if there is some mistake. 
The only other sound's the sweep 
Of easy wind and downy flake. 
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. 
But I have promises to keep, 
And miles to go before I sleep, 
And miles to go before I sleep. 

The illustrations (by Susan Jeffers) depict a man stopping in the woods and leaving food for the forest animals that live there.
We made bird feeders and hung them out to nourish animals (primarily birds and squirrels!) in our area too!



We enjoyed a snowflake tortilla snack.


And created our own snowy scene!






Next, we discussed how easy it is to see animal tracks in the snow.
Piper tried to guess which track belonged to which animal using these matching cards I printed out for her.


She also grouped rhyming words that I had written on popsicle sticks.
She then painted them and glued them together to make snowflakes.
(An idea I found here.)



We talked about different aspects of the poem such as the rhyming words and the rhyme scheme.
I asked family members to send us their favorite poems and we spent time reading those.
Finally, the girls made their own winter poem by telling me things they think of when they think of winter. 
Here it is:

Winter
Snowman
Snow angels
Pull a sled
Catch snowflakes on your tongue
Ice skating
Slide down the hill
Snow
Snowflakes fall
Hot chocolate to make
Us, nice and warm
Snow on the roof
Throw snowballs at the window
Cold 
Winter

It was a little different rowing a poem as opposed to a story but we all thoroughly enjoyed it.
The girls especially loved the illustrations that accompanied it and spotting the hidden animals to be found on various pages!


Delightful Learning

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Very Last First Time {FIAR}

Considering that we were in the midst of a cold snap, the book couldn't have been introduced at a better time!
Although when I explained to the girls that Ungava Bay has temperatures even colder than our own part of Canada they refused to believe me! Haha!

Very Last First Time is about a young Inuit girl named Eva who goes under the sea ice when the tide is out to collect mussels.
This time though she goes for the very first time all by herself on this dangerous mission.


Social Studies:

First of all we watched a video of this mussel seeking tradition in real life.
I had never heard of this before reading this book.
It's rather incredible!



Piper colored in Canada and we found Ungava Bay on our big wall map.


We talked about doing things for the first time and how that makes us feel.
I told them stories about driving a car by myself for the first time and becoming a mom for the first time.
I asked Piper what she looked forward to doing on her own for the first time.
Her answer: Going to the mall by myself.
Of course!


Language Arts:

There are many action words in this story so I had the girls dramatize each one.
We've done this before and it always proves to be a blast.
Also, it is a wonderful way of explaining words that may be new to them.

Art:

Both girls did a polar bear painting that was a lot of fun since it included different steps.
You can get full instructions at That Artist Woman (my FAVORITE children's art blog!!).



Piper also made this paper Inuit girl to display on the front of her lapbook.



We took some time to watch some videos on Inuit life.
We decided to try our hand at it with some soap and a few tool recommendations I found here.
This proved to be a very enjoyable and relaxing activity!


Math:

I taught Piper about ordinal numbers.
We practiced them using a polar animal game I found.
I lined the animals up under numbers I'd written out on Piper's file folder.
Then I read a clue for an animal.
Once she figured out which animal it was I would ask her what place that animal was in.
This ended up being a lot of fun and we played it several times!
Piper also played a math computer game at TurtleDiary.com that focused on ordinal numbers.


Science:

I'm a little squeamish around sea food so I asked my Mom to help me out since I felt it was necessary for the girls to get their hands on some mussels and really understand what they were.
She happily obliged and we had a fun afternoon with the girls' Nana and Boppa exploring and taste testing mussels!
(Thanks for the new experience, Nana and Boppa!)









Final verdict: 
Piper spit hers back out in disgust.
Taitum gobbled hers right up and claims she likes them.
Mama admitted they were not quite as bad as she thought they were going to be but she'd NEVER risk her life to get some from under the ice!

We took some time the next day to learn some facts about mussels.


Piper also cut out some pictures of the creatures Eva finds in the tide pool while exploring under the ice.
(Both of these printables are from Homeschool Share.)


In our Elemental Science curriculum we were learning about crystals and our experiment was to grow some Borax crystals.
We decided to make ours a snowflake shape which tied in well with our 'winter' focus.
This was a fun experiment and we were all pretty impressed with the results of our crystal growing!




As a go along book we also read I is for Inuksuk which provided many interesting facts about Inuit life.


There are many inuksuks to be seen in Very Last First Time and the girls were quick to point them all out.
We learned about their purpose and for fun did this inuksuk shadow match.



This was such a fun row!
As you can see there was a lot of art and science for this one but like I said earlier - we were in the midst of some awfully cold temperatures!
Keeping busy with all these activities kept the cabin fever at bay for a time!



Delightful Learning

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Melting Mystery Experiment

This week's experiment was all about melting snow.
In the book The Snowy Day, Peter makes a snow ball and puts it in his pocket before going inside.
When he later goes to retieve it from his pocket, he is surprised to discover that it is gone.
We discussed what happened to his snowball and why it melted inside but not outside.
Then I got Piper to run outdoors and fill a juice jug with snow.
We talked about how, like Peter's snowball, the snow would melt and the jug would be full of water instead of snow because it is warm in the huose.
Next we marked where the top of the snow was and the girls predicted how much water would be in the jug once all the snow melted.




As you can see, they both thought about the same amount of water would result from the melting snow.


We left our snow overnight to melt.
The next morning the girls were very excited for the big reveal.

Here Piper is telling me that she thinks there will be less water than there was snow.



They were very surprised to find how much less water there was!


They also investigated the water resulting from the melted snow.
Initially, Pipe said she wanted to drink the water but once she discovered all the dirt that was in the water, she changed her mind!


Daddy had the idea that we should now redo the experiment so the girls could have a chance to make new predictions based upon their discovery from the first experiment.




This time their predictions were much more accurate!


Yay!
Science is fun!




A Wintery Week

This week was a rather fantastic one.
We're finally settling into a happy rhythm after 6 weeks of transitions and sickness (to name a few obstacles).
As a result, we were out and about quite a bit.
I think we all needed it.
As much as we all enjoy being at home, endless days of going no where can be a little much!
Because of this we got a little less done than I had planned but still kept pretty busy the times we were home!
Again, we concentrated on The Snowy Day but also had fun with a few polar animal activities I came across.


We started off with a fun little snack time game: Feed the Penguin!
The girls would roll a dice and feed the penguin the corresponding number of goldfish!



We also worked on recognizing red, yellow and green again this week by doing color hunts.
The hunting is fun.
The returning of the items not no much....





Piper put the alphabet in order with some penguin cards.


Then Tait came along and worked on finding the lowercase letter to match the uppercase letters that Pipe had put in order.



This set also includes pictures with beginning sounds to match each letter in the alphabet, although we didn't get that far this week!



Piper put numbers 1-20 in the correct order to complete an Arctic animal puzzle.
This was easy for her until she reached the teens.
Although she recognizes those numbers, she isn't quite as familiar with them so really had to think about what came next.
In the end, she completed the entire puzzle on her own and was extremely proud of herself for doing so!



We learned about Joseph and his coat of many colors this week in our Bible studies.
Of course that meant creating a colorful coat which was perfect since the girls were just itching to get at the glitter glue markers their Auntie and cousins sent them!
(Thanks Auntie Mable, Jodi and Victoria!)




The girls are OBSESSED with their lapbooks and were asking to work with them every day!
Taitum worked on sorting summer and winter clothes some more.



While Piper hunted for shapes in The Snowy Day.



It's so fun to watch her sounding out the letters to discover the correct word!
I can hardly believe she is able to do this already!



Something new we started this week was breakfast discussion time.
I posted these topics on the wall and each morning we'd talk about a different topic.
Piper was especialy eager to participate in this and was very thoughtful with her answers.
With the topic: Words That Describe Snow we also read No Two Snowflakes.
It's about a little girl writing to penpal in Africa who has never seen snow.
She uses all kinds of descriptive words and imagery to convey what snow is like and what you can do with it.
Piper was very intrigued by the fact that there are people who live in countries where there is no snow and that there are even children who have never seen snow before.
Later, I found her writing her own letter to a little girl who had never seen snow to tell her what it is like!

Overall, a big success and something I plan to continue each week!


Finally, this afternoon we made snowball cookies!
(This was an idea I got from Delightful Learning's post on The Snowy Day and a blog that I recommend as being packed full of ideas especially if you are using BFIAR!)
Piper got them started while Tait was still napping and (with the help of the Kitchenaid and me reading the recipe) did it all herself!



Tait was up in time to help roll the dough into the balls and then roll them in icing sugar after they baked!


And she sure was not going to miss the best part -
EATING THEM!



We did another science experiment this week too but once again I'll save that for another post!

Now we are looking forward to March break and a whole week with Daddy home!



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I love motherhood.

We're a smiling family.

I'm a covenant keeper.

I love my husband.

I am above self pity.

I am a nation builder.

Motherhood=Adventure

Worth more than rubies.


“I am more convinced than ever that even in the midst of the mundane, burdensome, and oftentimes frustrating tasks of life allotted to me as a mother, God wants me to find his joy. He wants every single day of my life to be a celebration of his blessings, whether large or small. He wants me to celebrate life ~ the life He has given me.”

~ Sally Clarkson







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