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We have had a fun week with Andy and the Circus this week, as well as several other fun books about the circus!

Today, we spent some time listening to circus music online from THIS site.

We also looked online at some old-fashioned circus posters HERE.

And then we had fun with a little circus act of our own!

We practiced walking on the tightrope!

We attempted to juggle!

And after our circus was over, we loaded up all the animals and sent them away on the circus train.

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The circus is coming to town! The local library was giving away free circus tickets to kids for reading so many books...so, I filled out the forms for the kids and we got 3 free tickets! Now, mind you, our 2 adult tickets still cost more than I'd like to pay...but at least we didn't have to pay for 5 tickets!

So, we are going to see the circus the first week of March. So, guess what our upcoming unit is going to be about? You guessed it! The CIRCUS!

We will be "rowing" these 2 FIAR titles: Andy and the Circus & Andy and the Lion.

And here are a few other titles we will be reading along with our circus unit!

Activities, Crafts and Lessons

*look at pictures of circus posters, discuss what they are

*make our own circus poster for art

*learn a little bit about lions (Andy and the Lion) by reading a few books on lions

*use THIS page to write down facts we learn about lions

*practice juggling (we'll start with one object, then see if we can do 2!)

*practice tight rope walking with masking tape on floor

*estimate how many animal crackers are in a jar - and then eat for a snack!

*learn how to draw a clown

*find stuffed animals in our home that would belong at the circus. Determine which would belong at the zoo, farm, etc.

*read the poem Acrobats from the book Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

*working on THIS easy reader printable book to color about the circus

*use THIS writing prompt to draw and write about what we would like to do if we were in the circus!

*use THIS circus shape book to write about our favorite things we saw at the circus, after we go.

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I have 2 blogs to add to my sidebar...the authors of FIAR, Steve and Jane Claire Lambert! Hip Hip Hooray!

I read through Steve's blog post from yesterday and knew I had to share this. It is about parenting...and oh so good!

Making Children Obey is a Cinch

This Mrs. Jane has started a blog on nature...a subject very near and dear to her heart! So, if you want to go take a peek...here ya go!

Jane Claire's Nature Notes

Posted in Five in a Row

I am planning to row this FIAR title adding in some fun ballet activities to do with the girls! We will also be learning about a bit about Russia. This is a country we have not learned about yet in our FIAR studies. I'm excited about this unit! Here are some things we are doing with this book!

Books to Read

Activities and Crafts

Homeschool share resources for Another Celebrated Dancing Bear - we will be doing the Russia flag page and Russia shutterfold book - Where in the World is Russia?

 Ballerina marionette craft

Russia coloring pages - we will be doing 2 of these pages

We will also be listening to classical music and practicing our ballet moves in the kitchen!

Paper baboushka doll - these are the Russian stacking dolls, there are several options on this page

And of course we will have to have a tea time to go with this book!

 Memory verse: A friend loves at all times. Proverbs 17:17

Prov. 17:17 coloring page

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We finished up our Katy No-Pocket week today by doing some more kangaroo activities with Will and Jacob! First of all, we found Austrailia on the map and reviewed that this is where kangaroos live. Then, I googled some examples of aboriginal dot art to show the kids. We looked at some of the austrailian art as well as listening to some aboriginal music, which I found on u-tube! That was pretty fun!

Then, we attempted to do the dot art ourselves. The kids all did such a fabulous job!

Finally, we went outside to see how far a kangaroo can jump! Wow! Pretty impressive! We used a tape measure and marked off the length of a kangaroo jump. (we marked it at 30 feet, which is probably just an average.) Then, we took turns seeing how far we could jump! The kids really enjoyed this!

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This morning we acted out the story, Katy No-Pocket. We have done this in the past with other books, but for some reason, the girls LOVED acting this one out! They giggled, laughed and acted silly for quite awhile doing all the same things that Katy did in the story! We cried when Katy cried because she had no pocket, we hopped when Katy  hopped, looking for her pocket.

We held the animals like the ones in the stories - crocodiles hold their babies on their backs, so we tried this!

Monkeys hold their babies in their arms, so we tried this as well!

Katy was so sad because none of these ways would work for her. So finally, she had the idea to go see the wise old owl, so we pretended being owls.

With the advice of the owl, we went to the city to find pockets. We found our special aprons with pockets on them - sewn for us especially by Aunt Valerie!! Thank you so much, Aunt Val!

First we dumped out all that was in them (like the man in the story) and then we tried filling our pockets with as many little animals as we could, just like Katy! We loved this story! We also learned about what marsupials are, saw pictures of TINY baby kangaroos - did you know baby kangaroos (called joey's) are only an inch long when born? WOW! The pictures were pretty neat! We learned what kangaroos eat and where they live.

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Hop! Hop! This week we are learning about kangaroos with the book Katy No-Pocket. This is a wonderful Before Five in a Row title. We will also be learning a little bit about Australia as well as other marsupials, like koalas.

Notice the illustrator of this book - H.A. Rey, the same illustrator of Curious George books! So, I think one day we will pull out some curious george books and compare illustrations! I see a lot of similarities myself!

Another cute (and silly) kangaroo book we will be reading, Joey by Jack Kent.

And a kangaroo book by  Margaret Wise Brown -  we love this author!

Here is a neat art project we will be doing this week - Australian Aboriginal Dot Art!

Here is a picture of an example from dltk kids. We will use q-tips to do this project.

Here are the homeschool share resources to go with Katy No Pocket. From this list we will be doing the Australian coloring page found on dltk page and the kangaroo animal report page from the hss list of animals.

 I also printed the animal fact sheets off for kangaroo and koala at www.learningpage.com

Did you know that kangaroos can jump approximately 40 feet? We are going to mark off 40 feet outside one day and see how FAR it is! We will also practice jumping ourselves and see just how far we can jump!

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We had a fun school day with our cousins Jacob, Mattie, Kaitlyn, Will, Colin and Jack! First we listened to the story, Going on a Bear Hunt. This, in my opinion, should be required reading for all children ages 2 and up!  It definitely is one of our favorites! After we read the story, we slapped our legs and said the story in rhythm...going on a bear hunt...going to catch a bear...a great big bear...what a beautiful day...we're not scared! We also listened and watched as the author of this story, Michael Rosen, chanted and sang this story online. HERE is the link if you are interested in sharing this with your child!

After we read the story, we went on a BEAR HUNT! My mom and I have quite a few teddy bears, mom loves to collect them, so we hid them all around the house and the kids had lots of fun running around the house finding bears!

After we found all the hiding bears, we sorted them by size, sorted them by color, counted them and sang Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear Turn Around with them. We had lots of fun!

To finish up our school morning we had a picnic lunch out on the picnic table!

Pictures from our day are in the slideshow above.

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Today we learned how to draw a boat...the girls did a GREAT job!!

And here are our vocabulary words. This is the 2nd week we have done this and I am so glad we are doing it! I have realized that I should just choose 3 or 4 at the most to make cards of and actually focus on. It is way too many to try and do all of the ones in the FIAR manuals, for us at least! I am generally happy if the girls pick up just 1 or 2 new words from our week! So, instead of focusing on so many next time, I have made up only 4 cards. The girls do enjoy holding the cards and listening for the words as they are read in the middle of the story! That is their "job" on 1 of our readings each week.

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As I posted earlier we are getting ready to leave for the beach this Saturday morning! I can't wait! But getting there is another thing...all the packing, lists, worrying about what I'll forget, piles of stuff in our room...you know the routine! I think the week before leaving on vacation is harder than any other! But it will be SO worth it!

In preparation for the beach we are rowing a book called Arabella for our school this week. This book is about a little boy and his grandfather who go out on a sailboat...the grandfather also has a special boat from his grandfather which is named Arabella. We have had fun learning about the MANY different types of boats, the girls painted a wooden boat one day and I have a fun activities lined up for them too. We have worked on a few vocabulary words pertaining to boats - like mast, deck, hoist, white cap, sails and ruddder.

I'm excited, too, because next week at the beach we will go on a ferry ride, like we did last year. This is a LOT of fun or all of us...and it will be neat to show the girls different boats in real life after we have spent a week reading about them!

Here is the website for the author of Arabella. A lady on the FIAR boards contacted Ms. Orr about her book (it was out of print) and she had some still at her home! So, quite a few of us emailed her and bought books directly from the author! She signed them with our kids names and everything! So, that makes this book even more special to own!

http://www.wendyorr.com/