Posted in Other book activities
This was a busy week!
To go along with our science study of insects (we’re using Noeo Biology I), we decided to venture from the FIAR titles and use an Eric Carle resource from HomeschoolShare this time. We chose The Very Lonely Firefly. There were still a few lingering fireflies out this time of year, so it was pretty fun. We also read Fireflies in the Night by Judy Hawes, and enjoyed watching our Eric Carle storybook DVD.
We also baked bread, a leftover experiment from our previous week’s science assignments. It was fun! Ted enjoyed the kneading and punching it down.
At the scout den meeting, they talked about the Food Pyramid, and cut out pictures from grocery store advertisements to fill in the spaces on their own food pyramid charts. The boys had a lot of fun with it, and it was interesting to see how hard it was to find examples of some of the food groups in the ads.
The storytime theme was Fall, and Miss Amy read us several titles: Oliver Finds His Way, Scarecrow’s Hat, and A Color of His Own.
Thursday was a field trip day for us. At our local children’s history museum, re-enactors were going to portray James and Dolley Madison. An area mother had set up field trips for all the local homeschool groups, and we were able to attend. There was an enormous crowd! We only spotted one other mother that we knew, and it was a fellow FIAR mom. After the initial greeting, our assigned groups went separate ways, so we didn’t get to chat. They were pretty good at keeping all the groups on schedule, but the activities weren’t designed with young active children in mind. That was a disappointment. The groups went from re-enactor to re-enactor (of local personalities) and that meant mostly sitting and listening. They were great, but since our groups ranged from babes in arms all the way up to teenagers, it would’ve been nice for more active stations. The biggest hits were the Virginia Reel station (the only active one) and the Cherokee Indian, who proceeded to demonstrate starting a fire with a string and a stick, and stopped after mere seconds because to go further would set off the alarms. I thought he was just teasing, but there was actual smoke after mere moments of the drill method for starting a fire. Amazing! Anyway, after a few rotations, we all lined up (all the groups) to go into the large auditorium and meet the guest stars, the Madisons. They started with Dolley Madison, who chatted with the children, and then brought in James. We weren’t able to stay for the entirety of this portion, because it was hard to hear their quiet voices and my two were tired of sitting. So we quietly stepped out.
It was hard to go on the field trip; an anxiety attack hit pretty hard when we arrived, but a sweet mama in the next van over (in the parking garage) stopped to make sure I was okay, and that moment of kindness made it easier to keep going. The kids were excited about the chance, and I’m glad we got to try, even if it didn’t turn out how we hoped.
And as a bonus, my sister came into town and joined us after for lunch and chit-chat before she had to continue on her way to meet some friends for a weekend trip. So that was great!
We did some Cub Scout memory work, and Friday afternoon Ted used his new fishing pole in casting practice, to prepare for Saturday.
The Cub Scout Fishing Rodeo was on Saturday. Daddy took him, and it was quite an exciting event. We’d never been fishing, and had no clue about anything, including how to get a fishing license, but the FIAR forum gals were a great help in sorting us out. (I printed and saved all your advice, ladies! It was a BIG help!) Unfortunately (fortunately?) no fish were caught by Ted, but he had fun anyway. The boys also got to do activities toward the Fishing Belt Loop, including making their own bamboo fishing poles and learning the parts of a fish.
