FIAR - Rag Coat

This week we rowed through The Rag Coat.

We made a yummy dinner of butter bean stew w/ a side of collard greens and cornbread.

 Pear Stack cake

And Coal Cookies.....(these are gluten free/dairy free)

We studied a bit about the Appalachian Mountains and watched the movie Christy (the season premiere episode)...

Because of this, we talked about Appalachian superstitions...

Weather:

• Aching joints indicate rain.
• When a bobwhite calls, it’s praying for rain.
• Thick, tight shucks on corn indicate bad weather.
• Killing a black snake and hanging it on a fence with its belly turned to the sun will bring rain before the next sunset.
• If it rains on Monday, it will rain 3 days that week.

Marriage:

• If a girl sleeps in a strange bed and names each bedpost a boy’s name, the post she looks to first upon waking will name the boy she’ll marry.
• A girl won’t get married if anyone sweeps under her feet

Some more:

1. If you tell a bad dream before breakfast it will come true. 

2. If you hear a dog howling in the middle of the night, it is a sign of a death in the community.

3. If your nose starts itching, company is coming.

4. Death comes in threes to a family or community.

5. If you whistle before breakfast, you will cry before dusk. 

6. If you drop a biscuit while taking them from the oven, you will have unwelcome company.

We worked on a rag doll kit.  This was a hands on project for mom since Lydia had trouble cutting and cannot sew on my machine yet.

We also made a Nettle Rag Doll

 We read this really neat story about appreciating all we have.

 We were fortunate enough to be given some coal...both washed and unwashed. (Can you tell the difference?)  So our study of coal began, where it's found and mined.

 This was a great book to read about coal.  And the uses that we have today and in the past for coal.

 I wanted to simulate mining, and how it's not easy....so I set up this project for the girls.

 After they finally cracked the shell (rock), they had to dig out the pieces and try to keep them as whole as possible.

Lydia learned how hard the shell was when she tried to break the shell without the hammer just using the table.

 This was fun science.  They had to mine the chocolate chips out.

Break the shell and crumble it to get the choco chips out whole.

They kept sneaking their "coal" from the pile.

Coal Flowers 

Since we had this wonderful coal, we decided to attempt the coal flowers project.

Lydia did one pink and one blue.  The pink one did not work because there was too much liquid.

But the blue one sprouted beautiful flowers!!!

This was a project that kids done with their mom's cleaning supplies.  The coal is not necessary, but it's what they had on hand.  And it provided a beautiful area for the "flowers" to grow!  

My dad, who works with coal, told us that the ammonia acts as a solvent to break down the coal.  The ammonia also speeds up the rate of evaporation.

We had fun learning about the Appalachian Mountains....next we will be rowing Cranberry Thanksgiving.  Can't wait to learn more about not judging people for what they look like!!!

FIAR--Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

This week we rowed through Robert Frost....Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.  Joey even got in on the fun this time.  I wanted to introduce a bit of poetry with him.  And he seemed to enjoy it.

These are the books that we used this week.

Here are the girls covers along with their animal track match-up sheets.  

 They enjoyed looking at all the animals and tracks in the story.  They liked finding all the animals in the pictures.  It was cute to see an adult having fun in the snow.

 We made snow globes that kind of turned into lava lamps.

And then we read Snowballs by Lois Ehlert and they created their own snow people using all kinds of different materials.

 Here's two of the finished snow people.

Lydia and Joey created color poems.  I sat down with the both of them at one time to create these.  They each took turn, and they were not allowed to copy the sentences.  It was fun.

White by Joey

White looks like clouds

White sounds like crunching as I walk on snow.

White smells buttery and salty like popcorn.

White tastes sweet like coconut ice cream.

White feels soft like cotton candy on my thumb.

White is the color of fun.

White by Lydia

White looks like snow.

White sounds like pitter pat of snowflakes falling.

White smells flowery like a snap dragon.

White tastes cold like a snowflake on my tongue.

White feels soft like a snow bunny.

White is the color of winter.

Have a great week.  We won't be rowing next week, but the week after we will be.  Not sure what one yet.