Book Review: The Little Man In The Map

Not sure how I stumbled upon this book on Amazon, but it peaked my interest. My library did not have the book, but they ordered it for their collection upon my request!  I LOVE my library!  This is definitely one I will be putting on my Wishlist as one I'd like for us to own.  Anyways, the book is, "The Little Man In the Map: With Clues To Remember All 50 States," by E. Andrew Martonyi.

A map of the 50 States certainly is not an ordinary map after you read this book full of creativity and rhyme.  Did you know there is a little man with a hat, face, shirt, pants, and a boot in the map of the USA?  The little man, Mim, will also show you a chair and a four-legged table, a drinking cup, a flashlight, turtle, a little elf... and much more!   Mim shows you how each state comes alive and interacts with states nearby like you've never imagined.

This book is definitely engaging and exciting, it opened my eyes to look at the map in a totally different way.  I was and am impressed with the uniqueness of this book.  Though, the only down-side was that it is a long and descriptive book, and Tyler, whose 4, lost interest halfway through as I kept stopping to point everything out.  Next time, I'll break the reading up over various days and regions.  Learning the 50 States with this book is much more fun than straight memorization!

After reading, we pulled out our USA puzzle and pieced it together using the clues from the book!

If you need a fresh look at the Fifty States, check it out!  You WILL be impressed!

** please note, this review is my own and my sole purpose of writing this was to make more people aware of such a book.

FIAR: Papa Piccolo

During Week 4, we rowed a book by Carol Talley called, "Papa Piccolo."  Papa Piccolo has been Tyler's favorite book thus far.  I think it is because Piccolo was a cat and he loves cats!  It is just too sweet whenever he talks about my mom's cat, India, as if she were a person... not a cat!  India is always included in our prayers. 

Papa Piccolo is about a adventurous cat whose life is changed one night when he finds two homeless kittens left alone in a cardboard box.  Eventually Piccolo becomes a 'papa' by taking them as his own. 

Social Studies:  Piccolo lives in Venice, Italy, so we learned the location of Italy and made a flag.  We talked about how there are no cars in Venice-- you either get around by some type of boat or walk (or ride a bike, maybe?).  Needless to say, Tyler didn't like that idea very much.  I looked up "gondola rides" on YouTube and found a couple we could watch.  Oh, how I would love to go to Venice one day!  I had checked out a DVD for us to learn how to speak Italian with Little Pim, the panda; however, Tyler was not interested.  Finally, we talked about daddy and he filled out a worksheet I had found on pinterest.

My favorite: Q: "What does your dad wear?"
Tyler's answer: "underwear, pants, shirt."

Language Arts:  Talked about some vocabulary words; there were a lot of words in this book that he did not know the meaning of. 

Math:  We did an activity from our Five In A Row manual.  To add to the lesson, we practiced counting by 2's and talked about different words that mean 2, like "bi" in bicycle, "couple,"  and "pair." 

Art:  We learned how to draw a cat.  We re-visited the Color Wheel; I am not sure when I taught him this, but he still loves telling me and others what the primary and secondary colors are and what happens when you mix them together!  So we made another color wheel and talked about warm vs. cool colors and learned complementary colors!  Leonardo Da Vinci was from Italy, so we read a book about him and I found a Mona Lisa that he colored.

Tyler's "Monster" cat and mine to the left!

Science:  There is still an active volcano in Italy.  I forget the name, my apologies!  Tyler was soooo excited to create his own volcano and it was fun to watch it erupt!  I should have bought a gallon of vinegar!  And since Piccolo was a cat, we talked about the different characteristics and breeds of cats.  We looked through several books.  We talked about how we take care of a cat and learned how they communicate.  Tyler loved having me use Abby as "our kitty" to show him how we hold cats-- Abby, was not impressed.

To finish off our week, we ate homemade pizza, homemade tiramisu, and store bought gelato!  Next, we are off to France!  Ciao!

FIAR: Lentil

Truth be told, I don't have the best memory; however, I can remember some of the books I used to read growing up like The Babysitter's Club series, Amelia Bedelia, Imogene's Antlers, Bernstein Bears, R.L. Stine books, etc... but NONE of the Five In A Row titles ring a bell!  And this week's row was no different.  We read "Lentil" by Robert McCloskey.  It's a cute story that includes a harmonica, patriotism, and lemons!  Random, I know!

Geography:

Lentil lives in a small town of Alto, Ohio.  Tyler colored a Ohio fact sheet and placed our story disk on our U.S. map. In the story, the town of Alto gets ready to welcome home a very important citizen, Colonel Carter, by decorating the streets with American flags so we talked about Patriotism and the importance of our county. Tyler had learned the Pledge of Allegiance this past July, but we recited it again several times over the week.  So gosh darn cute to hear him try to say, "indivisible." 

Language Arts:
Talked about the Elements of a Story and applied them to "Lentil."  This was a bit over Tyler's head : )  But nonetheless, I tried ; )

Math:
Used a banana and our Melissa and Doug Pizza Puzzle to introduce the concept of fractions: whole vs. half vs. quarters.  Let me just add, I am soooooooooooo nervous to dig deeper into this subject!  Math was not my thing!  But I think the concept was well received-- especially since he got to eat the banana afterwards.  Hmm... I think I am on to something... food = increased willigness to learning! 

Art:
We talked about the medium used for the illustrations.  I didn't have any charcoal for him to use, so I had him draw a picture with a pencil.  He drew a monster truck with fire around it!  We also whittled soap, just like Old Sneep-- made quite a mess too!

Science:
We talked about how we use our tongue to taste things; it's one of our five senses! We learned the four different flavors our tongue can taste and where they are located on our tongue: salty, sweet, sour, and bitter.  We did an experiment to show how the parts of our tongue taste things differently.  First I had Tyler guess the flavor of our food samples: sugar, unsweetened cocoa powder, chips, and lemons.  He guessed three of them correctly.  Initially he thought the chips would be sweet, but they ended up tasting salty.


My favorite memory of this row was when Tyler took his harmonica and played wherever he went, just like Lentil; he even serenaded our cashier at the grocery store!  And Finally, in honor of  "Lentil", we made lemon cupcakes with homemade vanilla icing!  Yum! 

Linking up @:

 

FIAR: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

Coming off of our vacation 'high' was much tougher than I thought-- I mean wouldn't you rather be floating like this, with no cares in the world?! 

I actually enjoyed the book Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel; I don't think I had ever read it before.  We read the book for four days and listened to it via audio once, which was interesting.  We had access to the audio from Homeschool Freebie of the Day. I didn't take too many pictures this time around, so bare with me! 

Social Studies/ Geography:

Mike Mulligan wasn't set in a specific location, but Mike and Maryanne had helped build tunnels for railways, canals for boats to travel through, and basements for tall skyscrapers, so we narrowed in on the idea of a Canal, specifically the Panama Canal ( I got the idea over at The Attached Mama-- check it out!).  We colored the flag of Panama and looked up a lot of pictures of the canal, even pulled it up on Google Earth.  We briefly talked about skyscrapers and construction workers too.

Language Arts:

Explained the concept of Personification and drew pictures on the chalkboard.  I also had Tyler narrate the story for me and this is his overview, "Mike Mulligan and a steam shovel dig many years.  They built a tall building, then they rest."  Narration and sequencing are obviously something we need to work on!

Math:

We "Rolled a Skyscraper."  We each took turns rolling a die and adding so many number of blocks til they were all gone.  Hopefully you built a good foundation so it didn't tumble!  In the book it talks about Maryanne digging "four walls--neat and square" and we took this concept one step further and studied Cubes.  We made a 3D cube with marshmallows and ate a couple too!



Which one has more water?

Science:

To understand what a steam shovel is, we learned about the States of Matter.  We watched ice go from a solid to liquid to a gas and also talked about how liquids take the shape of their containers.  Briefly we talked about the differences between rivers and canals. 

Go Alongs:

"Otis" by Loren Long

"Diggerman" by Andrea Zimmerman

"Skyboys" by Deborah Hopkinson

"Space Shapes" by Stuart J. Murphy

"Science Explorer: States of Matter" by Matt Mullins

a couple States of Matter books ( I didn't write them down!)

Thanks for tuning in! 

Celebrating daddy's #30th Mike Mulligan Style!

I'm a Pinning Fool....

Are you?

If you need another reason to get online, join Pinterest!  It's a place to save all your favorites with a picture attached-- brilliant!  This really helps me when I am searching for homeschooling ideas, recipes, etc.  No more writing down ip addresses (that can be quite long) on random pieces of paper and trying to remember what it was for and/ or misplacing it altogether!  So, jump on the bandwagon and join me @ http://pinterest.com/kkc11/

Here are some things I have done already:

No Sew Fabric Flower Headband
http://www.prudentbaby.com/2010/10/no-sew-rolled-fabric-flower-baby.html  (I've made a gazillion!)
Cornstarch Sidewalk Paint
http://pinkandgreenmama.blogspot.com/2009/07/color-my-driveway-cornstarch-sidewalk.html
Homemade Baby Cereal
http://homemadeginger.blogspot.com/2011/02/homemade-whole-grain-baby-cereal.html
Fresh Raspberry Lemonade
http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2009/05/summer-sweet-raspberry-lemonade/  (yes!  I even sieved the raspberries!)
Raspberry Cheesecake Cupcakes
http://annies-eats.net/2010/08/06/raspberry-swirl-cheesecake-cupcakes/    Are you drooling yet?  Yum!

And there is SO much more to do!

Enjoy!

FIAR: The Story About Ping

Our first "Row" was "The Story About Ping" by Marjorie Flack.  It was an endearing tale about a young duck named Ping, who decided to run away because he did not want to receive his punishment for being the last one on the boat.  However, it turns out that running away only presented more dangers!

Have you ever tried to run away from taking your punishment?  Well, I won't bore you with examples from my life, but learning discernment and that our actions have consequences are great lessons for littles to learn.

Our mornings began with (and this is what we do every week):

• Calendar time-- we write the day and date and Tyler makes the date in change.
• Day of the week copywork
• All About Spelling sound review
• Coloring a new Sight Word-- over at 1+1+1=1, you can find color by number sight words.  I have modified it since and have Tyler pick two colors; one is used for even numbers, the other is for odd numbers. He then draws a number (0-9) for each letter, and colors the letters accordingly.  We also sing the sight word to the tune of B-I-N-G-O.

Enjoying our story outside at a nearby pond.

I don't have a set time for when we read our FIAR book or do the activities, but I try to do them when Abby takes a nap.  FIAR is taking a chosen book from the curriculum an reading it everyday, for at least a week, and focusing on one subject area each day.  Thus Monday is Geography, Tuesday is Language Arts.... etc. 

For this row we did multiple subjects each day, so I am just going to share this row by subject categories:

Social Studies/ Geography:  I had packed Tyler's suitcase with books we would be using for the row and gave him his very own Passport!  (Not real, of course!).  After we "flew" around the kitchen a few times, we landed in China.  We colored the Chinese Flag and found China on our world map.  We also talked about the Yangtze River (that is where Ping lived), looked at pictures of the river online, and noted that it is the longest river in China.

Language Arts:  We focused on copywork.  On Friday, I had Tyler narrate the story and his reply to "What was the story about?"  Tyler replied, "He got spanked.  Then he run on the boat."  Well... he's always been a man of few words. : ) 

Math:  Tyler did a worksheet from HSS; he colored and counted all the ducks in Ping's family.  It was great to see how many other ducks Ping lived with!  Tyler also did a Duck connect the dots worksheet and played with Tangrams we got from the library.



Worksheet from Homeschool Share

Art: Tyler made a dragon hand print, learned to draw a duck, and made a paper plate duck.  Some of ideas came from Michelle over at Delightful Learning.  Thanks so much!



Science:  Tyler performed a Sink vs. Float experiment and we read a book called, "Ducks Don't Get Wet" and did the experiment in the back (this idea also came from Delightful Learning in fact, ducks don't get wet because their feathers are covered with oil!  We made a Duck Facts booklet from HSS, too.





Ducks Don't Get Wet



Other:  We watched Learn Chinese with MeiMei and learned how to say "hello" and "how are you".  We greeted Bruce with a "Ni Hao" when he got home from work!  And we also rented a Learn Karate dvd from the library-- learning from a video was rather hard!  Not to mention, I was wearing Abby in my Moby.  FYI, learning Karate while wearing a Moby wrap does not work!  Oh... and in one of our books was a recipe for Egg Custard, which was a complete FAIL!  Yuck!  But we tried!

50 States Study:  We looked at some books about California, found it on the map, and made the California State Flag.



It was a great first week!



Our 4K Year

Our school year has started (kinda)....  We started the second week of August and it went great, then came a last minute invite to go Up North for about a week and we accepted.  I was almost going to say, "No" to the invite because, hello we have school!  BUT, that is the beauty of homeschooling!  We didn't exactly take our school Up North ( I tried, but it did not go well), but we followed up with a second week of school afterwards.  Then we took another "break" because we had new windows being put in, and sawdust and busting out windows did not seem like a good atmosphere to do schoolwork in! So... we are on our third week of school and it's pretty dry-- not too exciting, but I am SO thankful for the "breaks" we did have because we pretty much did some type of schoolwork all summer.  Our "breaks" were much needed!

Anyways... our year has slowly begun and this is what we are getting into this year:

FIAR (language arts, math, science, geography, social studies, art-- it's all covered!)
Math-- Math U See Primer
Phonics-- a variety of things!  Hooked On Phonics, Sight Word work, Kumon books, and dipping into All About Spelling (we'll see how this goes, I realize he is still quite young).
50 State Fridays-- learning the location and a fact about one of our 50 Nifty States

And I think that is it!

I'm Blogging!

Oh dear.... what am I getting myself into?  I figure I can write a post each week.  In the words of The Little Blue Engine That Could.... " I think I can, I think  I can, I think I can..."  My blog is still a work in progress, but "don't put off tomorrow, what you can do today, " right?!? ...or something like that.  So here it goes...  


My blog is mainly focused on our homeschooling journey; to let family and friends know what is going on in our neck of the woods and to help me remember what in the world I did with Tyler for when Abby comes of age!  Tyler is in K4 this year and we have about 2 weeks under our belt that I'll be sharing in more detail later... but it's also a place for me to share a few other randoms as they occur....  


Stay tuned!