BFIAR: My Blue Boat

Solar Eclipse!

To kick off our third week of school, we took a library trip to observe the solar eclipse. Our librarian gave us NASA glasses to view the eclipse safely. The library also had Moon Pies and half vanilla/chocolate Oreos! It had been 99 years since a Great American Eclipse! It was a great day.

We sang "Tuning Up For Outer Space" all week long!

We read many great picture books about the sun and moon. I have to share the book "The Moon is Going to Addy's House" by Ida Pearle. It was the perfect find for Monday. I want to add it to our home library (even if we don't spell Addie with a Y)!

We created our own solar eclipse project. She took dark blue paper, traced a circle with yellow chalk, and spread the chalk down to look like the eclipse!

BFIAR: My Blue Boat

Reading 

We read "My Blue Boat" by Chris L. Demarest. The new vocabulary included channel, harbor, fleet, beacon, and more. She asked about each of their meanings! We tracked the boat on its journey and left to right. We also compared a few similar pages with "Yellow Ball."

Thank goodness for our library, because she consumed many new books this week about harbors, boats, lighthouses, oceans, whales, dolphins, and more!

We used this preschool book report. We also practiced verbally summarizing the story.

Letter of the Week: C 

For letter C, we created this adorable uppercase cat and lowercase cookie!

Science: Floating vs Sinking
This science experiment was her favorite. We filled two containers: one with regular tap water and the other with salt water. We grabbed items throughout the house to predict, observe, and record whether or not they sink or float. The printable was pulled from The Measured Mom's blogpost.

Art: Watercolors 
First we used a white crayon to draw her boat. Then she painted with watercolors! She of course added a yellow sun and purple waves.

Art: Clay 

We created a copy of the little girl's boat in the story. We talked about the mast, the bow, and the sails. 

Music

Here were our favorites songs from the week! Many were already familiar to us, or we already knew the tune.

• "Row, Row Your Boat"
• "Once I Caught a Fish Alive"
• "Waves in the Sea"
• "Take Me Out to the Sea"
• "Baby Shark"

BFIAR: Yellow Ball

Second week of BFIAR, we've got this!

Reading 
Our book this week was "Yellow Ball" by Molly Bang! I couldn't find this in the library near me, so we read along on YouTube. Since this book features few words, we focused on tracking the ball and sequencing this week. We also spoke about Luke 8:22-25 and how Jesus also went through a storm.

We completed the same book report as last week. It's a great way to practice summarizing the story!

Prepositions 
While playing ball, I asked her to raise the ball above her head, between her knees, below her foot, kick the ball around in a circle, inside and outside of a basket, and we've been talking about many other prepositions this week!

Letter of the Week: B This week we made an uppercase B bumblebee and a lowercase b butterfly!

Storms In "Yellow Ball," a great storm sweeps up the ball. So this week, we talked about storms and weather! We watched The Magic School Bus episodes on weather (Season 1 Episode 13) and the water cycle (Season 2 Episode 5). Thank you Netflix!

We attempted to make a cloud in a jar and it went well initially... then melded into this storm-looking mess in a jar! If anything, it was interesting and fun to make. It was water, food coloring, shaving cream, and cotton balls in a mason jar.

Weather 
These videos from Sci Show Kids on YouTube captured her attention! I was worried it might be too advanced, but several times this week she's asked me about "the tiny pieces in the air" (particles) and a plethora of new questions! She also finds the idea of being shocked by a doorknob hilarious (static electricity).

After learning about weather diaries, she begged to begin one! I printed these pages from Sparkle Box. They are just her speed.

This fun, online game is about the seasons, weather, and thermometers! Here is the link: e-Learning for Kids - Weather. Some areas were advanced for her, such as Fahrenheit and Celsius measurements, but it was a good introduction.

This 3D water cycle craft from Teachers Pay Teachers was adorable! I like that it went with our focus on sequencing this week. Her project is now proudly hanging above her desk.

I used free printables from Primary Theme Park to make play-dough mats. I put them in paper protectors and added them to a folder. She loved it!

Art
One of the illustrations of "Yellow Ball" included the moon reflecting on the ocean. This was a fun fold-n-print painting. She folded a piece of cardstock in half. The bottom half she painted like the ocean, the grey moon on the top half, and then folded it to transfer the moon's reflection. She painted the night sky black. For her final touch, she added a smiley face to the moon!

Introducing oil pastels, I showed her how different they were compared to crayons, colored pencils, markers, pens. She delighted in the blending abilities she now had with these! She tried blending colors together, but preferred blending white to make the colors lighter.

The BFIAR guide suggests recreating the title page. Here is Addie's rendition!

Math: Distance and Perception
Tracking the ball throughout the story, we talked about how some pictures made the ball look bigger or smaller. We also looked at our fish tanks from different angles! 

BFIAR: Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?

This is Adelaide's first year homeschooling. She is beyond excited to begin. We are using 'Before Five in a Row' by Jane Claire Lambert. This curriculum offers the flexibility that definitely benefits a preschooler! Let us share with you our first week.

Good morning! Each day we wake up, get dressed, brush our teeth and hair, eat our breakfast, and head to our schoolroom.

Prayer! We begin our school day with a morning prayer. I borrowed this preschool prayer.

Calendar time! We use a hanging calendar to discuss the month, day, and year. We also discuss yesterday, today, and tomorrow and the weather.

My ABC Bible Verses by Susan Hunt This wonderful book showcases a new letter each week. Each story has an accompanying Bible verse and First Catechism questions. Before we begin "Rowing the Day," I like to focus on the verse and First Catechism questions for the week. Repetition is a wonderful way to hide God's word in our hearts.

Before Five in a Row: Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?

Here is an overview of our first week with BFIAR.

Reading
We read "Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?" by Nancy White Carlstrom, with our own teddy bears. She absolutely loved the story! We pointed out details and illustrations; tidiness, orderliness, loving relationships between family members, similarities and differences between Jesse's house and our own, and anything else she found interesting. We also read Proverbs 15:13 and 17:22 in a cheerful way.

By the end of the week, we had read 'Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?" countless times. I found a fantastic, free preschool book report from Teachers Pay Teachers.

Poems 
These bear-themed classic poems went along perfectly. 

• "Furry Bear" by A.A. Milne
• "Teddy Bear" by A.A. Milne
• "Three Brown Bears" by Judith McNitt 

Books 
Here are some of my all-time favorites! 

• The Bear Ate Your Sandwich by Julia Sarcone-Roach
• Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson
• Big Smelly Bear by Britta Teckentrup
• Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear by Lindsay Mattick
• A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond
• Corduroy by Don Freeman
• We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen
• Little Bear by Elsa Holmelund Minarik
• The Teddy Bear by David McPhail
• The Teddy Bears' Picnic by Jimmy Kennedy
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr.
• The Berenstain Bears series by Stan and Jan Berenstain 
• The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

Rhyming
This printable from Homeschool Share includes two pages of rhyming cards that I cut out. The rhyme pattern was difficult for her at first, but now she has a good grasp on it.

Letter of the Week: A
We made a construction paper tree and stuck apple stickers all over it. Then we sorted between uppercase/lowercase letter A's with this cute project!

Science: Weather
We watched Starfall's "What's the Weather?" with an adorable singing bear going through the seasons and changing outfits. She then dressed up our own paper bear with different outfits made from construction paper. The felt weather spinner was used to pick different conditions. She giggled the entire time.

She also liked pulling out her wooden, magnetic dress-up dolls and dressing them up for different weather too! Our friend came over for a play-date and he laughed along with us!

Patterns 
In Jesse Bear's kitchen, he has a wonderful patterned tile floor. We talked about the shapes on the floor. We played with play-dough and made lots of patterns ourselves! I love hearing her point out patterns she notices now. 

Music
I hope you enjoy dancing and singing along with these songs as much as we did!