We decided on a curriculum change. Lily was getting bored with MFW. She didn't like that the worksheets were the same every week. She already knows her letters, so it was more of a review for her, so she just got bored. When Lily is bored, she WON'T do the work. She will sit for an hour working on something that she could finish in five minutes! We decided to move to a curriculum that is more hands on, and less worksheets. It's also different every week. :) The curriculum we chose is Five In a Row. You read the same book every day for five days, and basically dissect the book. I wasn't sure how Lily would like reading the same book every day, but she really enjoys it.
Our first "row" was Madeline. She loved it! We had so much fun with this book. One of my little daycare children joined us on the days he was here, and he really had fun with it, too. Lily enjoyed Madeline so much, that we got a couple of different Madeline books at the library.
The first thing we did was talk about France. We learned that Madeline lives in France. So we found France on the map, and Lily had to identify where that was every day.
We enjoyed some French bread. When we were at the store, Lily said she doesn't like french bread, but I think her face says otherwise. :)
We worked on a GeoPuzzle. This one was of the World. We have one of just Europe, but I really wanted Lily to understand where France was compared to where the USA is. It took them a couple of days to get the puzzle done, but they did it!
Next, we learned about our bodies, and staying healthy. Madeline has her appendix out in the book, so this was a good time to talk about our health. We made wearable bodies. The lungs inflated, and they made a stomach. They even put a goldfish cracker down the esophagus and it landed in the stomach!
We talked about germs, and the importance of washing our hands. I asked Lily if she wiped her hand with a tissue, would that get all the germs off. She said yes. I put lotion and glitter on her hand, and had her rub it in. Then, I gave her a tissue to wipe it off. The glitter "germs" did not come off. I had her wash with soap and water. All clean!
We also looked at a book about the body, and identified body parts.
For art, we discussed symmetry. We made a painting with a blob of paint on one side. Fold the paper, and the picture is the same on both sides.
We also made yellow Madeline hats out of paper bowls.
Math was fun. We discussed groupings. In the book there are "twelve little girls in two straight lines," so we used counters and talked about different groupings.
Lily also does Singapore math. She enjoys it. She does a few pages a week in the workbook in addition to the hands on math activities in FIAR.
We use McRuffy phonics and Hooked On Phonics as our main reading/phonics curriculum. There is more handwriting practice in the McRuffy workbooks.
What's a good unit study without some fun food projects? We made the Eiffel Tower out of sugar wafer cookies and frosting.
And we finished up the unit with french toast for breakfast.
We also watched some episodes of the Madeline cartoon. It was such a fun week! I think we are really going to enjoy FIAR. I see many fun memories being made with these fun activities. :) Next week, we are rowing The Snowy Day and Owl Moon.
