This was one of our favorite rows so far! There were so many fun activities to do with this book.
To be honest, I had not even read through the activities in the manual when I read this book on the first day. As soon as I read it, I knew we had to take a trip to Chincoteague and Assateague Island. It is only about 2 hours away from us. They have wild ponies on Assateague Island, and a Pony Center on Chincoteague. This was the perfect field trip! Then, I opened the manual and saw that this was one of the suggested activities. :)
We have an encyclopedia of animals, so we read through the section about horses.
I found this card game on Amazon. It's called Hooray for Horses. There are 5 different card games you can play. Our favorite was the "No more horses" one, but there is also color Rummy, classic Rummy, a memory game, and one more. (I can't remember that one.) Lily loved this game. We played it over and over again. The card game also has some horse fact cards, so she learned about each type of horse.
One thing we have been doing that isn't related to any particular unit is our Kinderbach lessons. Kinderbach is a DVD (or streaming) program to teach 3-7 yr olds beginning piano. Lily absolutely LOVES her Kinderbach days. The program has music, cutting and pasting, coloring, dancing and rhythm instruments, in addition to actually playing on her keyboard. It is a really fun program, and we have incorporated it into our schooling a few times a week.
I got a set of the Draw Write Now books on Ebay a few months ago. This was the first time we have actually used them. Since we are talking about horses, I found the page that teaches how to draw a horse. Lily doesn't really like to draw, but I figured we could at least try it. She actually did very well with it! She liked the step by step instructions, and took her time with it.
This was the final result. Not bad for a 5 yr old! :)
Our trip to Chincoteague was lots of fun! We only stayed one day and night, but we packed that day FULL! We visited the Pony Center, where Lily got to ride a pony and see anything and everything pony. We went to a pony show where we saw ponies do tricks. We went to the Misty of Chincoteague museum. Misty is actually in there. Yep-It's really her. (We did NOT take this opportunity to talk about taxidermy.) ;)
Right outside of our hotel, there were a couple of ponies. We went out to see them one morning, and the owner was there. She allowed Lily to come in and feed the ponies some treats. This one is Sunny. I believe she is a descendent of Misty of Chincoteague. This was a great experience. Lily loved being up this close to Sunny.
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We went over the bridge to Assateague Island to hopefully get a glimpse of the ponies in the wild. We checked out the beach, although we did not go in the water-it was chilly! The beach was nice. The whole island (both of them) had a very relaxed, laid back feel to them.
We walked about 1/3 of a mile down a nature trail to the pony outlook. We saw some ponies! Can you see them? The little dots in the far background? They were grazing on the marsh grass.
We checked out the Assateague light house. We didn't go inside, but Lily got to see just how big a light house really is. If you look closely, you can see her standing in front of it. :)
On the way off the island, we stopped by the Island Creamery for some yummy homemade ice cream. (It just happened to be National Ice Cream Day, too!) We got to see how they make the waffle cones. It was a yummy, fun experience. :)
Lily had gotten some birthday money from her grandpa, so she decided to get some ponies and a corral at the pony gift shop. This has been a source of great fun. :) She will take them out of the corral and say they are wild ponies.
A trip to Chincoteague wouldn't be complete without getting the book Misty of Chincoteague. We will use this as a read aloud.
I got this book off of Amazon. It has lots of fun facts and activities about horses. Some of it was meant for kids a little older, but we got a few good things out of it.
One of the activities we got out of the Horse Crazy book was this horseshoe picture frame. I picked up a couple of horseshoes at a gift shop in Chincoteague, and we made a frame with it. The picture we used was from our trip.
I always try to find a little something extra to go with our units. I went to Amazon and found this Melissa and Doug Horse Corral floor puzzle.
We learned about Flora and Fauna. I found a printout on Teachers Pay Teachers, and Lily glued the pictures to the correct side.
This unit was lots of fun. I think this one was a favorite for both of us. Lots of fun memories were made with this book and the trip. We are going to do Gramma's Walk next. Lots of fun beach activities to do with that unit! ;)
