Poppins Book Nook- Folktales!

   We chose to read "Stone Soup" (The 1947 version) by Marcia Brown as part of the Poppins Book Nook series with the May theme of "Folktales."  We chose to focus on this particular book for a whole week. On Monday, we simply read the book and familiarized ourselves with the story. Tuesday, we reread the book and then filled out the questions on the bookmark provided (free) here by Enchanted Homeschooling Mom. Wednesday we reread the story again, only this time I would pause at the end of a sentence or page and see if Chickadee could finish the phrase. After we finished reading the book this day, Chickadee had to fill out a shopping list for Stone Soup. 

Chickadee is sounding out the words she needs to add to her list!

This is one of her best "Inventive Spelling" papers yet! I was so proud of her for sounding out each word on her own and not asking for any help!

 On Thursday we completed a lapbook I found here, which was specifically for the version of Stone Soup (by Marcia Brown)! Chickadee had a great time adding to the lapbook and answering the questions!  

On Friday, we read the book one last time, completed the lapbook components from our Poppins Book Nook lapbook (found here) and then we made our very own STONE SOUP! There are many recipes for stone soup on the internet and we took advice from several and came up with our own recipe. 

Adding the Stone to our Stone Soup!

Adding Potatoes!

Mix it all up!

She gave it 2 thumbs up! MMMM!

While the soup was cooking, we did one final project. I created a template with a big black pot on it that said "Stone Soup" and gave her some magazines to look through and cut out ingredients for stone soup. I think this was her favorite project of the whole week! She loved cutting and gluing all the different foods she could find for her picture! (It was great fine motor/scissors skills work too!)

All we used for our stone soup collage!

Cutting in Action!

Finished Collage!!

All in all, we had a great week reading this folktale and doing various activities to go with this great book! What a fun adventure to learn to make Stone Soup!

Until life's next adventure,

~B

USA Adventures

   This spring I started "Road Trip USA" (from Confessions of a Homeschooler) with Chickadee as she was showing a lot of interest in different states and maps. We have had a lot of fun learning about the USA so far! Below are some of the resources we are using for our study (along with the purchased curriculum from above).

We are using National Geographic KIDS United States Atlas; National Geographic KIDS U.S. Road Trip Atlas; Sticker Atlas of the United States (gifted to us by a friend who hadn't used it); 50 States Under God for young learners (not pictured); Flash Cards United States (from Target dollar spot); and other books for each state from our local library! We also have a large wall map and a few of the highlights "Which Way USA" for select states. 

The first lesson introduces the 5 main regions in our country:

We completed next few lessons going over important American icons.

 The White House mini book contains info on who lives there, the address, and other important facts. The Flag mini book talks about the history, the reason behind the stars/stripes, etc. The Statue of Liberty mini book (Chickadee's favorite!)  has info on who gave it to America, why they did, where it is located, etc. And the last mini book is the Pledge of Allegiance with it written on the inside. (Chickadee and I took turns writing phrases so not to overwhelm her!) During  these first few lessons we talked about the different regions of our country and other basic information pertaining to our country as a whole. We also read a little about our Country's Capitol- Washington D.C. and located it on a map!

  Watch for an upcoming post containing info on the next few lessons in Road Trip USA! I highly recommend this curriculum for any elementary aged child interested in learning about the states of our country and having fun!

Until our next adventure,

~B

DISCLAIMER: These review is completely mine. I am not being paid in any way for my views and recommendations. 

Dolphin Adventures!

     Most of my posts are about the adventures of Chickadee or our family.... this post however is all about an adventure I got to take recently! A few years ago my family attended a local zoo's Christmas display and while waiting for the dolphin show I was reading through a brochure. I noticed it said that they offered a "Dolphin In-Water Experience" and I told my husband that that was what I wanted for my next big "milestone" birthday in a year and a half. He just kinda laughed it off and that was it. WELL, this year happened to be my next "milestone" birthday and he remembered! My parents, mother-in-law, husband, and Chickadee all chipped in to help pay for a dream to come true! (I have wanted to swim with dolphins FOREVER.... I even considered studying them for a profession!)  

   The experience was incredible! We had a short "class" on dolphins and were introduced to the dolphins at our local zoo, we watched the dolphin show from reserved seats, then got changed and headed to the back pools to interact with them! I loved every minute of it (except for maybe my fishy smelling hands from feeding the dolphins all those fish..lol). I will stop rambling now and just show you some pictures!

This picture was given to me from the Zoo!! Dolphin kisses are awesome!

We got to give commands, pet, hug, high five, feed, and enjoy the dolphins!

Definitely an Adventure of a lifetime!!! :)

Til life's next adventure,

~B

Random Adventures!

Here is a summary of our late winter/early spring adventures!!

   Everyone's a Princess Adventure: The weekend we attended my sisters' bridal shower, we also were able to attend "The Enchanted Princess Ball" (more info found here). I highly recommend any Michigan readers with young daughters look into this! We have been 3 times (the school a family member works at hosts this event every year!). It is such a fun activity to experience with your daughters! (My favorite it always seeing the Dad's that bring their "Princesses" for a date!) Anyways, its a local group who dresses up and performs many of the best princess songs from the Disney movies. It is interactive as they dance and sing around where you are sitting, bring all the kids up to the castle for not one but TWO separate dance parties! and prince Charming even tries the glass slipper on several of the girls feet in the audience. Afterwards they give you a lot of time to take personal pictures with each of the princess characters! Here are a few of our pictures from this year's event!

Throwing her gold coin into the Wishing Well

 

Dance Party!

 

Snow White and Cinderella

Sofia the First

Bell (Chickadee's favorite princess)

Tinker Bell 

Elsa from Frozen!

   Superhero Adventures:  Chickadee also attended school with her Grandma on "Superhero" day and they dressed up like Super(wo)man and her Super Hero Sidekick!

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's SUPERMAN!

     Birthday STOMP adventures: My husband's, my youngest sister's, and my birthdays are all in April and on one of our trips visiting my parents in Michigan, STOMP (awesome percussion performance) happened to be performing near by.  My parents surprised the 3 of us with tickets to see the show!  We were all surprised and very excited! Chickadee still remembers things from the show and will break out in Stomp-inspired music from time to time now!

                                   

Those were are biggest adventures in the past few months! We have also taken several field trips for school (watch for upcoming post) and we are currently wrapping up our school year! We are excited to see what adventures summer will hold! 

'Til life's next adventure,

~B