The Little Island

This is Eden's craft of the morning.  The other three are all taking on-site classes on Mondays, so it is just the two of us.  So quiet!

She is working on Moving Beyond the Page Age 4-5 this year as her curriculum, and we are just loving it.  There is a book each week, and activities surrounding that book.  This week is The Little Island by Margaret Wise Brown.  This is a cute little book, simple enough for the preschool set to listen to and enjoy, but meaty enough for some naturalistic learning.  There is a little island in the ocean, and we see the visitors to the island throughout the seasons, very cute.  In Eden's craft for today, she created her island (the white is the island, blue the water around it), and then placed the correct number of die-cut trees and bushes on the island - practicing her counting of course.  She cut out her rock for the island, and then added the firefly stickers.  This one was a huge hit for her.  I can't say enough good about Moving Beyond the Page.  We got the supplies kit, and I love pulling out the baggie of activities for the week with my stickers, die-cuts, etc.  Left to my own devices, I would not be hunting up die-cut trees and bushes.  This is just such a good blend of literature, crafts and more traditional learning for us (letters, numbers, etc). 

As I mentioned, we are working on "notebooking" this year for science and history, more interactive way of taking notes and documenting.  This is a picture Zach worked on from his Elemental Science Logic Stage Biology.  We love Elemental Science.  They provide nice student pages with space for notes and places or outlines of sketches.  I had him copy the sketch into his laboratory notebook and then label and add color.  Then, he did his laboratory writeup in the pages afterwards for the week instead of doing them in the student pages.  We used the student pages last year, and they were certainly adequate, but with our focus this year I wanted more and chose to go this way.  He continues to do his lab with a buddy each week, which adds some extra fun into his studies. 

Book Review: Turn of the Century by Jackson

My kids loved this one. Each 2-page spread is about a child in that time period, beginning with 1000 AD. We used this in our introduction to the Middle Ages. My kids are 4, 6, 9 and 12 at the time of reading. All of them enjoyed it, even the 4yo, though her mostly the pictures. 

The kids depicted in the book ranged from about 8 to 12 I think. There was a narrative as if written by that child, followed by a bullet point list of facts about that time period. It was kept brief and entertaining. The art style was excellent. Some of the facts though were a bit gruesome (chamber pots, illness, life on board ship including eating rats, hanging), so read first if your kids are sensitive, but it was honest, keeping with the brutality of the times. It wasn't presented in a depressed or glorified way, but rather to educate.

This one gets 4 stars from us for excellent entertainment value with a nice balance of factual information.  With the range of ages we have, it is sometimes hard for us to find books that appeal across the group, and this one did a very good job.