Arkansas: Rosie’s Fiddle

Sooooo……  I said there are no real books on Arkansas at my library.  I cheated and said this one way, because the state instrument (that’s right they have one) is a fiddle.

I thought about going back and remaking our Fiddle craft from Banjo Granny.  But, that would be derivative…….  Okay not really, I just didn’t want to do the same thing.



So,  Rosie's Fiddleis about a woman who is the best fiddler in the area.  It’s rumored she’s so good that she could outwit the Devil.  Of course he can’t have that, so he comes and tries to trick her.  She has to outwit and outplay him.

This of course led me to decide to have my kids think about how they would outwit the Devil.

First though, we had a very long talk about how we should never try to outwit the Devil and what to do when faced with temptation, how to handle that.




Not too surprisingly Batman decided he was going to out fight the Devil.  Superman decided to build a machine.  He was on a real machine kick that day……..



Princess was still thinking about designing jewelry earlier, so she decided to make a necklace to trap him with.

I kid you not.

My kids amuse me, frequently.  I’d even say it happens several times a day…….

Michigan: The Log Cabin Quilt

Jeff’s working late, so I’m having fun working through my backlog of things to write about.

We’ve just had a crazy CRAZY spring, and the summer isn’t looking to calm down.  These are all things done weeks ago.

They’re not super exciting as far as activities go, but the books are so wonderful that I have to share them.

“The Log Cabin Quilt is about a family that moved to Michigan after their Mom died.  The grandma comes with them, but their Dad is sad.

One winter night he’s gone out hunting and they see he hasn’t gotten back.  It’s cold and they’re sad, and they try something unusual to help with the cold.

One of the major plot points of the book revolves around “chinking the cabin,” chinking is putting bits of mud into the holes between logs.  I loved the chinking activity Phyllis did with her kids, but with less than 15 minutes for our activity, that was not an option.



So, we colored in our chinking.  Then we drew how we would decorate our cabin if we were trying to make it feel like home.

Apparently my boys would put random bits of color in their houses.  Actually I think he explained to me it was a tube that would deliver the things he wanted.  He went on to describe the things, and it was a long and bizarre list.

Babies, toys, candy, food, more food, and then some more food.  Apparently my kids are starved, and I never feed them.  And, I’m still wondering about the babies.  His theory was he’d send them back when they started crying.

Arkansas Flag

I was intrigued by the history of the Arkansas flag.  I know all of the states have great histories behind their flag, but this is the first one I was that desperate to find something about the state to find it out.

Here’s what I found out:

 

The large diamond is to represent Arkansas being the only state to produce diamonds.

 

The 25 stars inside of it are because Arkansas is the 25th state to enter the Union.

 

The top star in the middle is because Arkansas was part of the Confederacy.  The lower 3 stars are for France, Spain, and the United States, the other 3 countries that had ruled over Arkansas.  Information from 50 state flags

 

Well, after teaching them all about this, we took the time to design our own flags.  I could tell everyone’s minds weren’t really on the lesson as we went through, so I cut everything short and sent them outside to play.

 

I got Mac playing with Batman, and Robot Boxing from another kid (who’d just spent the last hour telling me all about Robot Wars).  It just went downhill from there, ending with Princess who just sat there and stared outside.

 

There’s some battles you can’t win, so I sent them outside and they played……..

Science Sunday: Shark report

 

To finish up our study of Swimming Creatures I had each of my kids choose their favorite sea animal to write a report on.  I was able to predict exactly what animal each of my kids would write about.

We used the stapleless book I shared about yesterday.


Today, I’m going to share Superman’s report, Sharks by Superman.  Very original title.


Each page had one fact and an illustration of that fact.
Sharks hach (hatch) out of egt (egg) cas (cases).
Make sharks teeth are sharp.



The whale shark is the bigest (biggest) shark.
The Tiger Shark teeth are like a sa (saw).


Sharks hav (have) cartilage.  (I let him copy cartilage).
Sharks are colb bloobb (cold blooded).

Two pictures of sharks drinking sprite (his favorite drink).

About the author page: Superman and his sharks.


Then he made a visual aid of a shark.  You can see it in the bottom corner of the left hand picture and read his report to two different adults, Daddy and Mrs. E.  He was SO proud of himself.  I don’t blame him.

I see a shark there, don’t you?

Have you ever had your kids do reports?  Did you grade them?  This time I didn’t, but I think next time I’ll use a rubric.

Let’s see what others did this week:

The Homeschool Scientist shared about the snake they found and some follow up ideas.


No Doubt Learning shared their model eardrum.  I loved her follow on suggestions.

Fit Kids Clubhouse shared about “Solid, Liquid, and Gas” for pre-schoolers using balloons.

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Missouri: Mark Twain

I actually found a pretty decent kid version of Huckleberry Finn (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer #2: The Best Fence Painter (Easy Reader Classics) ).  Hmph, I obviously should’ve edited that before copying it.  Oh well.

 

  I’ve always enjoyed his story, but then I always enjoy stories with young scamps in them, or not so young scamps.  I like trickster characters………

 

Well, it’s a cute story that takes that portion of Huck Finn, and makes it into an easy reader.

 

I thought this was a perfect opportunity to work on elements of story.

 

In particular:

and of course:

Missouri: The Gateway Arch

I found a great book about the The Gateway Arch.  It had all the information about it, but it wasn’t too overwhelming.

 

After reading it we took some time to talk about what kind of monument we might design.  Can you guess what the boys wanted to design?

 

Yes, we got one that looks like the Washington Monument, one birthday cake, and then two battle scenes.  Actually, I think Batman’s is a whole epic war complete with hide-outs.

 

I kid you not.  Either way, the kids all enjoyed it, so I’m not going to complain too much.

Illinois: Hog Music

I must say the children’s librarian at our library orders some of the best books.  They may not have the most obvious way to do an art project or writing project connected to it, but the stories are wonderful.

A little girl and her family move out West to Illinois.  Her aunt refuses to move out there because there’s nothing out there but “wind and hog music.”  The aunt sends a small present out to her niece, but along the way it falls out of the mail wagon.  This is the story of how the present got there and what was added along the way.

Which of course led to the question, what would you pack to send as a birthday present to someone far away, and what would you have added in to the package you found?


Well as we snacked on our popcorn (you’ll see in a few weeks about that).

We talked about what would we give her and what would we add into a present that was about the size of a shoe box if we were able to do so.


Can you guess what the boys added?

Surprisingly it wasn’t just weapons, but there were quite a few as you would expect from a group of mostly boys who all love Lego Ninjago.  My boys also added stuffed animals.  Lots of stuffed animals, and a few weapons, and food.  They had popcorn on their mind.


Meanwhile Princess happily colored away and drew ribbons and dresses and dolls for her imagined friend who was getting all of this packed up in a shoe box.

As I was thinking about this, it would be a good planning project for Operation Christmas Child.

The printable we used can be found here: Hog Music printable.



I’m gonna link up to these fun parties: