Guess you'll have to read the book ; )
Homeschooling with Five in a Row
Social Studies: Geography: Setting, History of Circus
The setting is a small town called Andersonville. Not sure if the town is as fictional as the storyline or not, so I pointed out New York and Africa on our maps. New York because of the symbolic lion statues that greet you if you were to visit the New York Public Library and Africa because that is where you will find lions in the wild.
I googled images of Circus posters and showed one from last year and we talked about the differences. We also checked out some pictures and videos at PBS of the Big Apple Circus. You can watch a video of the Chinese Vase Juggler that we saw at the circus!
Language Arts: Aesop's Fables- Kindness, Personification, Vocabulary, & Layout of Text
We read The Lion and the Mouse from Aesop's Fables and discussed being kind to others.
When we re-visit topics we have talked about in previous rows, I like to explain it in a different way. For our lesson on personification, I found a a super neat idea! I cannot find the link back to the source, but you can check out my Language Arts Pinterest Board to see what I am talking about.... Anyways, the teacher decided to use Sponge Bob for the lesson on Personification. On top of the page was the question, "What Can Sponge Bob do, that a real sponge cannot?"
The idea was/is genius! But I am not a big fan of Sponge Bob, so I chose Lightning McQueen and asked, "What Can Lightning do, that a real car cannot?!" And with much help from me, we came up with a list!
Scrabble Math Spelling! Combining a little math with Vocabulary. You can find the scrabble tiles over at Jimmie's Collage.
You'll have to explore the book yourself to figure out the layout of the text, but another book with the same layout is "Little Monkey Says Goodnight" by Ann Whitford Paul.
Oh, I almost forgot... T also got his first library card this week!! He checked out a book about Cats, a Early Reader Lego book, and something else... ?! He was SO excited!!
Math:
To work in the whole "circus theme," we did an Elephant measuring activity.
Art: Line of Design, Diagonal Line of Design
Throughout the story, you will find a "S" line of design. I pointed them out and then using his stickers he made his own "S" shape.
If you check out the cover of the book, you will notice that the figures are in a diagonal line going from small to large. He didn't exactly mimic the lesson, but he did put his stickers on a diagonal line!
I was inspired by a lesson found at Mrs. Brown's Art Class blog titled, "Matthew's Dream." The lesson was all about Abstract lines, and since I pointed out "S" shape lines and diagonal lines to T, I thought this might be an interesting project to do! After reading the book, "Matthew's Dream" by Leo Lionni, hecreated a picture titled, "Twizzler's Dream."
Using Overlapping circles, we learned how to draw a lion thanks to Art Projects for Kids.
Who could resist Hand Print art?! We did this as part Tot School: Letter L.
Science: Dreams: Sleep Cycle & Lions
We checked out the Sleep for Kids Website. He wasn't too excited about the subject, but we talked about Dreams, how we sleep, & the importance of sleep. Using a worksheet, we figured that, for his age, he needs about 10 hours of sleep... so if he goes to bed around 9ish, he needs to sleep until 8. Yeah. That's not happening!!I don't recall what we read, but we just looked through some Non-Fiction books about lions.
Just for Fun!!
The circus came to town!!
I found that there was a Sculpture Park in the area and thought it would be a neat Field Trip, but since the Spring-like weather has yet to arrive, we'll have to add the idea to our Summer Bucket List!
I'd love for you to follow along so you never miss out on one of our fun activities we share at School Time Snippets!