Harold and the Purple Crayon {FI♥AR}

September 5th ~ 9th

and 12th ~ 16th

This book was not on my itinerary to row this school year, but as we were picking grapes and processing them, I wondered if I could tie it in with our schooling. And after thinking it over and looking at all the purple juice mess I was making, I thought of Harold and the Purple Crayon. I pulled out my Five in a Row Volume 2 manual and saw that this is a short unit designed to go along with Review Week. Perfect! I needed a short easy row as we jump back into all of our subjects this week. Except that I let it roll over into two weeks to keep things easy on me.

Harold and the Purple Crayon is a fun book on imagination and creativity.

Language Arts: Setting. 

We discussed that the setting in Harold is not static like in most books. It changes continuously, or as the manual puts it, is progressive. Mali and Elli drew scenes from Harold on a long sheet of freezer paper to show that the setting is always changing.

We used it to decorate the table for our Harold Picnic Party and left large purple crayons on the table for free creative drawing. I thought about making 9 kinds of pie that we like best, like Harold drew, but I took the opportunity to tie math into our party and we made 3 fruit pies (the amount that Harold ate) for dessert.

Harold Picnic Party 

Since there is a ballon in the story, I decorated with purple balloons.

Our "whole city full of windows"

Malachi drew on one side. Eliana drew on the other.

Making Pie 

Purple Berries for. . . 

Blackberry and Blueberry Pie

I also made a rhubarb pie. For dinner, I made a Farmer's Tomato Pie (so good) and a homemade chicken pot pie. (That is a lot of pie in one day, but I made the pie crusts the day before and also the filling for the chicken pot pie, so it wasn't too bad).  

Applied Math:  Fractions 

I printed some Education Cube inserts for a roll and match game. 

Education Cubes Fraction Pies {colored purple}

Nathan did this activity with Malachi. They talked about wholes and thirds. Nathan explained that 1/1 is "one whole." Mali also learned that 3/3 is the same as 1 whole. I had Malachi count how many thirds Harold ate and we came up with 9. Then I showed him that nine thirds equals 3 whole pies. 

Science: Moon Phases

For science, we revisited moon phases and did a sandwich cookie moon phase activity using Phases of the Moon nomenclature cards. 

I lined the cards up so he could tell if the moon phase was waxing or waning.

We put the smaller picture cards from the 3-part cards into our photo block for a "roll and name" game to learn the phases. 

When he got a phase name correct, he got to eat the moon phase cookie. (:

Adding the full moon and new moon cards (since all 8 would not fit). 

Can anything live on the moon?

This is from our Evan Moor Daily Science. 

What makes day and night?

Art:  Creativity, Vanishing Point, Perspective (Foreshortening), Color Mixing and the Color Wheel. 

Mixing red and blue. . .

to make purple. 

Malachi wanted to mix red and yellow as well. Then he wanted to mix blue and yellow and I reminded him that he did that for another row and pulled up my post on The Big Green Pocket Book to show him. Then he did a color wheel activity from our Evan Moor art book, How to Teach Art to Children. 

We also had some purple memory making fun. 

Purple Ice Boats

Sparkly Purple Moon Sand

These two boys experimented with water and cornstarch to make different consistencies. 

My Purple Crayon

Edible Purple Crayons

I threw a little caution to the wind and used some purple cake color (that I used for the moon sand) to tint some melted white chocolate chips to dip pretzel rods in to make edible purple crayons.  Only the ends of the pretzels are dipped. I considered beet juice powder for color, but it tastes terrible. So I figured once in a purple moon would be okay. ;-)  

Memory Verse

Psalm 148:3 

Purple Grapes and Grape Juice

Mali climbed under the vine to reach the hidden grapes ~ notice he has a mouthful. (:

Elli stemming grapes with Pop.

Straining {lots of straining} the juice

10 cups of grape juice ready for the freezer

This was just a tad bit overwhelming for me these past two weeks. I froze half of the grapes whole to process at a later time. And I froze the juice to make syrup this winter (or when life slows down a bit). 

Tomorrow, in my co-op order, I have coming: 20 pounds of organic pears and 40 pounds of organic peaches for canning, and 40 pounds of organic oranges for juicing. . . I'm not sure if I can tie in a row with that or if I should. But, if I am not around, you will know what I am up to. 

This concludes weeks 13 and 14 for my little ones for preschool and 1st grade. Days in school: 70. 

Over the summer, I eased up on book work and just "rowed." Now we are back in full swing with our studies, with a few changes.

The biggest change is that we switched to Life of Fred Elementary Math - Malachi is working in Apples and finished chapter 10 this week (there are 18 chapters in the first book). 

So far, Fred has taught Malachi: five o'clock, 5+2-7, 4+3=7, 6+1=7, circle, ellipse, six o'clock, days of the week, facts about February, wearing warmer clothes, seven o'clock, reading the newspaper, 15 degrees below zero, deciduous trees, 10+10=20, curvy lines vs straight lines, first, second, third, 3x+4x=7x, Archimedes, eight o'clock, the meaning of a.m., nine o'clock, one hundred is ten rows and ten columns, before photography was invented, best mathematician who lived over 500 years ago, why you shouldn't be rude, ten o'clock, that you won't see an ocean liners in Kansas, places on earth to live, circle, ellipse, square, counting by fives, Pacific and Atlantic oceans, whales are not fish, playing the "There are Zero" game, making a circle into an ellipse (using an elephant), sets, the popularity of zero, name a set with exactly 17 members in it, 7-1=6, why squares and circles are boring, twelve o'clock, herbivores, carnivores and 7-7=0. 

That is a lot of um. . . math. Fred uses real life math and makes it pretty fun, though. 

Delightful Links:

Preschool Corner {& 5K too!}
Our Homeschool Fun @ Walking By the Way {purple boat inspiration}
Susana's Pinterst Board {Cookie Moon Phase inspiration}
Me and My Purple Crayon

Phases of the Moon nomenclature cards

Moon Phase control
Astronaut Preschool Pack {Bible verse}