BABAR TO DUET OR NOT TO DUET:

I chose to row Babar to Duet or Not to Duet as our first book of the new school year. It was a really cute starter book that EVERYONE loved!

READY TO ROW:

We kicked off this row with elephant toast for breakfast.

Cover Page:

As with all our other FIAR rows, I asked the kids to draw a cover page in their notebooks.

They each chose to illustrate Babar, who is such a lovable elephant!

We took the opportunity to discuss their drawings being “line art” illustrations as pictured in this story.

BIBLE:

Memory Verse:

I created a Bible verse pack for this row.

You can purchase your copy here. There’s a FREEbie tracer in the Preview.

We read the verse aloud then everyone traced/wrote their verse.

The next day, I cut apart their Bible verses and they glued them together in their FIAR notebooks.

Honesty:

We talked about both Pom and Babar’s lies in the story.

We brought out our The Book of Virtues and read a few stories about honesty and Young Abraham Lincoln.

Lying, and all sin, originated in the garden of Eden. We read The Sneaky Snake in The Beginner’s Bible: Timeless Children’s Stories.

We had several devotions about truth from Our Daily Bread for Kids: 365 Meaningful Moments with God.

Manners:

We read Manners by Aliki to cover the subject of good manners.

Afterwards, we ate cookies with cocoa and tried to be mindful of our manners.

SOCIAL STUDIES:

Setting:

We talked about the setting of the story taking place in Celestville.

We read The Story of Babar: The Little Elephant and learned how Celestville came to be.

Instead of choosing the land of make believe, we decided to place our story disk on Africa, specifically the jungle. We explored the jungle as an additional science unit.

Over the two weeks rowing this book, we read The Travels of Babar (Babar Series) and Babar the King (Babar Series).

LANGUAGE ARTS:

Vocabulary:

I created a Babar Vocabulary worksheet for this row.

You can download your FREE copy here at our TPT Store.

This was a loooong list, but we worked through it together. The kids matched the definitions they knew and we reviewed the rest.

Musical Vocabulary:

I created Babar’s Musical Vocabulary worksheet.

You can download your FREE copy here at our TPT Store.

I drew music notes and wrote the vocabulary words inside. The kids took turns reading the definitions and matching to the correct note.

We also read The Musicians of Bremen which was really cute.

MATH:

Days of the Week:

I created a Today is Monday Mini Math Pack to accompany our Days of the Week lesson.

You can purchase your copy HERE at our TPT Store.

I printed a couple of the worksheets and made a story basket although we never used it.

Before reading our story, I had the kids use the Days of the Week worksheet to spell and list the days of the week in order.

After reading the story, the kids color-coded their match & color worksheet.

Geometry:

We brought out our Learning Resources 3D Shapes and 3D cards (Twinkl and ABC.com).

After reviewing edges, faces, and vertex, the kids chose three 3D shapes to build out of toothpicks and mini marshmallows.

Jungle Shapes:

I found some cute 3D jungle animal shapes from Twinkl.

The kids each picked an animal shape and put it together.

Afterwards, we added them to our tablescape!

Shapes BINGO:

I created a Shapes BINGO game for this row.

You can download your FREE copy here at our TPT Store.

We played a round of BINGO after lunch.

Fractions:

Parker and I started reading Fraction Fun on our Epic app.

Following the book, we made some paper plate pizzas!

Parker and I made sugar cookies while exploring the world of fractions. Fractions can be tricky, but they can also be sweet and tasty!

Elmer’s Math Mania:

We watched an online reading of Elmer and Elmer’s Lost Teddy on our Playlist.

I found a fun Elmer coloring sheet and added a color code to review equivalent fractions, multiplication, and division.

The kids worked through the equations and ended up with Elmer, everyone’s favorite colorful patchwork elephant!

SCIENCE:

Jungle:

We had to explore the jungle, or rain forest, since we chose it as our setting.

We watched The Magic School Bus in the Rainforest and I made the kids a rainforest trail mix (mixed nuts, chocolate pieces, and dried fruit) to munch on.

We also read If I Ran the Rain Forest: All About Tropical Rain Forests (Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library) together while the kids ate nuts and chocolate, because we can thank the rain forest for those treasures too!

I made “jungle brownies” with bananas, nuts, and cocoa powder. All wonderful ingredient harvested from the rain forest!

Jungle Small World:

First, I cut apart paper lunch bags and we twisted them into jungle vines.

Next, we painted various sized paper towel rolls with brown tempura paint.

Haley and I cut out various colored jungle leaves.

The kids set up the jungle small world. I helped add the paper bag vines. It looked AMAZING!

ART, CRAFTS, & FUN:

Stop-Motion Jungle Film:

The kids just got a stop-motion app. So we decided our jungle small world would be a great setting for their first film.

My kids are OBSESSED with Minecraft sheep. Personally, I don’t see it, but I LOVE that THEY love these little guys.

Since Hayden’s Surprise Symphony starts off similar to Baa Baa Black Sheep, the kids thought “Biddy”, their black sheep, should be the star of the film!

They previewed their work and did a popcorn viewing at night. It was SO much fun!

Promotional Poster:

We talked about the purpose of promotional posters and I suggested they make one for their stop-motion show.

The kids LOVED the idea! They worked together to create a promotional poster for their show. This was a GREAT example of teamwork and having to compromise since everyone had their own ideas.

The kids talked it through, made rough drafts and worked together to create a great promotional poster. They did such a great job working together!

Orchestra:

We started our orchestra day with music note toast.

I sketched a quick Musical Fractions worksheet. We reviewed the type of notes and how fractions are a part of music.

We read some excerpts, especially the page about Josepth Haydn, from My First Classical Music Book: Book & CD (Naxos My First… Series)

Since Hayden was from Austria, the kids located Austria on our blow-up earth.

We also read Welcome to the Symphony: A Musical Exploration of the Orchestra Using Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 which was a really fun book with musical buttons to hear the various instruments.

I set out our Instrument Cards (The Helpful Garden) and had the kids take turns matching the labels. They knew most of them.

Afterwards, Bub gave us a demonstration of the percussion instruments daddy bought for the worship team.

We sat on the couch and ate animal crackers while reading Never Play Music Right Next to the Zoo.

We also did an instrument scavenger hunt around the house.

Jordan tuned his guitar and practiced some chords. This was a VERY musical day!

I set out our Orchestra cards (Montessori Print Shop) and instrument toob.

Parker sorted the instruments by their musical family (i.e. string, woodwind, brass, and percussion).

We also watched some of John William’s concert in Vienna.

Movie & Peanuts:

I added the Babar to Duet or Not to Duet episode on our playlist.

I gave everyone a cup of peanuts to crack and eat during the show. They LOVED the cartoon. There’s something about the old hand-drawn animations

SCIENCE:

Human Body – Ears:

I set out our Human Ear nomenclature cards, our Learning Resource ear model, and Ears Are for Hearing (Let’s Read and Find Out Science Book).

You can purchase your copy of our Human Ear Science Pack here at our TPT Store. The Label the Human Ear worksheet FREEbie is available here.

I set out our Label the Human Ear worksheet and colored pencils for the kids to complete.

The kids color-coded the parts of the ear while we read about them in the book.

Sound:

I set out our Guess the Mystery Sound egg game.

You can download the worksheet FREEbie here at our TPT Store.

Peanuts:

Since we love peanuts and elephants love peanuts, we decided to study peanuts! We didn’t go into depth, because Jordan just studied peanuts last year while rowing Make Way for Ducklings.

We ate peanut butter and bacon waffle sandwiches for breakfast.

We read How God Gives Us Peanut Butter.

After reading our book, the kids worked through the peanut packet with word searches, math riddles, and science worksheets.

Afterwards, we headed to the kitchen and whipped up a batch of fresh peanut butter.

We also read The Giant Jumperee just for fun.

We also added all our worksheets and activities in our FIAR notebooks.

Elephants:

We read A Herd of Elephants (Animal Groups) and Elephants of Africa.

I had the kids draw their own elephant for color-coding the various body parts.

I read the Parts of the Elephant definition cards (Montessori Print Shop) while the kids colored the corresponding part of the body.

Elephant Toothpaste:

Elephant toothpaste doesn’t have anything to do with elephants, but it sounded like a fun addition to this row.

I set out our ingredients as head of time, but I realized I purchased the cream instead of the clear peroxide developer.

Parker helped add the liquid soap and Haley added the peroxide.

Bub was in charge of mixing our yeast in the warm water.

We added the yeast and nothing happened, because we used the cream instead of clear solution.

I quickly ran and grabbed the regular hydrogen peroxide and it SLOWLY started to react.

Once it got going, it was cool and impressive. We talked about it being a hypothermic chemical reaction, which just means it gives off heat.

The kids were intrigued and felt both the bottle AND the liquid. Everyone loved the foamy reaction, although it started to sting the cuts on their hands.

Everyone washed up after exploring this pretty, foamy blue reaction.

HELPFUL LINKS: