READY TO ROW:
Kick-off Breakfast:
I made lemon blueberry hootenannies to “kick-off” this row.
Cover Art:
Parker chose to create the small cabin in the woods as his cover art page.
Story Disk:
Parker colored his story disk and placed it on Wisconsin.
BIBLE:
Memory Verse:
My daughter created digital artwork for Home in the Woods. I used it to create a Bible verse printable for this book.
You can purchase your copy here at our TPT Store.
Parker chose to use the copywork page for this memory verse.
Bible & Character:
Faith:
We read stories from Simple Acts of Faith while rowing this book. It had that sweet note of yesteryear.
Many stories referenced a portion of scripture or I assigned a fitting passage. Parker read from the Bible and I read the story afterward.
Fruits of the Spirit:
I purchased a Fruits of the Spirit pack (thelittlesandme) for this row, but we only were able to study love. We’ll continue this study with our next book, The Gullywasher.
To begin, we read Galatians 5:22-23 together. Afterwards, I read the introduction to this as our daily devotion.
Parker colored the Fruits of the Spirit Bible verse page and memorized it as his verse for the week.
Fruit Tree:
Though our Apple tasting tree was looking rather tattered, I chose to use it to display our “Fruits of the Spirit” banner flags.
It definitely needs a little love – good thing “LOVE” is our first unit! 😉
Love:
As suggested, Parker memorized I John 4:19. I created a Bible verse word art page in his FIAR notebook.
Parker colored it in and memorized it as his last verse for this row.
We read “The Sun Stops Shining” in the Jesus Storybook Bible.
Parker had fun making the raised salt cross activity.
After reading I Corinthians 13:4-7, we went into the kitchen to create our “Overflowing Love object Lesson”.
It took us several tries to overflow our wide-mouth mason jar, but we eventually got there.
SOCIAL STUDIES:
Geography – Wisconsin:
We read quite a few books about Wisconsin.
Parker also painted a topographical view of Wisconsin on his BB&C US map. As with our other rows this year, he added the Native American tribes originating from this state.
Geneology:
Parker read Me and My Family Tree and My Family Tree.
Parker used a Watercolor with Me in the Forest lesson to create the perf tree background.
About Me – A Widening Circle:
We did a similar CRAFTivity when the older kids rowed The Red Carpet.
He was still in preschool and doesn’t remember it.
I brought out Me on the Map again. Parker and I read it before starting the the widening circle activity.
We also read There’s a Map on My Lap! and learned all about different types of maps.
Parker wanted to watercolor his Widening circle pictures. So he started with planet Earth.
Helping Out:
We read The Berenstain Bears and a Job Well Done. We took a moment to discuss pitching in around the house and having a spirit of helpfulness.
We also read The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Chores.
For fun, we read We Help Mommy, a sweet book we read when the kids were younger.❤️
Home:
We started our unit on homes with The Wise and Foolish Builders for Bible time.
Afterwards, we read several wonderful books about houses and homes.
General Stores:
We found an excerpt about general stores in A Pioneer Sampler.
We also read General Store by Rachel Field.
Afterwards, we read excerpts from The General Store by Bobbie Kalman.
The History of Soap:
While studying the general store, we took a moment to explore a few items that were mentioned in the story.
We read about the history of soap and how it’s made.
Wind-up Toys:
The general store also sold wind-up toys. I thought it would be fun to explore this topic as well. First, Parker read Wind-Ups, a Toy Box Science book.
Afterwards, Parker put the dinosaur STEM kit together.
Farms:
On the Farm At the Market was the perfect bridge from our lesson about stores to the country farm setting.
We also read The Year at Maple Hill Farm. This was another fantastic book through the seasons.
We finished our general farm unit with Little Farm by the Sea.
Milk:
Since we were learning about farms, I thought we would take a closer look at both milk and eggs.
We read Milking Time and Milk by Aliki.
Eggs:
We read Chicks & Chickens by Gail Gibbons.
Parker color-coded the parts of the egg worksheet in our Story Review.
I brought out some of our egg and chick activities that we used to use.
The boys had fun playing around with the egg sorting and matching the chicken life cycle cards.
We also read Lidia’s Egg-Citing Farm Adventure. This was our favorite! It had MANY great recipes too!
LANGUAGE ARTS:
Story Review:
I created a Home in the Woods Story Review for this row.
You can purchase a copy HERE at our TPT Store..
Similes:
Since we started rowing this book in the winter season, I printed our Winter Similes worksheets for Parker to complete.
MATH:
Calendar:
We did some calendar work, marking birthdays and other events. Parker also worked on some seasonal activities from our Story Review.
Money:
As the family visited the general store and only purchased essentials, we took a moment to read about the history of money in Money Madness by David Adler.
SCIENCE:
Food Preservation – Canning:
We looked through A Pioneer Sampler to learn about how early Americans preserved their foods.
We read excerpts about food safety from What Makes you Ill? and Why Do People Eat?
We also read Tiny Creatures The World of Microbes. It was a fantastic read about different types of microbes including those that are associated with food-born illness.
Bread:
Parker and I reviewed various grains in our Food Anatomy book.
We also read Seeds to Bread on our Epic app.
Mum’s Loaf Bread:
We headed into the kitchen to make Mum’s Loaf Bread using the recipe from the FIAR mini unit.
Parker helped measure and mix the ingredients. We set the dough aside to double in size.
We left it to rise while we went out for the evening. It most definitely doubled in size. We punched it down, kneaded it, divided it into two loafs and let it rise one last time.
They baked beautifully, filling the house with the warm sweet smell of baked bread.
We enjoyed our loaf the next morning at breakfast.
Gardening:
We started our garden unit with A Year in our New Garden. This was a perfect addition as we were talking about seasons through the story.
We read several fun gardening books too! We dug deep into the subject of gardening as the seasons changed from winter to spring.
Soil:
We started our lesson under the ground. Parker read The Street Beneath My Feet. He loved this book, because it grew bigger as he read deeper into the text.
We also read Dirt, a fantastic book about soil and all it contains. We bring this out EVERY time we explore the earth.
Afterwards, he completed the Parts of the Soil worksheet from our Story Review.
We also read Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt. This book provides the perfect transition from winter to spring.
Composting:
We read Compost Stew, a wonderful and fun way to learn how to create compost.
Last year, I created a compost bin in an old terra cotta pot. We went outside to check on it. Sure enough, it was just rich beautiful soil.
Parker worked on some composting worksheets from Scholastic.
Seeds:
We read A Seed Is Sleepy, which covered many different types of seeds.
Afterwards, Parker color-coded the parts of a seed.
Since we knew the family grew green beans, we read The Life Cycle of a Bean.
Parker dissected soaked beans using a worksheet set from Scholastic.
We read From Seed to Plant and brought out French Tricot beans.
We rolled a black piece of paper, placed our beans seeds between it and the glass, filled it with water and placed it oin a sunny location.
After a while, our beans sprouted and created an elaborate root system. It looks do cool!
Vegetables:
We read The Vegetables We Eat, Plants Feed Me, and Good Enough to Eat.
Afterwards, Parker sorted the parts of the plant we eat (Montessori Print Shop).
Parker read several books about eating a rainbow and keeping our bodies healthy.
I made edible rainbows with fruits and vegetables.
Flowers:
Since we were studying gardening, we had to read some fun books about flowers.
Parker color-coded the Parts if the Flower from our Story Review.
Trees:
We read Crinkleroot’s Guide to Knowing the Trees by Jim Arnosky.
We also perused the section about trees in Nature Anatomy.
Parker color-coded the Parts of a Tree and labeled the various tree shapes.
He also used the tree scavenger hunt worksheets as he went through the pages of the story. We decided to count evergreen, deciduous and specific tree shapes.
Flora/Fauna:
We created a long and winding unit as we traversed the Wisconsin woods. Parker and I read through the book and noted all the various animals and plants mentioned in the story.
As suggested in the guide, we read The Hike which was a wonderful science unit all by itself. There were so many topics covered that we took our time reading each and every detail.
Parker read B is for Fauna a Wisconsin Alphabet and kept a running list of the flora and fauna mentioned in the book.
Afterwards, he colored the flora and fauna of the woodland habitat in Wisconsin.
Berries:
Wisconsin is known for its cranberry bogs and we recently studied them in the fall.
Parker read several berry books on our Epic app as well as The Berry Book and Blueberries Grow on a Bush.
Parker and I went outside to see how our berry plants were doing. The strawberries are coming back to life and the blueberries are covered with flowers. I love when the garden wakes up.
On our way inside, Parker picked lemons for our jam.
ARTS, CRAFTS & FUN:
Blueberry Jam:
We never finished our Season’s Afield Preserve lessons. when I saw the blueberry jam recipe in the guide, I knew we needed to finish our preserve lesson with this unit.
Parker sliced the lemon and squeezed it in our berry pot.
We let our fruit and juice come to a boil before adding our salt and sugar. Making jam was the last part of our osmosis lesson in our Nature Journal.
After our jam boiled for a while, we checked the set with a frozen spoon. It set beautifully.
Natural Dyes:
Red Cabbage:
We chopped, boiled, and strained the purple liquid into a mason jar.
Beets:
We chopped, boiled and strained our beautiful pink beet juice.
Spinach & Onions:
We also chopped spinach and yellow onions peels. The spinach was a total bust! I read to use tumeric for yellow then dye them in red cabbage for blue. We’ll have to try this next time.
The onion peels turned the eggs a beautiful rust orange.
HELPFUL LINKS:
Pinterest Board:
You can find most of the activities, ideas, and printables from this post on our Home in the Woods Pinterest Board.
Youtube Playlist:
As with our other rows, we created Home in the Woods playlist with read-alouds, music, science, and other clips.
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