Homeschooling with Five in a Row: Make Way for Ducklings

We have unofficially started Ts 5K school year, which means we are back to rowing! I say "unofficially" as we are slowly adding in different pieces of his curriculum each week (see our Curriculum Choices here). Besides rowing, we finished up Life of Fred: and reviewed some chapters in All About Spelling.

I love Unit Studies-- probably why I was so drawn to Five In a Row in the first place. I just love that you can take a subject or a book and extend learning to Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, Art, and Science! For our first row of the new school year, we read "Make Way for Ducklings" by Robert McCloskey from Volume 2. Sometimes it baffles me how much you can learn from a book!

Homeschooling with Five in a Row

Social Studies: Geography- Boston, Massachusetts, Family Relationships, Map-Making, & Relationships- Not Too Quick to Take Offense

Located Massachusetts on our map

This was a bigger task than I thought it would be; perhaps if we were outside so he could "see" our surroundings it would have helped a bit. Nonetheless, I helped T draw a map of our house and what is near-by. Then we used a couple of Squinkies and drove them "around town."

I asked T if Mr. Mallard should have been 'upset' or 'hurt' that the swan did not respond to him quacking, "Good Morning!" T said, "No" [Why not?] "He wasn't real." Thus we touched on that we need to be patient with others and not take offense-- things may not be what they seem!

Language Arts: Rhyme & Vocabulary

T can give me a rhyming pair, but when I ask "What makes a rhyme?" he couldn't explain it; it's when two words share similar ending sounds. We played Rhyme Concentration , which is trickier than trying to match the same picture!

The manual listed four vocabulary words to know: Boston, cozy, molt, and incubate. Vocabulary is an area that I skipped over last year because I just couldn't think of a creative way to "teach" the word meanings to a four year old! It doesn't help that he isn't one to ask a ton of questions if he doesn't know something.

On a post-it, I wrote the vocabulary word and definition then cut it in half. The vocabulary word went on the page it was found and T held the definitions. Once we came to a vocabulary word, we read the definitions to see if he could determine a match. I'm not sure this was all that exciting, but it worked : )

Math: Multiplication or Grouping

Using 8 duck cut-outs and peanuts, T worked on grouping. I gave T various problems such as, "Mrs. Mallard wants to give each duckling 3 peanuts, how many does she need in all?"

Science: Development of Duck Egg & Conservation

We read a book about the Life cycle of a Duck and T colored and put together a printable.

We took a trip to a nature center in the hopes of seeing some Mallard Ducks, and ended up walking endlessly! We did see this white bird and a field of beautiful purple 'flowers'. Along our walk we talked about needing to take care of our environment and all the beauty God created.

Art: Medium

We didn't do anything "crafty" for this book.

I just pointed out the illustrations and asked if he minded the book having no color, he just shrugged; he didn't care ; ) Nonetheless, we both enjoyed the book and it's detailed drawings.

Making Memories:

After our trip to the Nature Center and a book sale(!!), I told T I had a surprise for him and his interest was instantly piqued!! He wouldn't give the 'surprise' a rest! I made a map of the outside of our house and drew trail marks that T had to follow to get his surprise; I placed duck cut-outs as markers to let T know he was reading the map correctly.

The map eventually led him back inside where a Boston Cooler (vanilla ice cream and Ginger Ale) was awaiting him. Although, I don't know why they call it a Boston Cooler-- it originated in Detroit, MI!