Storm In The Night (FIAR)

"Storm in the Night" by Mary Stolz, is a book filled with dialogue shared between Thomas and his grandfather.  As you would gather from the title, they are in the midst of a storm and Thomas' grandfather shares a story of overcoming his fear of thunderstorms when he was a boy.  While this wasn't my favorite story, there are two lessons worth noting:

• one's reality is based on his/her perceptions
• giving into a spirit of fear makes us forget *the truth*  But thankful for God's word reminding us, He did not give us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind."  Amen!

Albeit it wasn't my most favorite read, there was A LOT of ways to extend learning from this one book! 

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Learning with Storm in the Night

Social Studies:  The manual suggested we talk about fear.  I asked T if he was afraid of anything and he said, "No, I'm not afraid of anything."  So I didn't dwell on it.  No need to dwell on fear!

Storm in the Night Language Art Activities

• The manual suggested talking about "Quotation Marks," which was perfect because it was also Halloween; I found a great go-along using the poem, Five Little Pumpkins to get my point across.
• Copywork
• Mixing science and language arts, T wrote out a Thunderstorm Poem using his five senses. 
• Made an Onomatopoeia Thunderstorm Mobile and read, "If you were an Onomatopoeia" by Trisha Shaskan--  fun book!

Storm in the Night Math Activities

• Colored a worksheet found on homeschool share
• Read "Shape Up!" by David Adler; used slices of cheese and our geo-board to make triangles and quadrilaterals. 

Storm in the Night Art Activities

•  Learned how to draw eyes looking different directions

• After reading "Little Cloud" by Eric Carle, T tore up pieces of white paper and made his own cloud shape. 

• The manual suggested learning how to draw someone's profile, so I grabbed a stuffed Buzz Lightyear and had T give it a shot!  It's a lot harder than it looks!

Storm in the Night Science Activities

• Five sense poem (see Language Arts) 
• Introduced the Water Cycle; made a visual water cycle, watched some Youtube videos, and used cotton balls to talk about 'Evaporation, Condensation, and Precipitation.' 

Evaporation:  I floated pieces of water vapor (cotton balls) up high

Condensation:  I piled cotton balls into his hands, until....

Precipitation:  The cloud burst!  It started to rain!  And left us with one big mess to pick up : )

• Learned about the Cumulus, Cirrus, and Stratus clouds. 

For fun, we made Cloud cookies!  Our first attempt DID NOT go over well....  but the second batch turned out pretty decent.  And my mom is visiting this weekend, which is also her birthday weekend, so... I have plans to make her a ThunderCake, too!  Although, knowing tomatoes are in the recipe is really throwing me through a loop?!

Storm in the Night Resources:

• Cloud Cookie Recipe

• The Oh-so helpful reference when making our second batch of Cloud Cookies from What's Cooking America

• Inspiration for Five Senses Poem

• Five Little Pumpkins Poem

• Torn paper cloud idea and much more!

• Inspiration for Onomatopoeia Mobile: Check out Delightful Learning and The First Grade Parade

• Copywork and more found at Homeschool Share

• Youtube Water Cycle videos #1

• Youtube Water Cycle video #2

You also might like to browse our Homeschooling with Five In A Row Resource Page!