Cranberry Thanksgiving

Cranberry Thanksgiving, by Wende and Harry Devlin, is a book that gives me warm happy memories.  My grandma had the book at her house when I was growing up and I remember loving to flip through the illustrations.  Add the cozy feelings the holidays bring and this has been one of my favorite books to row!  We rowed through it last November and I'm just now getting around to adding it to the blog, so hopefully I can remember everything we did. 

I borrowed Cranberry Thanksgiving from the library because, being out of print, the cheapest copy I could find to buy was $70!  I was over the moon excited to find a used copy this summer for just $9 at the ICHE Conference.  Now that it's a part of our home library I look forward to enjoying it again this fall. 

JR's Narration of the story:
"Maggie was getting wood.  Mr. Whiskers was grabbing wood.  Grandmother was shutting the curtains so Mr. Whiskers wouldn't see her secret wall.  Grandmother told Maggie, "Keep an eye on Mr. Whiskers!"  Mr. Horace was eating dinner.  Maggie saw Mr. Horace take the recipe.  Mr. Whiskers caught Mr. Horace.  They had pie.  Mr. Whiskers gave the last piece of pie to Mr. Horace.  "How about some more?"

We used lapbook elements found on  Homeschool Share, which I believe are no longer available, sadly. 

We read the book "The Thanksgiving Story", by Alice Dalgliesh and discussed the first Thanksgiving, as well as remembering our own Thanksgiving traditions.  JR said we, "Celebrate with our family by eating turkey and pie.  We pray to God to thank Him for our good things."   Each of the kids named a few things they were thankful for.  EM's list included:  Fuzzy and Owl, Christmas, home, food and water, Jesus, the Bible, and her family.  A few of the items from her list also made the list of what she would take on the Mayflower.

 

 

The kids learned where the New England states are located and a few of the things they're known for.  I've never been to the east coast, but it's somewhere I've always wanted to visit!  

 

 

I think it's safe to say that everyone's favorite part of the week was cranberry fun...err... cranberry science and math! 

Do cranberries float or sink?

They float!  Lets cut one open and see why!

Trying our hand at cranberry harvesting. 

Some cool facts about harvesting cranberries can be found here.

 

The kids thought it was pretty awesome when I told them we were going to guess how high we thought cranberries could bounce, and then bounce them!  In case your curious, a good bounce will give you nine or ten inches! 

Sensory play for LD

 

It's impossible to talk about Thanksgiving and cranberry bread all week without making some of your own!  We used the recipe in the book to make Grandmother's Famous Cranberry Bread Muffins.  They were so delicious!  This will have to be added to my list of our family's Thanksgiving traditions. 
 

Finally, I had each of the kids tell me "How to cook a Turkey".  Just because it's so darn cute! 

JR, age 6,  "Put the turkey in the oven.  Cook it for 40 minutes at 30 degrees."

EM, age 7, "First start by taking the bag with the inside parts out.  Then bake the stuffing and stuff the turkey.  Then put it in the pan and put butter and salt all over it.  Bake it for an hour and twenty minutes at 99 degrees.  Eat it!" 

Aside from being a little undercooked, I think EM's on the road to making Thanksgiving dinner! 

The Story About Ping

We rowed our very first book, The Story About Ping, with Five in a Row!  If you're not familiar with FIAR, it's a literature based curriculum that involves reading quality children's literature and using elements of the story to guide studies. 

The Story About Ping, by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese, is a book about a duck named Ping who lives with his family on the Yangtze River in China.  While we rowed this week we learned about ducks, China, and buoyancy - among other things. 

EM and JR's Ping Lapbooks

Science

To learn more about ducks, we read:
Down on the Farm: Ducks
Fuzzy the Duckling
Ducks!

We added facts about ducks to our Story About Ping lapbooks.

The kids did a buoyancy experiment with some of their friends who are also rowing with Ping this week! 

Social Studies
Ping lives on the Yangtze River in China, so we read several books about China and the Chinese culture.

EM and JR painted and cut out maps of China and the flag of China.  EM also had fun cutting out Chinese paper dolls with traditional clothing.  They also did an awesome job learning to write numbers one through ten in Chinese! 

Math
Ping has a very big family!  The kids counted each of his cousins, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, and parents.

Language Arts
We read the story each day discussing terms such as author and illustrator.  The kids also painted, cut out, and sequenced story cards.

Art
EM and JR looked at the many ways the illustrator drew water and how drawing it differently caused movement or reflection.  They drew their own examples of water.

EM's water drawings

JR's water drawings

Field Trip

Grandma and Papa have ducks waddling through their own back yard, so we went for a visit!  While watching the ducks EM observed preening and dabbling - thanks for cooperating ducks!