Five In A Row: A Pair of Red Clogs

The missing pair of smaller feet are in the background playing with her new birthday toys...
This week we read, "A Pair of Red Clogs" which is about a little girl in Japan who gets a new pair of shoes and then cracks them playing a game with her friends.  She plans to lie to her mother to get a new pair, but then realizes that would be wrong and remains honest.  We had not read this one before, but enjoyed it!  I think it might be LadyBear's newest favorite book :)

Finding Japan on our map and placing the story disk there...

We greeted Daddy with a hearty "Konnichiwa!" when he arrived home from work and learned about what life in Japan looks like for kids like LittleBear.  LittleBear happily realized this morning that he can now say hello in English, Spanish, French and Japanese!

LittleBear changing the date on our calendar board...

We also ate a Japanese meal with chopsticks that included shrimp & crab sushi (no worries mom and dad, it was cooked), ramen, Pocky and green tea, while sitting on pillows on the floor.  LittleBear loved the sushi, LadyBear loved the Pocky, I enjoyed the tea and everyone liked the ramen. 

 About as authentic as it gets here :)

 We all decided that we preferred sitting at our regular table, but enjoyed trying something different!

We also tried our hand at the Japanese arts of origami (paper folding) and writing haiku (a certain kind of poetry).  We folded an elephant, a frog head and a rabbit head.  LittleBear really enjoyed the origami!  I wish I had found some origami paper (cut and colored already), but as it was, I didn't know if he would be into it at all and so we just used computer paper. 

Folding the trunk of the elephant...

Pretty close!

We also took time every day to pray for our friends, Mr. C and Ms. K who are moving to Japan very soon and LittleBear said this afternoon at lunch that he hopes someday he will live there too.  He also really liked talking about the bullet train and watching a video about how the train works...that could have something to do with it. 

 Working on our math...

There were so many more things I wanted to do this week, but with starting BSF on Wednesday mornings and our Co-Op already going on Tuesday mornings, I have to figure out how to schedule school on those days and this week I didn't do that well (we did the basics each day, but didn't get to do any extras on Tuesday or Wednesday).  Momma's learning too, for sure!

Fun adventures with chopsticks!!!!

Resources and printables I used for A Pair of Red Clogs can be found at:

Five In A Row Teacher's Manual

My Five In A Row Pinterest Board

Go Along Books we used for A Pair of Red Clogs (* indicate ones we especially liked for this unit):*A True Book: Japan by Ann Heinrichs
*Count Your Way Through Japan by Jim Haskins
*Colors of Japan by Holly Littlefield
*We're From Japan by Victoria Parker
*We Live in Japan by Alexandre Messager
*Look What Came From Japan by Miles Harvey
*The Value of Honesty: The Story of Confucius by Spencer Johnson
*Super Quick Origami Animals by Nick Robinson
*Children Just Like Me by Barnabas and Anabel Kindersley
This Place is Crowded: Japan by Vicki Cobb
K is for Kabuki: A Japan Alphabet by Gloria Whelan
Absolute Beginner's Origami by Nick Robinson
Japan by David F. Marx
Hill of Fire by Thomas P. Lewis (we talked about volcanoes too)
Hachiko Waits by Leslea Newman
Ninjas: Masters of Stealth and Secrecy by Joanne Mattern

 Our pile of books for the week...

LadyBear's Second Birthday Bash: Our Butterfly Garden Party!

 LadyBear posing for the cameras...

We celebrated LadyBear turning two this weekend with a butterfly garden party here at the house.  LadyBear loves butterflies and gardens, so this seemed like a fitting and fun theme for a party.  Thank you, Pinterest, for all the ideas of what to do for the party!

 Party food and cake, along with my cat grass centerpieces...Orbit was thrilled!

Another thing my kids both love is to dress-up and so I decided to make them butterfly wings to wear for the party.  After those went together pretty quick, I thought it might make a fun favor for the kids who came to the party.  Thankfully all the kids seemed to like them! 

 LadyBear was excited about the wings for her and her friends...

Our family and friends showed up in force to celebrate LadyBear and (I think) we all had a good time!  We pretended we were eggs, caterpillars, chrysalides and then butterflies...

Some of our butterflies...

Then we guessed who was which kind of butterfly (Monarchs were the only kind we had two of).  Then we played throw the butterfly into the flower (aka glass pie plate)...

 The smaller kiddos got to stand closer to the flower...

 She was so proud of herself the first time she made one in!

The bigger kiddos had to stand further back...

We also wrapped the kids in toilet paper and called it a chrysalis!

 

 Daddy wrapping LadyBear...

 Afterwards, some of us just got silly with the TP...

Then we sang happy birthday and ate applesauce spice cake, pretzels, apple slices, carrots/ranch while chatting amongst ourselves...

singing "Happy birthday to you..."

blowing out her candle with Daddy...

 Pick your proboscis (adults too!)

I also had flower prints scattered around from an old book to help show the "garden" part of the party...

Happy birthday, LadyBear!!!  We love you!!!

Happy Birthday, LadyBear!

We will have a full birthday blog post coming soon, but we wanted to post something today because today is LadyBear's second birthday!!!!

Thanks to Geoffrey's Birthday Club, the kids get a gift card each birthday from ToysRUs for $5 to spend on whatever they can find for that price, plus a helium foil balloon and a crown to wear around the store.  Today we took a trip for LadyBear to find something.  The customer service representative even made an announcement to the whole store that it was her birthday and for people to tell her "happy birthday" when they saw her. 

LittleBear was excited to show LadyBear around the store and tried to help her pick out something. 

They looked at all sorts of different things together including legos, trains, play food and several other things...

LadyBear found a train she really liked and we thought that might be the winner...

But in the end it was a small version of Cheer Bear the CareBear that won her affection and ended up coming home with us. 

He will make a happy addition to the house and will certainly make friends with all of our other bears :)

And for the record, LittleBear STILL plays with the cardboard playset he got a couple of years ago with his giftcard...

Five In A Row: Madeline

We read Madeline this week, which is about a little girl who lives in an old house in Paris with eleven other girls and one night she has to be rushed to the hospital to have her appendix removed.

Our calendar board and bookshelf this week...

This week was a super fun week, partially because I knew this book really well and partially because there's just a lot that can be done with it.  That and we had a very special field trip.  I was super excited for this week and had a lot of fun with both kids going through this unit.

Taking a "tour" through France of famous French landmarks...

We started off learning about France and French culture, then the Eiffel tower, then the human body, then language and food.  So fun!  We also had a special treat in that Grams joined us for school this week!  I was extra appreciative as she had taken French in school at one point and actually knew how to pronounce the words :)  (Mommy FOR SURE appreciated this!)

Coloring Eiffel Tower pictures with Grams...

All done!

Aside from having Grams join us, some other highlights of this week were…

We made yellow hats out of paper plates/bowls that looked like the ones the girls wore in the story:

Painting our hats yellow!

Read a book of first french words:

Learning French words with Grams!

A day of experimenting with French-style food including croissants with Nutella, vegetable soups with french bread and French Toast with eggs and bacon for dinner!

LadyBear loves Nutella...go figure :)

French lunch!

We learned about some of the different organs in our bodies and what they do...

Lungs, heart, liver, stomach, large and small intestines...

Working on a body book...

Our wearable human body complete with lungs that inflate/deflate and an esophagus with see-thru stomach!

But the biggest highlight by far this week was an ambulance tour with LittleBear's former Sunday School teacher and very generous friend Mr. J. :

Lots of ambulances!!!

Checking Daddy's vital signs!

LadyBear really liked the buckles...

LittleBear helping Mr. J. pull the stretcher out...

Turning the lights on!

Talking on the radio!

Asking questions...

That was a super fun field trip that we are most thankful we got to experience together!  We had a very thorough tour of every cabinet and storage space and learned a ton!  LittleBear is STILL talking about it, as you can imagine :)  Thank you so much, Mr. J.!!!!

We are thankful for a super fun week this week!

 

LittleBear's best coloring job ever!

 

Resources and printables I used for Madeline can be found at:

Five In A Row Teacher's Manual

My Five In A Row Pinterest Board
The Eiffel Tower, Paris, France on Youtube
The Magic School Bus Explores the Human Body episode from the library

Go Along Books we used for Madeline (* indicate the ones we especially liked for this unit):
* Madeline Says Merci: The Always-Be-Polite Book by John Bemelmans Marciano
* Linnea in Monet's Garden by Christina Bjork and Lena Anderson
* My First French Book by Kingfisher Publishing

* Inside Your Outside: All About the Human Body by Tish Rabe (Cat in the Hat Learning Library)

* The Usborne First Book of France by Louisa Somerville

* France in Pictures by Alison Behnke

* Ambulance by Christ Oxlade

* Children Just Like Me by Barnabas and Anabel Kindersley

*Another Trip Around the World by Leland Graham and Tracy Brandon

The Eiffel Tower by Christopher Ryan

France: Enchantment of the World by Liz Sonneborn

France: Enchanment of the World by Don Nardo

A Child's Introduction to the World: Geography, Cultures and People by Heather Alexander

A First Atlas by Two-Can

Our story disk at home on our map...