My Blue Boat {B4FI♥AR}



~Bo is 3 years, 7 months~

This row was all that I hoped it would be, and my little Bo made it so much fun and worth all the energy I poured into him. We explored the color blue, read lots of books about dolphins and whales, made a lighthouse craft, had a fun snack, learned some new words, had some bathtub play, and more as we read My Blue Boat each day and made new memories.

All links to activities are at the bottom of my post!

My Blue Boat basket ready to go:

my blue boat

Planning for My Blue Boat:


Theme: Under the Sea

Bo was begging to start, so after we read My Blue Boat, we started by reading books for our theme: Under the Sea. I grabbed up all the books I could find that especially included dolphins and whales.


My Blue boat "dances with whales and plays tag with dolphins," so we focused on these two animals.

Bo asks, "Are dolphins fishes?"



Baby Beluga was a huge hit. He was so sad when I returned it to the library.






(App is ABC Aquarium)
Lighthouse Craft

"and drift back toward the beacon. . . "

My Blue Boat row at Delightful Learning

"and home."



Bo scribbled waves with a Mr. Sketch marker.


Then he added some ocean animal stickers and his lighthouse. (I had him lay the lighthouse on his page first, knowing he would not want to cover any of his stickers with it).



My Blue Boat row at Delightful Learning

Playing an ocean themed matching game.


FI♥AR Treat: Fish Jello

I found all natural, corn-syrup free Swedish fish at Lucky's. So excited - my kids had never had these before! I made blue jello with kosher gelatin and flavored it with lemon. This was my first time making homemade "jello" and I used too much gelatin, haha!

My Blue Boat row at Delightful Learning

Activities to keep Bo busy when he asks for "more My Blue Boat."



Which he did.






This is when I pulled out All About Reading Pre-reading to give Bo more school. Bless his heart, I couldn't give him "more My Blue Boat" today.



Since My Blue Boat's setting starts in a bathtub, we read bathtub poems this week! (I planned some bathtub fizzy fun for later in the week). :)


See more of what we did in my post here.

And "more school" has also included doing math with Mathletics. Read more about that in my review here.


Science: Things That Float and Things That Don't

I've done Float/Sink experiments with Bo twice now (one in our Tot School Letter D is for Duck and one in our Preschool lesson on Noah's Ark - this later has a video of Bo doing the float and sink and I can't believe that was 6 months ago. I need to do another video - he is talking so much better now!). This covered more float and sink concepts and Bo loved it.


I gathered everything I would need for the activities and had them ready to go. (Notice the Yellow Ball in the background!) :)

My Blue Boat row at Delightful Learning

After reading each page, we did the activities on that page. His first activity was to see if a penny floats or sinks.


Then he filled an empty water bottle about half way up with water to see if it would float.



Do apples float? Does a bar of soap?



Does a ball of aluminum foil float? What if we crunch it into a small ball so it has a greater density?



The crunched up ball of foil was supposed to sink. It did a little, but not like we expected it to, since it should have a greater density than the water. He thought it was cool to see it transformed and still float.

Does clay float? The ball of clay sunk, but we made a boat and then it floated! :)



Why does ice float?



Why do things float more in salt water?



This was a fun step up from a regular sink and float activity and lots of fun to do.

Blue Ice Boats

I had some ice boats frozen for Bo to play with in the water table.



Memory Making: Fizzy Bath Stars

For our bath tub fun for My Blue Boat, we did some of the Bath Time activities from page 121 in the B4 manual.

Bo and I also made fizzy bath stars. We used epsom salt, baking soda, citric acid, olive oil and lavender essential oil. After they were done fizzing, the bath water moisturizes your skin and feels so good.

"My blue boat dips under the moon as I look for stars."

My Blue Boat row at Delightful Learning


Swimming Fun

"I dance with whales, play tag with dolphins, and steer through storms."






I was really excited to row this during the summer to make some fun summer memories with Bo. So happy I did!

FI♥AR Quilt

I've been collecting fabric for a FIAR quilt for a couple years. I often can't find what I'm looking for locally, so I am making it a point to hit the fabric store when we make a trip to the city now when we shop. This last time, I found two designs that I love for My Blue Boat. I bought the lighthouse and sailboats on the left first, because it reminded me of the lighthouse in the book. Then I saw the one on the right and it reminded me of the busy harbor the blue boat sails through AND it has whales and dolphins! I think they are both perfect and I love that I found two, since this is the 2nd time I have rowed this book!

My Blue Boat row at Delightful Learning

Narration of My Blue Boat by Bo
"It dipped under the moon. Danced with whales and played tag with dolphins. And home." ♥

I was so super happy to get this much out of him, and I understood it all!

Delightful Links:

The parentheses are my notes for supplies. I often plan a row and add links to a post to save me time later!

More My Blue Boat Fun

My Blue Boat with Malachi and Eliana (Really wanted to make the Mock Tuna Schooners again, and sail on our blue boat blanket, but didn't get to it!)

Artful Homemaking (Love how my row with Mali and Elli inspired her!)

Our Homeschool Fun (Love the ice boats, playing tag with dolphins in the pool (and their real life experience looking for dolphins playing tag!), Jack's watercolor sailboat, and their fish jello that inspired me!)

Refined Metals Academy (Love how Amber ties in My Blue Boat with MFW ~ she covers O for Octopus and the color blue for My Blue Boat.)

Small Hands Inspired (Love all their real life experiences to bring the book alive!)

Everyday Blessings (Love how each child took a turn being the Blue Boat.)
Thanks for linking up!


Remember: You can read any book for five days in a row, and do many wonderful activities to go-along, but you cannot “row” a book without the Five in a Row manual. Furthermore, my posts are certainly not meant to replace the manual. What I share is how we use the manual. Please read Rowing with Five in a Row to learn more! 

13 comments

  1. Love this... and I SO remember that song by Raffi... brought me way back... I remember all the words! :) We miss 'rowing'... have taken quite the break from is but are jumping in to some Volume 4 this year as supplemental learning (1 row/month, I think...). Have you rowed Vol. 4? xo

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  2. Michelle, this is so fun! Bo looks so happy! I only wish the book was easier to find. Our library system has over 20 libraries and not one copy of this book :(

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  3. So many beautiful things in this post! I love all of your photos and he is cute as a button. This post makes me wish I had a little one again!

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  4. I love your FIAR quilt idea. Another great row! Looks like it was a fun week. We rowed Yellow Ball this week, and made some great memories. Thanks for all your great inspiration, we referred to your posts a lot!

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  5. Fun week of boat and water fun! Did you know that there is a FIAR Quilt group? We all team together and swap squares....I think by the end of this year, I will finally have fabric for all the FIAR manuals. I have a link in my sidebar if you are interested.

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  6. I vaguely remembered something about it when you mentioned it, but wasn't sure how to join. Thank you for sharing the link! I joined, but I haven't had a chance to look at the group files yet, but very excited!

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  7. Thank you! and so happy you are blessed by my posts! :) I love that you are making great memories, too. <3

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  8. Thank you, Phyllis! Making sure I enjoy these moments while I can. :)

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  9. It is such a bummer that it is out of print, but some of the books are being republished, so maybe one day? We HAD it at our library via ILL, but it must have been discarded (or lost) so I finally bought it off of Amazon.

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  10. Cass, we are finishing up Vol. 3 and then plan to move on to 4 this year! So excited that you will be rowing! Even if it is one row a month! We are taking it slow, too. Nice and easy that way. :)

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  11. Michelle!

    What happened to all of your tabs??? Did they ask you to remove them?? I certainly hope not!
    Can you write me an email

    Love you
    Amber

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  12. A FIAR quilt! So sweet :) I didn't know people did that! This looks like the best week of school ever!

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