The Red Carpet {Before FI♥AR}

It is always a joy to read a beloved book for the very first time to a child, so when I saw that Elli pulled The Red Carpet off the shelf to read to Bo, I almost stopped her - I wanted to be the one to first read it to him! But, I didn't. I let her enjoy reading it to him for the first time.  I rowed The Red Carpet with Eliana when she was five, and she had fun helping me row it with Bo now that he is five. 


To plan our row, we pulled out my Project Life album and Bo told me what he wanted to do, which was everything. :) 


-Bo is 5 years old-

We made plans to find all natural fruit roll ups, get pretzels at the mall (which was the first thing we did), print the police officer printables and Red Carpet printables from Homeschool Creations, and of course, roll the "red carpet" through the town! 


Day 1 - Planning, Shopping, Pretzels at the Mall


We got everything printed and ready to go (and by we, I do mean "we" - Bo told me what to print and ran to the printer each time I printed something). :) Then we were on the hunt for natural fruit roll ups, which we could not find anywhere. I thought about making them homemade but quickly put that thought out of my mind, haha, and thankfully, we found a box of Fruit Roll Ups at Costco with NO FOOD COLORING! Yay! :) Which was not only perfect for some Red Carpet memory making, but also our snack for All About Reading Pre-reading - "the sound of f." 

Day 2 - Pre-reading, Red Carpet Printables & Memory Making 









Day 3 - Happy Birthday "telegram" for Eliana, Stop Lights, Street Signs (Memory Game), & Stop Light Fruit Pizzas (just like we made for The Snowy Day, but with chocolate!).










Day 4: Directions - North/South/East/West, Left/Right, & Street Signs




Day 5: Red Carpet Memory Making and Narration 





The Red Carpet Narration by Bo

"The duke is coming to visit. He rolled out the red carpet and cleaned and mopped the floor and rolled the red carpet. (What happened then?) It just keeped going and keeped going... through the streets. Everybody honked their horns, and it keeped going on and on. The dogs barked with their masters and followed the red carpet. When the stop light was done turning red, the red carpet just keeped going. And the pretzel guy upset all his pretzels and the ice cream guy said "huh?" The guy said arrest that carpet right now, so they did. And it go past route 22 and to the barn and over - and that will stop it, but it just keeped on going. It rolled over the car and it keeped on going to the ferry. The police officers keeped going. The red carpet go all the way to the ferry. The police officers were at the ferry and they go all the way back again."

The Red Carpet is a Before Five in a Row selection. There are a lot of Fun Things to do with B4FIAR, but the most important thing is to cultivate a love for learning. ♥

*******

Winter is usually when I am able to slow down enough to get into a good routine with the 3 Rs and we have gotten into a good routine with the help of a bullet journal. 


I can see that we started our row on a Friday (our trip to the city to grocery shop, buy the fruit rolls ups and get pretzels at the mall). We also read from Sonlight Core P 4/5, Reddy Fox and Bobby Coon, and worked on our Sign of the Beaver unit study with Malachi and Eliana.

(Note to self: I am finishing up this post March 2nd, but since this blog is a record of our learning, I'll back date this to the end of January).

Pre-Reading with Bo

Bo started Part 3 of All About Reading Pre-reading just after he turned five and has been working consistently through letter sounds this month. 

With each letter sound, we have a "tasty" alphabet treat. So far we've had:
  • animal cracker apple merry-go-rounds
  • bear pancakes with peanut butter and blueberries
  • cookie dough 
  • earth milk (a THM sipper that I'm addicted to)
  • fruit by the foot
  • grapes
  • hearts (vegan gummies)
  • ice cream 
  • juice
  • kiwi
That takes us through the end of January. I'll share more next time. 

A few pictures: 









Bo also started his K math program this winter: Math Lessons for a Living Education Book 1 (Link to the new edition. I am using the first edition that I print at home). 

In order to hold his attention, I don't read the story. I just explain the concepts to him. I avoid having him write too much in the book too. And instead of copywork, I make him number pages for him to trace using the Getty-Dubay style font.  


Bo has completed numbers to 30 and understands place value to one hundred. 





He counted with Fruit Nuggets, which were perfect because you can press 10 of them together to make a "ten." :) 

Until next time...