A New Path to Follow: Very Last First Time {FIAR}

Saturday, August 16, 2014

This is the 4th year that we have used Five in a Row as our literature curriculum and our second time covering Volume 1. I think I love this curriculum so much because I love the memories it has created for us. It makes me want to burst with happiness when I hear the boys bring up a past book or topics we have covered. The boys are usually asking when FIAR will be covered that day. They can hardly wait, so we were more than ready to start our first row of the 2014-2015 school year, Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews & Ian Wallace.

Very Last First Time is set in Northern Canada and follows Eva, an Inuit girl. Eva and her mom go out on a mission to collect mussels from under layers of ice on the ocean floor. This will also be Eva's first time going under the ice by herself. Every time I read this book, my heart races. It is pretty intense. The boys sat in complete silence listening to this story to hear how Eva does on her first mission.

Geography

We started out by reading a book about Canada and doing part of our Canada lapbook from Homeschool Share. We also talked about the Aurora Borealis and did this tissue paper craft. We also watched BBC Human Planet: Life in the Deep Freeze on how people live in the arctic.

Culture

We read about the Inuit culture and did more of our lapbook. We also watched a very intense clip of what it is like for families to go under the ice to collect mussels. I cannot imagine how stressful that must be, but such a clever idea to figure out a way to survive. The boys also practiced building ice sculptures (It wasn't very easy!) and seeing what salt does to ice. We also read books on igloos and stone inuksuks. The boys had the unique opportunity to build an inuksuk while we were visiting Angkor Wat in Cambodia. We also tried building igloos out of sugar cubes.

Building Inuksuk in Cambodia

Art

The boys made the Aurora Borealis tissue paper craft. They also made cute ( or evil) Inuit paper dolls. We also looked at the book and noticed how the illustrator used pointillism to create the pictures. They also used warm and cool colors. The boys did their own pointillism igloo with a warm and cool theme.

Arctic Animals

We read two books on the Tundra and arctic animals. The boys had to listen while I was reading and fill out pages on four animals we read about. They had to write a description of each animal and something new they learned about them. We focused on the narwhal, polar bear, seal and caribou.

Theme Food

We made these Eskimo cookies. None of us really loved them. They were no bake and you could really taste the granulated sugar, but we had fun making them.