"Corduroy" by Don Freeman



"Corduroy is the story of a teddy bear who lives in a department store but is never bought. One day a little girl wants to buy him, but her mother points out that he is missing one of the buttons on his overalls. That night he decides to explore the department store in search of a button. He doesn't find a button, but the next day he does find love and a home." ~ About.com review

After reading the story with her green corduroy-clad teddy bear sitting beside her, Aubrey watched an animated version of the story on YouTube (Part 1 & Part 2).

Aubrey practiced lacing buttons then sewed a button on a pair of laminated green overalls.

Aubrey sorted  buttons by size and color using her fingers (for practicing her fine motor skills).

Aubrey learned how to graph Teddy Grahams by color and shape (arms up or down) - our snack for the day.

She sorted, counted, and wrote the number of Gummy Bears there were and sorted the Three Bear Family by size.

Aubrey had her first lesson on money since the little girl in the story had to see if she had enough money in her piggy bank to buy Corduroy.  Aubrey sorted the coins that were alike and learned their names.  

At the end of the story, Corduroy goes home with a new friend, Lisa.  Aubrey invited her friend, MacKenzie, over to play, and they watched and sang the song, "Friends Are Friends Forever," on YouTube.

 She made a collage of the letter "F" using photos of all of her friends.

For our field trip, we took our bear, Corduroy, to a department store to ride the escalator, just like in the story. 

Corduroy found a large mattress, but the buttons were just pretend.

The lapbook activities are from Homeschool Share.

Aubrey's writing and word search are from First-School.  The Gummy Bear counting is from Scholastic. I made the coin sorting circles and the Teddy Graham graph. Aubrey also did her online phonics program on Starfall and a Corduroy computer game on Treehouse.

St. Patrick's Day

"Angus Lost" by Margorie Flack

"Always curious, Angus runs away from his house to seek new adventures. Find them he does, but will Angus make it back home?" ~ Amazon product description

Aubrey sorted pom-poms by color using tongs, counted them, then completed several color patterns.

The girls scooped out (then ate) their pretend doggie snacks.

The girls "d"ot painted a large letter "D" (for dog).

In the story, Angus follows a milk truck to its deliveries.  We went to the Children's Museum of Atlanta where Aubrey milked a pretend cow for the first time and learned the steps to getting milk from the cow to to the table.

 Addison liked driving the tractor on the farm.

On another related field trip, we went with some friends to the Mayfield Dairy in Braselton, GA.  First, we watched a film about the dairy.

We are modeling our hairnets prior to the tour. During the tour, the girls saw where the large milk trucks/tankers come in from the farm, the large pipes that heat the milk to kill the bacteria, and the milk jugs that are filled and sent out to the stores.

The girls milked another pretend cow.

Afterwards, we enjoyed a picnic in the park with our friends.

The story is illustrated in silhouette.  Above is a silhouette of a Scottish terrier that looks just like Angus.  Below are the silhouettes of Aubrey and Addison that I had done the week after we rowed this book.