"Play With Me" by Marie Hall Ets

"A little girl goes to the meadow to play, but each animal she tries to catch runs away from her--until she sits still by the pond, and they all come back." ~ Amazon product description

We read several go-along books about pond life, fish, and turtles. 

We also watched several videos on YouTube:

• Sesame Street Frog Life Cycle animation
• Pond Life: The Movie
• Magical Nature Journey - Forest

 

The girls colored a frog and ate Goldfish at snack time.



Aubrey worked on her writing and word search from First-School then sang and did the hand motions for Barney's song "The Green Grass All Around" from YouTube. We also sang, "God Made Me and All of You," "This is My Father's World," and "For the Beauty of the Earth."

Aubrey did an on-line jigsaw puzzle of a bird from the Kidz Page and "painted" an on-line picture of a frog on Kidsone.

Addison and Mommy played pond-themed games of Fishin' Around and Lucky Ducks.

Then the girls played Hullabaloo - a game of animals, letters, colors, and shapes.

We searched for some of the animals found in the story.  First, we observed a bird at the bird-feeder....

.....and caught a frog.



We felt the morning dew on the grass, then quietly walked and listened to the sounds of our neighborhood.



The first thing we heard was a chirping bird.



 Aubrey noticed the fog lifting off of the lake across the street;



Aubrey discovered a worm that had crawled out of the grass just like what was described in one of our go-along books

We heard the "vroooomm of two trucks driving by.

We heard a banging sound but could not see what it was.  So we began walking the neighborhood to find the sound.  One street over, workers were putting on a new roof.  It took a few minutes to identify the motor used for lifting the shingles to the workers.

"bang, bang, bang, bang...."

 "Hummmmmmm" was coming from the electircal box;

Of course anytime we go outside, Aubrey has to find some flowers.  She loved the smell of the gardenias and blew the seeds of a brittle dandelion.

At the end of the week, we took a combination field trip to the pet store to see kittens for our last book (see post for "Jenny's Surprise Summer) and see birds, turtles, frogs, and other animals in "Play With Me."

Addison was the first one to find the fish.

The girls liked looking at the snakes....but Mommy didn't.

Mommy liked the cute little frogs, though.

Awwww...turtles.

Other go-along books:

• My Big Book of Outdoors by Eloise Wilkin
• Benjamin in the Woods by Eleanor Clymer

"The Carrot Seed" by Ruth Krauss

"'It won't come up,' everyone warns the young boy in this story, who has great expectations for a carrot seed that he plants and tends carefully. The boy's conviction remains strong in the face of strong doubt and opposition. And to everyone's surprise except his, the carrot he eventually harvests grows as large as his faith." ~ Beliefnet, July 2000

"The Red Carpet" by Rex Parkin

"A wild motorcycle chase after a runaway, unfolding, red carpet ends in an unexpected welcome for a visiting foreign dignitary." ~ Amazon product description

Here's the go-along books we read.

We borrowed a city street play rug from a friend and unrolled red crepe paper along the street.

Elmo took a ride on the red carpet.

On the last day of school for that week, Mommy surprised Aubrey with a red carpet for her to walk on.  It was made from red plastic tablecloths that were cut then taped together and rolled onto a yard stick.

"Prayer for a Child" by Rachel Field

"The whole book is narrated by a little girl, but it represents children as a whole. It reflects their love of God, and their gentleness to humankind as a whole."  ~ Wikipedia

Homeschool Share suggested counting buttons on the little girls shirt.  We took it a step further by doing some button lacing and sorting.

To represent prayers for all of the children of the world, I folded some paper, drew an outline of a girl, and had Aubrey cut the silhouette.  She was quite surprised when I had her open up the paper to reveal little girls holding hands.



Each morning, we had milk and bread for breakfast just like the little girl in the story.



 Go-along books we read were:
- Wake Up, World which describes through pictures and text the typical day-in-the-life of children from around the world.
- The Moon Shines Down which takes a rhyming trip around the world to shine down on children in other countries.

We observed the half (or quarter) moon through Papa Nash's telescope.  I took this picture with my Nikon P100 bridge camera.

"Katy No-Pocket" by Emmy Payne

"Katy's distress at being a kangaroo with no pouch is quickly remedied by a kindly construction worker." ~ Amazon product description

Aubrey wore her kangaroo costume (with pouch and Joey) on the morning that we read our story.

She practiced her cutting skills and then matched the Animal Homes  cards from Kidzclub.

Aubrey matched Mommy and Baby puzzle cards,

and completed her phonics program and computer game for the letter "K" on Starfall.

Kite begins with "K" so we went outside on this beautiful day to fly a kite.

In the story, Katy the Kangaroo borrowed an apron with pockets from a handyman so she could have a place to keep her Joey.  Aubrey had her first lesson on the sewing machine to make pockets on an apron.

Now the little Joey and the other animals in the story can stay in Katy's (a.k.a. Aubrey's) apron pockets.

We learned that kangaroos can jump up to 30 feet in one hop so we took this opportunity to have the first lesson on measurements.  Aubrey learned how to measure small things in inches from using Inch Cubes from Learning Resources and measurement worksheets from Kids Learning Station. 

The Time-Tracker box is 10 1/2 cubes (inches) high.

Then the girls went outside to see if they could jump as far as a kangaroo.  We marked a starting point and then made another mark 30 feet away to represent how far a kangaroo can jump.  Aubrey took the first jump, measured it in inches, and marked it.

 

Addison couldn't wait for her chance to jump, too.

Here are our lapbook activities, worksheets, and writing exercises from Homeschool Share, First-School, and Kids Learning Station.