FIAR Co-op - How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, Part 2

We spent a second week on this fun and entertaining book! First, we read and enjoyed it together again. Then we made an apple pie! Some of the children helped mix the pie crust, and some of the children rolled it out.







While the pie was baking we did another really messy activity, we painted with apples. We used apples for the main shapes, and brushes for fine details.








No, not blood. Just paint in the hair of our littlest student! If you know my friend Sally, this was something of an emergency even though it was not blood. :-) (love you Sally!)


For our snack, we of course ate the apple pie we'd baked! The letters cut out of the top crust stand for our co-op name: Families Learning In Christ.

FIAR Co-op - How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, Part 1

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World is a very fun book that incorporates so many different topics for further learning. We could have spent a few more weeks on it! In the story, a girl sets out to make an apple pie, so she goes to the store to buy the ingredients she'll need. But the store is closed so she has to travel the world and collect all the ingredients herself.

First we read and enjoyed the story together. Then we did this sequencing activity where the students had to remember in what order the girl collected all the ingredients, and glue the pie shapes in the proper sequence.



We talked about each country the ingredients came from, found them on a large world map, and then did this flag activity.






Since cinnamon is one of the ingredients (hailing from Sri Lanka!), we mixed up some cinnamon, applesauce, and a bit of glue to form a dough and punched out cinnamon room fresheners with a heart shaped cookie cutter (dough not edible because of the glue).


In the background you can see son C holding his nose, because he hates the smell of cinnamon!





We let them air dry on wax paper for several days - I turned them once or twice a day so they wouldn't curl on the edges. Didn't they turn out cute? And they smell so good! (note to self, great Christmas gift for children to make for grandparents or Sunday School teachers!)

FIAR Co-op - Night of the Moonjellies

This book, by Mark Shasha, is very fun with a lovely air of wonder and awe about it that young children can really relate to. We loved it! Sally was the FIAR teacher this week, I was the writing teacher, and our poor friend Lisa was home with a bad head cold, so we were down one teacher and two students. Without an adult helper in the class, Son C took most of these pictures!




In the story, a seven year old boy spends the summer helping at his grandmother and great aunt's seaside hamburger and seafood stand. One day he finds something jelly-like on the beach, and after a busy day helping at the restaurant, his grandmother takes him out on a friend's boat and shows him what this special jelly-like thing is.


Sally turned my kitchen into a seaside food stand, and let each child make their own menu.


Then they put on an apron and chef's hat, and went to work making hamburger patties!





They also served smoothies at their food stand!


They even made enough hamburgers and smoothies for all the writers to eat when writing class was finished. Thanks five-in-a-row kids!!

FIAR Co-op - Papa Piccolo, Part 2

After once again reading Papa Piccolo together and talking about the story, the children made their own gondolas out of paper! In the story, the two little baby stray cats that Papa Piccolo ends up adopting, unwittingly go for a long gondola ride and are "lost" for a day. We talked about how in Venice, the canals serve as streets and there are boats of all types traversing the waterways.




Papa Piccolo was served scraps of all kinds, and of course loved fish! For our snack, the bravest of the children tried sardines on crackers. A few of them were not willing, and we didn't force them, but 3 of the 5 at least tasted!


Sally's boys couldn't get enough!


Sally gathered all the stuffed animal cats she had in the house, and the children acted out the story. Super cute!



We really enjoyed this book. It was a fun, fun morning!

FIAR Co-op - Papa Piccolo, Part 1

This is a really, really sweet book about an independent alley cat in Venice, Italy who becomes a papa cat quite by accident. The pictures are colorful and detailed; just by looking at them we were able to learn a lot about Italy!



We looked at some pictures of Italian art, and talked about primary and secondary colors. Sally, who was the FIAR teacher that day, gave the children a paper palette and the three primary colors. They then mixed each primary color with the one next to it to create a new color. It doesn't matter how many times you tell a child what will happen, nothing beats actually doing it with your own hands and seeing it with your own eyes!






The colors mixed quite nicely, don't you think?!



After this the children had fun painting pictures of whatever they wanted. They painted for a long time!

Then we made spaghetti noodles for snack! (which turned out to be our lunch)


Yum!