The Story of Ferdinand

T's next row was Ferdinand.  I love the detailed, humorous illustrations in this book.  Since this is another case of doing basically what we'd done when rowing this with K, I'll just post some pictures from this time.

 One activity was to discuss the relationship between the size of an object and its distance from the viewer.  K was recruited to help out by holding up a felt figure while standing on the far side of the yard while T held another identical in size close to me.  I took a photo so he could see how objects farther away appear to be smaller and higher on the picture plane.

Toddler M was outside with us, and just at that moment she decided to walk across the yard to join big sister.  Then she decided to come back.  As she tromped along, I kept snapping pictures because she was illustrating the concept perfectly.  Meanwhile, K and T patiently waited for me to say I'd taken the picture.

Both kids loved looking at this series of pictures after I had the photos developed and put them in T's FIAR notebook.

 

"As the years went by Ferdinand grew and grew until he was very big and strong."  In the book illustration Ferdinand is humorously shown next to a growth chart carved onto a tree trunk.  We talked about growth charts and I dug out one we'd started years ago.  It was interesting to compare how tall T is compared to how tall K was at his age.  (He's taller.)

  

I was also able to find some of his stats from babyhood on up, and he made a chart showing his growth in inches throughout his life.

 

It is so interesting to notice the differences and similarities between the times we first rowed these Five in a Row books with K to how it is rowing them now with T.  They are definitely two different and distinct children.  Last time we rowed Ferdinand, T disliked the vultures in the pictures.  This time he was intrigued and we spent a day learning about them.  I think he liked them less when he found out what their diet is, though.

 

I also tied cork to a branch so we could read under a "cork tree" on our last day with the book this time.  T thought that was so funny and didn't want me to take it apart when we were done.  It's the simplest things sometimes.  After discovering that cork floats, I questioned him whether he thought there might be any way to make it sink.  He thought cutting it into smaller bits might make it sink because that would "take the air out of it."  He was surprised that didn't work, and we looked at a piece under a microscope to help him get a better understanding of its structure.  Here he is with his cork tree, floating cork and cork minit book from homeschool share.

 

 

 

Since that's all the pictures I have for this row and because I'm so far behind in updating this blog, I'll close now.  Stay tuned for K's next row!