11.04.2012

FIAR: Storm in the Night & Weather

I am several weeks behind.  Three weeks ago, we "rowed" Storm in the Night by Mary Stolz. 

Storm in the night.
Thunder like mountains blowing up.
Lightning licking the navy-blue sky.
Rain streaming down the windows,
babbling in the downspouts.
And Grandfather? . . .
And Thomas? . . .
And Ringo, the cat?
They were in the dark.


This wasn't my favorite book we have read so far, but we did several fun activities along with it to make it more interesting.  In the book, there is a storm that makes the power go out.  To pass the time, grandfather tells stories of when he was a child. 

It just so happened that my dad was in this week as we were studying this book.  He got to read it to them one day, which I thought was great because it was about a boy and his grandfather.


 The boy in the book couldn't even imagine his grandfather ever being a young boy.  He asked him if there were cars and electricity when he was a boy.  The grandfather scoffed and said, "How old do you think I am??"  The boys thought this part of the story was funny. 

 The boy said a grandfather could never be a boy and boys could never be grandfathers.  I have an app on my phone that the boys play with often.  Here are their photos in the aging booth:
Lucas' cracks me up.  He wasn't in the mood to take a picture.  He looks like a grumpy old grandpa.

We did some weather experiments that I found on Pinterest.
We talked about the water cycle and made this with shaving cream and food coloring.

Landon taught them about wind.
Lane playing on the porch while we were checking out the wind that day.

I made these cloud cards that I saw on Pinterest.  They had fun using them to see what kinds of clouds were in the sky.

This was a fun project with cotton balls.

We also did a unit study on Tornadoes by Amanda Bennett.  I was concerned it might make them afraid like it did me when I was little, but thankfully it didn't.  We talked about what some fears they have and I reminded them we have nothing to fear if God is on our side.

We made tornadoes in a jar.

We also found a tornado tube connector on Amazon that makes a nice funnel.
They decided to put Lego guys in it too.  Hours of entertainment.  haha

This is our book from the week:




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