Week One: Daniel's Duck
Sorting and understanding Rural and Urban:In our FIAR book Daniel's Duck he lived in rural Tenn. We discussed what Rural vs Urban meant and looked through the book to find things that would be found in each place before sorting them on our paper.
Hand prints in our Season Book:
I traced and cut out four of his hand prints on brown paper. Then we discussed the seasons in the story. It begins in fall, goes through a long winter and their is a spring fair. We talked about the changes in the trees and the leaves. Then using paints he applied finger print leaves of the right amount and right color to each tree. What is your favorite Season:
He finished by illustrating a tree for his favorite season. He really surprised me with his use of a root system. I love how he blended the colors of the fall leaves into his leaf pile with no direction at all. I love when children are allowed to self teach. It always produces the most surprising work.
Use of quotation marks and a period:
He was asked to write a sentence using both quotation marks and a period. Naturally in free writing he chose to write about the avengers rather than Daniel's duck. I love that is drawing is getting much more detailed. Way to go sweet boy.
Awesome Adjectives:Daniel begins the story very confident in his abilities. He informs his brother that he is designing the duck how he wants and that he knows what to do. Upon submitting it in the fair he feels very heartbroken when the towns people laugh at his creation. He goes to destroy it. In the 'heat of the moment' he doubts himself, and the quality of work. We used this as a great chance to discuss those 'heat of the moment' situations that Little man encounters daily. Just how Daniel reacted before he understood the intentions of others - how did Little man react to another child who bumped into him. Was it on purpose? Was it intended to be bad? After some insightful discussions he did a self portrait and created some awesome adjectives that described him.
Favorite part of Daniel's Duck:When asked what was his favorite part of the story, Little man informed me that he most enjoyed the part where Daniel made the duck turn his head backwards. He then competed the question and did a great job illustrating the scene at the fair where the towns people first saw his duck.
Today I discovered:It is always important to make discoveries from each new book. Little man discovered that in the 1800s people rarely went to the store to buy things if they could make it themselves. He learned that father make shoes, Mother make quilts, brother made bowls and boxed and Daniel made a toy duck. He simplified this statement by writing that he discovered - people carved wood.
Season Sorting:Little Man was given several cut outs and asked the glue them during the season that it was most likely to have taken place. He did a really good job. He pointed out that while I had bee's for spring - they could also be seen in summer. He made many good observations during this assignment.
Tennessee Lapbook:We made a simple lapbook about Tennessee which contained the state bird, state flower and state flag. We colored in Tennessee on the map of the united states as well as a colored the shape of Tennessee. We also added a flipbook of basic facts.
Rebuild Daniel's Cabin:For a longterm project over several days he created Daniel's cabin.He completed it with a chimney and land for it to sit on. While it was unlikely that his cabin was painted Little Man took pride in mixing colors to create the perfect cabin. It turned into an impromptu mixing colors lesson. What fun!
We also carved soap but I forgot to take pictures. Thank you for reading. Next week we will be rowing...
