Make Way For Ducklings FIAR Study

This week was so fun! We just finished Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey.
The Kinders had SO much fun with this book! I was actually quite surprised by their enthusiasm (especially JT being 6 now =) over a book about a duck family. This charming book now holds a very special place in our hearts, and now forever on our shelf.
I decided to start making a "Learning Center" for each of our Five in a Row unit studies. This one I thought of while vacuming the other day, and collected things I had already around the house, and printed off the rest for the board. It's in the corner of our living room, next to the couch.. where we read our books. This was a great idea! Having it in the area, it was easy to refer to during story time... and it was great because all week they could "stop by" and visit the table...

KT loved it so much she brought over her school chair, and sat down and looked through all the books, and things on display! Very cool.

I included as much as I could for the story with what I already had. Peanuts, a nest, eggs, 2 mallard stuffed Ducks, Go along books, and other stories related to Ducks, etc..

map of the United States

This craft has nothing to do with our lessons.. We have been wanting to do Mosaic art for a while now, and while in Murano I picked up some glass from the factory stores, ( a whopping 20 euros for a small bag) and here we are..enjoying every minute of it!

KT, seached the house for things that start with the letter D ... here you can see her pile.
Doll, Duck, DVD, Dinosaur, Dice, Dog, Dish. She loves that game!

For math I cut out 8 Duckies, ( from the story there are 8 baby ducklings) and we did some problem sovling, with teh peanuts. I can't tell you how many my kinders ate during that lesson! =)

grouping into 5's.

on the back of their lapbooks, I then glued on the duckies, and wrote their numbers down for addtional practice.

For Art, we practiced Drawing the Mallard from Jt's Bird book, that was a bit hard for both of us! So we ended up making differant animals out of the attempted Duck shapes! =)

I also collected some Art off the internet of differant paintings and pictures. There was alot out there.. and way to many to post!

We talked about how the artist drew his pictures.... as you can see below, and pencil art.
We also read that the Author bought 2 ducks and kept them in his home and observed them daily, and that's how he learned to draw them. It was good to discuss patience, and all the work that went into making this book special. They appreciated that.

We talked about how mothers take care of their babies. And how some animals care for their babies, and some animals don't care for their babies once born. We also read the book What's hatching out of that egg? there wers some great examples of God's creatures that don't care for their young...

Here are the books at the Learning Center Table this week. Had I planned a bit more, I would have picked up some library books on Ducks too.

We also did a lapbook for our book.. we love lapbooking! I think I will do it forever! =)

What do ducks eat?, Vocabulary words, Duck feather colors, Nest, letter D book
Pond life, - Map of Massachusettes.

JT put in alphabetical order the names of the 8 ducklings.

KT, coloring in all things that start with D

Duck Poem

We played Duck Bingo many times...

And what better way to end the lesson with a Field trip to see some Ducks? =)

Before we go on about the ducks we saw, I want to share some sweet animal babies

we saw at the Zoo.... Spring is here.... it was such a JOY to see all these precious baby animals..some just days old.. If you get a chance, see your local zoo listing about any births.. and take the kinders to see them.. It was a wonderful surprise to each of us that day.

even Buster went to teh zoo and loved visiting all the animals.
Thank you Zoo for having Mallards~!

on our way into the zoo, we found some Mallards. It was very exciting! we fed them bread, and hung out a bit at the pond.. I thought this was so great, who needs to head into the zoo now? But as promised.. we continued on... =)

we even saw a duck egg! but we couldn't figure out why it was all alone... my son was freaking out about it.. he couldn't handle that no one would sit on it. We looked at it a while, and when we tried to leave, he was so sad about it... upon further notice... it was cracked.. and i think that's why it was abandoned.. =( poor ducky.

JT loved following these two around... ALL over.. he had the best time.

A picture perfect Field trip

we were able to get close, look at their feet, see how they talked, it was great.

And on another note.. Kt helped me stuff these pillows I made this week for the living room. These are very cheerful, and I feel like I need all the color I can get to keep things cheery when daddy goes.

There are still a few more things I want to add to our study this week. I want to show them a feather covered in crisco and one that isn't. and see how the feather reacts to water in the tub... learning how Ducks don't get wet etc...

We also watched some youtube videos on a duckling hatching out of the egg, and a family of ducks.
There is also a Statue located in the Boston park of the Ducklings .
Some of our other favorite Duck books are the Jackie Urbanovic Books. Hilarious!

But for now, thank you so much for visiting!

What are you up to this week?