Harold and the purple crayon and other happenings

This week, our Five in a Row book was Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. This is an amazingly imaginative book in which Harold draws the story.  This book isn't billed as a whole week's row but is linked to a review week. I wasn't sure how this book was going to work but it led to some creative thinking.

We used this book as a springboard for some activities using the imagination. Drawing on large pieces of paper.

making purple pictures

 and cloud dough. The children started acting out the story with cloud dough, the circles represent pies

 but the play rapidly evolved to being at the sea.

This book lends itself to counting up to nine and to counting in threes. We did some of this but didn't really touch on fractions-Harold cut a third out of his pies. Hopefully, we will do a little more on fractions soon.

As this was a review week, we looked at our piles of Five in a Row books. I asked the children to select their favourites. These were

• Mirette on the high wire (both children)
• The Glorious flight (Mr Exuberance)
• The bee tree (Miss Belle)

There are details about these on my Five in a row page.

Of course, we did other things. More science from the Usborne Big book of things to make and do. This was a creature that walks on the water looking at surface tension.

Reading and making progress-so good to see. Reading Eggs has really helped Miss Belle with confidence. Both children played with letters in playdough. Thank you to the Imagination Tree for this idea.

Reading aloud is increasingly having three strands: picture books for Mr Exuberance alone or with Miss Belle, chapter books for Miss Belle and a biography for Middle Son. Middle Son, of course, does plenty of reading on this own but likes to have an occasional read aloud. 

We started to pack our box for the cultural exchange. It needs to be sent off next week.

Next week is half term so I don't plan that we will row a book. Plenty of other things that we would like to do though. It isn't always easy to see where learning begins and ends.

This is linked to The weekly wrap up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.