American Revolution/ Boston Tea Party FREEBIE Cursive Sheets

Now that M really understands cursive letter formation, I've started creating cursive practice sheets to reinforce our unit studies. For history, we've been learning about the American Revolution!

 Click here to download the printer-friendly version

If you would like to make your own cursive sheets, the font School Script Dashed is available FREE for download. I make the font light gray so M's tracing with colored pens is very visible. If you use black letters, it's difficult to see the student's work.

Enjoy these FREEBIE Boston Tea Party cursive practice sheets ;)

Happy homeschooling!

Outdoor Classroom Experiment/ How Temperatures Affect Hybrid and Heirloom Tomatoes

Cultivating a variety of plants is a fantastic opportunity to observe science in action! The way heirloom and hybrid tomatoes grow is very different and noticeable when compared side by side. This year, we'll be studying how these varieties grow:

Pineapple heirloom tomato. Isn't the variegated red and yellow fruit gorgeous? The fruit is large and organic in shape, not perfectly round. 

In our region, the temperature rises very quickly. Larger tomatoes are a bit trickier to grow than the cherry and smaller fruits. Even with regular watering, they can split once the temperature rises. Logging the temperatures in a journal will help us estimate:

• At what temperatures the fruit tend to split more easily
• How long the fruit takes to mature at different temperatures
• What the ideal temperatures are for larger tomatoes vs. cherry 

What would the garden be without scientific observation? ;)

Chef Jeff's yellow cherry version is another premium variety we'll be observing. The bright yellow flesh looks so bright and beautiful! Again, our journal will chart temperature -- to see if and how temperature changes affect the yield, quality, and overall fruit size. 

Green Zebra looks to be absolutely breathtaking. Fruit like this is the reason people grow and treasure their heirloom tomatoes! Extraordinary, juicy, large green tomatoes boast impressive yellow variegation. How tart will this green variety be? Only one way to test...

Of course, you always need a control group. Super Sweet 100 is a common red cherry hybrid available at the big box home improvement stores. Any guesses on how it will fruit compared to the yellow specialty variety? Will it continue to fruit well past the larger varieties? 

Library Loot/ Dragon Rider, Inkheart, The Familiars, The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail

One my third grader got some meaty books under her belt, I couldn't wait to introduce her to Cornelia Funke! Of all the loot, Dragon Rider was the first book she began reading.

Dragon Rider is a glorious 544 pages. Now that's a whopper! If it wasn't quite so long, it would definitely be a selection for homeschool book club. Prepping activities for this book is going to be a blast...

Does Paolini's Eragon draw inspiration from Funke? These books are just begging for compare and contrast activity.

Also new this week: Inkheart, The Familiars, The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates: Magic Magic Marks the Spot, and The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail.

Happy reading!

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week from Claire's blog. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

Art Activity/ Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee

Misery Bird in flight

I am totally in love with these art projects for Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy created at book club!

Snow Queen's forest

Didn't they come out awesome?

PROJECT/ Recreate one of the Snow Queen's events from the story. The results? Misery bird in flight, the Snow Queen's forest of ice and snow, and the Wintertide Clock. Sadly, I forgot to take pics of all the compositions :(

MATERIALS/ To recreate this project, students draw their design with a white crayon. Then watercolor over the crayon. The crayon will 'resist' the watercolor and stay white. Lastly, sprinkle with salt to get the snowflake effect.



Looking for more Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy activities?

Freebie Bingo Cards (People, Places, and Things from the Story)

Vocabulary Crossword

Vocabulary FREEBIE Activity/Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee

Enjoy this freebie vocabulary crossword as we continue the week with Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy. It was a fun start to all our book club activities! I know your kids will love it, too ;)

The definitions are included on page 2 (which I ran off as the back side of the crossword). 

Download/ Printer Friendly Version:

Vocabulary Crossword & Definitions

Looking for more Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy activities?

Freebie Bingo Cards (People, Places, and Things from the Story)

Bingo Activity FREEBIE/ Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee

If you want to engage discussion about a book, it's fun to use a game instead of formal questions. Why not create a bingo game with people, places, and things from a story? That's exactly what I did for our homeschool book club for Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee. 

Print-bingo.com is awesome! So easy to use and you can create custom bingo cards from your own word lists. All these bingo cards were created at print-bingo.com for FREE!

To make the cards and calling sheet easy to reuse, simply slide them in a plastic sleeve. Students make a line through the word as it is called with a dry erase marker. If you have access to a laminator, you could also laminate the bingo cards instead.

As each word is called, use the opportunity to ask students about their comprehension. If an item is called, who does it belong to or why is it important? Ask students to describe character personality traits or for important events central to that character. Everyone loves chiming in with details - so enjoy!

Download/ Printer Friendly Versions:

Bingo Set 1

Bingo Set 2

Bingo Caller Sheet

Book Review/ Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee

A powerful read about perseverance in the face of loss... 

SYNOPSIS
While exploring a London museum, Ophelia stumbles onto the imprisoned Marvelous Boy. Can Ophelia brave danger to free him? Will she find the One Other, the only person who can defeat the Snow Queen? With three days until the Snow Queen's evil plans are unleashed, there's no time to lose.

REVIEW
Billed as a modern twist on the Snow Queen fairy tale, Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy is so much more. It's in the vein of a traditional fairy tale. Enter spooky/creepy elements and expected morals. Prepare for ghosts, dangerous mythical animals, and a conniving villain.

The point of view alternates between the Marvelous Boy and Ophelia. The Marvelous Boy recounts his quest and adventures from the time he was chosen by wizards to seek the One Other (the only one who can defeat the Snow Queen). Ophelia narrates the present day story as it occurs in London.

Ophelia, the Marvelous Boy, and the King are all bound by the fact they have lost or are separated from people they love. Ophelia's mother has died, the Marvelous Boy left his mother to go on a quest, and a boy King is orphaned. Each deals with their loss in a very different way.

Though Ophelia's family doesn't discuss her mother (Susan), Ophelia is still hears her mother's voice. Is Susan really talking to her, guiding her to bravery? Or is it all in Ophelia's mind? It's up to you to decide.

The ending left me wanting more...perhaps the Marvelous Boy has more stories to tell. I would love to see a book from his viewpoint. What does he encounter on his travels home? What does he find when he gets there?

RATING

4 of 5 Stars/ Recommended for girls who love realistic fiction as well as fairy tales. A strong first children's novel for Karen Foxlee! As a writer of adult literature, some of her concepts will be lost on younger readers. This book begs for rich discussions - morals, feelings, positive coping skills, courage, and conscience.

M's top adjectives for Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy -- surprising, interesting, amazing.

ONLINE FREEBIES
Study Guide via Random House