Since the beginning of our school year I have hoped to start posting our preschool happenings in an effort to keep my sweet little one's godmother in the loop of her little world. Here we are in May and I'm just now posting something. Life! What can I say?! No matter how much I desire to blog I won’t let it take me away from my family too much. So here we are…I suppose I can begin now and work backwards! I will still try to post things we have done throughout this school year because we simply love our Five in a Row book studies.
Five in a Row (FIAR) is a literature based curriculum. (here is why it's called FIAR!) I have used it over the years with my kids from Before FIAR to Beyond FIAR. About 5 years ago a few ladies in my homeschool group created a “FIAR Club”. We read the books at home and met monthly for some fun activities together. The memories of those club days are so special to me and my now 11 y.o. This year I have tried to recreate some of that fun with my 4 y.o. It’s been a blast!
Last week we read Wild Horses of Sweetbriar as our FIAR book and My Chincoteague Pony as an extra to go along with the same theme. I like to add extra books that have the same theme as often as I can. There are so many great titles, there is hardly enough time to read them all!
I have been doing a mix of FIAR and Before FIAR titles this year. Some of the FIAR books “G” has not been quite ready for. For those we only read once instead of all 5 days. Sometimes she couldn’t even get through that. Others she would sit through many more times than the 5!!
At times the activities to go along with the books were too advanced for her. Wild Horses of Sweetbriar was one of those, however I couldn't pass on this book because in my home horses and the beach are heaven to just about all of us!! I was part of a book club in two different homeschool groups and in each one I led the meeting for the book Misty of Chincoteague. The activity I created for the children to put together was this mini Chincoteague in a jar. “G” is a little young to create this so I went with a bigger version that she could actually get her hands into, a beach island sensory bin. She absolutely loves sensory bins!
To do this I gathered these supplies
*Sand (from the floral section at Michael's. I chose this over play sand in the craft store b/c it was non-toxic and made in USA. Sadly the kids sand did not say non-toxic))
*Greenery that looks like sea grass (.50 cents at Michael's)
*Play horses from the girls toys
*Blue glass beads (for water) from Michael's
*Little seashells Also available at Michael's (we had some leftover from the last project for Misty)
*Play sand pail from the girls American Girl collection
*Plastic bin-I use the lids to those disposable pans. I always seem to have those on hand.
*Fence- I had a little fence from our Peter Rabbit's Garden sensory bin so I used that as well. It looked beachy!
Here is the finished product. Super
easy!
And let the fun begin!
Here is the
pony swim!!
"G" had so much fun using
this sensory bin.
We still have it assembled so she can
continue to play with it.
Here are the two books I used for this unit this past week. You can see all the books I have used for my wild ponies units in the below links.
Both of these books are out of print, but usually a local library will have them.
Here are my previous units on island ponies and Misty of Chincoteague
Island Ponies Pt. 1 (Misty)
Island Ponies Pt. 2
Places to see wild ponies on the beach:
Assateague Island, MD
Chincoteague Isalnd,VA
Sable Island, Nova Scotia
Various North Carolina Islands
Cumberland Island, GA
Payne's Prairie Preserve, Gainesville FL
"But in my heart, I knew I would only need wild horses and the wind from the sea." ~Wild Horses of Sweetbriar
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