Box Car Children: Chapter 2- Night is turned into day

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary-
After the children leave the bakery, They walk until the early morning, the look for a place to sleep. Finally, they find a huge haystack and create four little "nests" around the sides. They drift far off as the sun is coming up. Around nightfall they awake and found a farmers pump for water and eat their next loaf of bread. As they are eating, they hear the baker and his wife coming along the road in there horse and buggy. They hear the bakers wife admit she does not like children. The couple decides to "look for them in Greenfield and that is all." The children walk to Silver City, knowing the couple will not find them there. As daylight Approaches, Henry and Jessie decide to sleep in the woods. They make beds out of Pine needles and shut there eyes.

What we will cover in this chapter:

History and Geography: The Dust Bowl Years
Science: Water Cycle and Drought
Language Arts: Setting, Vocabulary


Science: In this chapter, the children are very concerned with water. I took the opportunity to teach the kids about water and the water cycle. We talked about how the earths surface is covered with 70% of water and water never goes a way. There is the same amount of water on earth now as there ever was. They leaned about the water cycle and the three stages: Evaporation, Condensation and Precipitation. The kids listened to a book on tape, read a book and did a worksheet about the water cycle.

Geography- After talking about the water cycle we talked about the lack of water on land. (drought) The children learned about a tragic and scary time in American history that occurred in the 1930's. This time is history was know has the Dust Bowl. They watched a video on you-tube and read a book about the Dust Bowl. We also read poems from a book about a 14 year old girl who wrote a journal about her life during the dust bowl.  

Science- Just as the 1930's people still experience droughts worldwide. We talked about what steps we could take to help conserve water around our house. The children did an experiment to see how little changes could make such a big difference while trying to conserve water. The kids brushed their teeth while leaving  the water running. While brushing they collected the running water and measured the amount of water used. They learned that its very important to turn the water off while brushing because it saves millions of gallons of water a year!

Language Arts- The children drew a picture and wrote a sentence about the setting of the story. They also drew pictures and wrote definitions to their vocabulary words.

Field Trip to a Farm-We went on a field trip to a local farm and noticed how the haystacks are not mounds of hay anymore. They are round bales tied with wire. These types of Haystacks make it easier for farmers to stack hay among other benefits. The Box Car Children would have had a hard time making nests in this hay! Lily and Aj had a fun day picking pumpkin and taking a wagon ride.

Library Adventure- We were taking a trip to the library to pick out books and we noticed a fountain just like the one in the story. They kids enjoyed looking and taking about it. 

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for chapter 3!

Box Car Children- Introduction

We decided to read The Box Car Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. As we read and complete activities I will blog each chapter. Some activities are part of the Beyond Five in A Row Curriculum while others are activities made up by  homeschool bloggers or myself. 

Before we started reading The Box Car Children we went on a field trip to the Chatham Train depot to look at trains and box cars. Lily and Aj also explored an antique train station and train car. They really enjoyed themselves and cant wait to start the book.

Field Trip- Chatham Train Depot

The Box Car Children: Chapter 1 The Four Hungry Children

The Box Car Children - Chapter 1 Summary

They have a grandfather, but will not contact him for help because they are afraid he is mean. We find children in a bakery buying bread for their dinner. The notice benches with cushions in the front window and ask the woman who owns the store if they might stay there for the night. She is suspicious but agrees, planning to keep the three older children for help with housework and send the Benny to a children's home. These intentions are overheard by Henry and Jessie that night after they lay down, and so without a sound they leave the bakery and go into the night.

What we will cover in this chapter:
Science: Meal Planning and Nutrition, cleanliness 
Language Arts: Creative Writing- Elements of a Mystery, Characters of the Story

Science-
I introduced the food pyramid to the children. We watched a video about Nutrition on You-Tube and they completed a worksheet. They had to make a picture of their perfect dinner using all of the items in the different food groups. We also talked about soap and how it works. The kids learned that soap works in three ways. The first is breaks down surface tension. Next they learned that soap has molecules that attach to the dirt and "shake " loose the dirt. Lastly, soap helps keep the dirt float way from your skin until it gets washed off.

Language Arts-
The Box Car Children begin's "One warm night four children stood in front of a bakery. No one knew them. No one knew where they had come from." How very Mysterious!

Lily and Aj drew a picture and labeled the 4 main characters of the story.

I had Lily and Aj write the beginning of there own story using the elements of a mystery. They learned about setting, problem solving, suspects, clues and sequence of events. The worksheets came from scholastic.com.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for chapter 2!

The Box Car Children: Chapter 1

The Box Car Children - Chapter 1 Summary

They have a grandfather, but will not contact him for help because they are afraid he is mean. We find children in a bakery buying bread for their dinner. The notice benches with cushions in the front window and ask the woman who owns the store if they might stay there for the night. She is suspicious but agrees, planning to keep the three older children for help with housework and send the Benny to a children's home. These intentions are overheard by Henry and Jessie that night after they lay down, and so without a sound they leave the bakery and go into the night.

What we will cover in this chapter:
Science: Meal Planning and Nutrition, cleanliness 
Language Arts: Creative Writing- Elements of a Mystery, Characters of the Story

Science-
I introduced the food pyramid to the children. We watched a video about Nutrition on You-Tube and they completed a worksheet. They had to make a picture of their perfect dinner using all of the items in the different food groups. We also talked about soap and how it works. The kids learned that soap works in three ways. The first is breaks down surface tension. Next they learned that soap has molecules that attach to the dirt and "shake " loose the dirt. Lastly, soap helps keep the dirt float way from your skin until it gets washed off.

Language Arts-
The Box Car Children begin's "One warm night four children stood in front of a bakery. No one knew them. No one knew where they had come from." How very Mysterious!

Lily and Aj drew a picture and labeled the 4 main characters of the story.

I had Lily and Aj write the beginning of there own story using the elements of a mystery. They learned about setting, problem solving, suspects, clues and sequence of events. The worksheets came from scholastic.com.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for chapter 2!

The Raft

Title: The Raft

Author: Jim LaMarche

Illustrator: Jim LaMarche

Copyright: 2000

Summary: A boy's Disappointment turns into discovery one summer at a lake.

The kids loved making rafts and playing in a river. They asked me to read this book to them over and over again. Lily and Aj cant wait to go on canoeing trip next summer!

Social Studies- (Geography: Wisconsin)

The setting of the Raft takes places in the Wisconsin woods. We found Wisconsin on our map and placed our story disk there. Lily and Aj read two books and completed a worksheet about Wisconsin.

Mathematics-(Adding and Subtracting) 

The kids practiced adding and subtracting while playing a frog matching game.

Language arts-(Copy Work) 

The kids copied a page from the book in their best handwriting.

Science-(Rivers, Water Cycle)
The kids read books and listened to a book on tape. They also completed 2 pages each in their DK workbooks.

Art and Science-(Building, Rivers)
The kids built and designed rafts out of popsicle sticks. Then they went down to the river to see if they float. They also put their life jackets on and explored the river. They saw fish, heron, birds and many other animals and plants.

Extra fun- (Making Corn Bread)

Thanks for reading!