Chapter 2- Sarah Plain and Tall

Chapter Summary-
Caleb, Anna and Papa all write Sarah Letters. Sarah Responds, answering questions about herself, Maine, her cat and her brother William. The children enjoy reading the letters. Papa has told the children that Sarah has offered to  come for one month to visit and see how they all get along. The children eagerly give there consent. The days go by and Sarah sends them her response. Its short and to the point.

What we will cover in this chapter-
Language arts- (Writing,Vocabulary and Making connections)
Fine Arts- (Colors of the sea, oil Pastels)




Language arts- (Writing,Vocabulary and Making connections)

The kids continued with their journal. After reading the second chapter they had to complete questions about the chapter, look up vocabulary words and wrote a letter to Sarah. They also made predictions, wrote chapter titles, asked question, and  made connections about the story. (I used www.teacherspayteachers.com for the journal paperwork)

Fine Arts- Colors of the sea
Sara Tells Caleb she loves the colors of the sea. The kids created a memorable art project with oil pastels using only blue, gray and green. We talked about different shads, values and combinations of the 3 colors.

Thanks for reading!

Little Nino's Pizzeria

Title: Little Nino's Pizzeria
Author: Karen Barbour
Illustrator: Karen Barbour
copyright:1987
Summary: Nino and his son Tony discover that bigger is not always better.


Little Nino's Pizzeria is told in a very simple style but the theme is very important. It tells us that "money isn't always everything." We learned about Italy, the Italian Renaissance, Pompeii and lots more. Check out all the activities we did.

Social studies:( geography, Italy)
Even though the story does not say its set in Italy we decided it was the perfect story to learn about Italy. The kids placed there story disk on Italy on our world map. We did work sheets about population, culture, inventions and much more. We read tons of books and listened to Italian music. We also learned Italian words.  At the end of the month we entered into a home-school geography fair so this is the perfect opportunity to discuss and learn about Italy.

Homeschool Geography Fair-

Books Read-

Language arts:(Letter P, Poems) We read a poem about pizza and they answered questions about the poem. We also talked about rhyming words and alliteration. They also copied a sentence and the letter P in their best hand writing.

Mathematics:(Fractions) The kids did a pizza fraction worksheet.

Art:(Making Gondolas, Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian Renaissance) We went to The Museum of fine arts in Boston to look at the Italian Renaissance art. We also learned about Leonardo Da Vinci by reading books and coloring a picture of the Mona Lisa. The kids made Gondolas out of construction paper, glue, glitter and markers. Last but not last the kids played a matching game with Renaissance art cards.

Science:(Eating Healthy) I talked about the food groups with the kids. We did a worksheet and read a book. We went to the children's museum in Mashpee where the kids pretended to pick vegetables from a garden then they made a fake dinner in the kitchen. After, we went to the Grocery store. The kids had the chance plan and have anything they wanted for dinner within reason. (Of course, I helped prepare the meal!!)The only rule was that the needed to have something from every food group. This was such a fun trip and dinner.

  Children's museum Mashpee-

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Trip to the grocery store and dinner- The kids made appetizers, dinner and dessert.

Science:(volcanoes) We have been reading about Mt Edna and Pompeii so we decided to make a color changing volcano.

Field Trip:(Boston, North End) I took the kids to The North End in Boston to experience Italian lifestyle and cuisine. We went to Mikes Pastry, an Italian pizza place, Old North Church, St Anthony's Church, St Leonard's peace garden, North End Branch library, freedom trail and Paul Revers House.

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                        Thanks for reading! Enjoy our next blog post!