Stopping by Woods--A FIAR unit

We had some fun exploring winter while rowing Stopping by woods on a snowy evening by Robert Frost. This is a beautiful poem, and I love how it is illustrated in this book. I had a hard time getting Alex to get excited about this book, but after a few days he was trying to memorize the poem right along with his brother.

Books:

I picked up quite a few poetry books, and books about winter from the library. I enjoyed reading more Poetry for Young People by Robert Frost, and the boys really enjoyed The snow globe family. It is a cute little story about a family that lives in a snow globe and longs for the big family to shake the snow globe so they can have a big blizzard.

So we made some snow globe art, and we used salt for a wintry affect.

Aric's snow globe

Alex's snow globe

We made some lap books from homeschool share. Alex is starting to enjoy lap books.

We read a little about Arctic animals in this book, One Small Square--Arctic Tundra. I just love these books. They are so full of great information and nature.

Alex learned the names of some animals found in Stopping by woods on a snowy evening. I wrote the name of the animal down, and he would copy it. These animal booklets are found in the homeschool share lap book.

Science:

We had a winter fair with our local homeschool group. I was in charge of a station, and we made these snowmen shooters. They turned out cute, but they weren't the most sturdy. I would find stronger cups next time.

We made some borax crystal snowflakes, of course.

The crystals started setting up pretty quickly!

The final snowflake came out pretty good.

Jingle Bells:

The third stanza from the poem reads...

"He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake."

So, we had some fun with the song Jingle Bells. It is often associated with Christmas, but it really is just about winter. Alex just loves this song, so he just loved this part.

He loved reading the words to the song, and did really well too! We made the booklet to put in his lapbook. Aric's job was to copywork the song.

Then we had some fun with the hand bells. I found some sheet music with the colors of the bells so the boys could easily read it. They did pretty good. It is harder than it looks!

They took turns, and helped each other a bit.

Snack:

We had a fun tortilla snack (as suggested in the homeschool share lapbook).

First we cut our tortillas to look like snowflakes...

Then I warmed them up on my griddle. The directions suggested putting them into the oven, but I thought this would be easier.

The trick is to not leave them on too long! They will get too crispy. I didn't get a picture of the really good ones because they were gone so fast! Just this super crispy one.

Stopping By Woods links and ideas:

• Homeschool share lap book.
• Jingle Bells at Handbell Heaven 
• Craft project: Snow shooters @ Growing a Jeweled Rose
• Snow globes: my own brain, but there are a lot of ideas if you search snow globes on pinterest. Some are very similar.