This year I decided to go back to a curriculum that we all loved - Five in a Row. We had taken a break from using it because my oldest two attended enrichment classes twice a week last year so the days they were home we were focused on L.A. and Math. We had little time for much else. And the year before that I simply didn't have the time to come up with lessons because my youngest was a handful. So this was finally the year to reintroduce Five in a Row and I am so excited. Five in a Row is a story-based curriculum. Here's an example of a list of books for the year. You decided how long you "row" each book. Sometimes it'll take a week or even 3! Each book contains little trails that lead to a variety of subjects to cover. When, in history, did the story take place? Where are the characters from? What did they eat? How did they dress? What did they do in the story? Etc. Etc. The possibilities are endless. For the past two weeks we've been rowing The Bee Tree from Five in a Row Volume 3. I got so many great ideas from Michelle over at Delightful Learning and a few from Pinterest. These are only some of the books I found at our library to read along with The Bee Tree. At the beginning of each row, I make a list before I go to the library based on what I see from their online database. This was one of our favorites. We studied the lifecycle of bees and they all participated in this cute little activity. Because we were learning about bees, we needed to learn the parts of a flower to better understand the bee's important job. One of my favorite things about home schooling is that I am learning right along with them. I had no idea that the flowers had tiny eggs that turn to seed. Our new microscope came just in time to see these tiny eggs. I think taking the time to observe and paint what we're studying is such an important step. It causes you and your children to have to look at every little bit of your subject to try and replicate it thus imbedding it into your minds. To simulate what a bee does, we used a small plastic syringe to gather "nectar" and a plastic bee to "pollenate". Before we painted these we watched several YouTube videos of the lifecycle of bees. Here are a few of our favorites. Here and here. We watched this video about gathering honey and used this recipe to make honey cookies. I bought this block of beeswax at Hobby Lobby using their 40% coupon and a package of wick and pumpkin scent. First I chopped the wax into tiny pieces. This was the most time consuming part. I set the jars in boiling water to melt the wax and keep it melted during the dipping process. They made 4 dipped candles and there was enough wax left over to make 4 small poured candles. This project was really fun and I think we'll all remember it for years to come. There are some great videos about candle making here and here. The characters in the book are from Michigan so we studied this beautiful state and even interviewed my dad as he is from Michigan. Their inventions. We also learned that MoTown was founded in Michigan and that one of the greatest inventors, Thomas Edison, is from Michigan. So our studies led us to the invention of the light bulb and prompted my children to invent their own ideas on paper. (Here is a great illustration of how a light bulb works) As you can see, we had great fun "rowing" this book. At the end of our row, I made up a test of sorts to help summarize all we learned. I think it helps them and I to wrap up a great row.