Harold and the Purple Crayon is a sweet little book about a boy who draws his adventures (with his purple crayon) as the story is told. The FIAR manual suggests 'rowing' this book during review week because it is an easier book without a lot of subtopics. Seeing as it was our first week of school, I thought this would be a great choice as we are finding our new rhythm and routine.
Finding the Color Purple
We had a lot of fun with this color mixing experiment to find out which two colors are needed to make purple. Gabriel already knew the answer, but he was a good big brother and didn't ruin it for Gracie!
Before we began the kids made a color chart leaving the middle boxes blank.
G and G watched for several minutes as the paper towels began absorbing the colored water. Gracie was all giggles and she waited to see which jar would end up with purple water. Gabriel was fascinated by the water "walking" up and over the jar, so we had a little side lesson about why that happens.
The water finally made its way to the middle jars and we had our results!
More color mixing fun with paint...
Survival Skills- Gaining a View from Altitude
Harold doesn't want to get lost so he climbs a hill but knows that the higher up he goes the farther he will be able to see. So, he climbs a mountain instead!A lesson from the manual suggests teaching your child this practical skill in case they ever find themselves in a situation where they are lost. ( Now in order for this to be effective they will have to be familiar with their surroundings. This is something Charlotte Mason taught as part of her geography lessons.)
We made a list of things we could see while still on the ground before climbing the 'mountain'
As they reached the top they were so excited to be able to see things from the higher altitude that they were unable to see on the ground.
Transportation- On Land, Sea and Air
Harold uses many forms of transportation throughout his adventure. Gabriel made a list of them and we added to it and come up with some pretty silly ways of getting around! He looked through magazines and cut out pictures of different modes of transportation and glued them on paper to be added to his binder. (He will add to it as he comes across new modes of transportation in other books)
Harold falls off the top of the mountain but thinks fast and draws a hot air balloon so he can land safely on the ground. Since we didn't have one of those handy, Daddy helped us out! ;)
Art-Vanishing Point and City Scenes
These lessons were quite interesting to my children. They were very engaged as I discussed the different art techniques and demonstrated them, but were not too keen on trying it themselves. I filed these away in the Art Section of their binders and they can use it as a reference when creativity strikes!
Setting
At the beginning of the book the setting of the story is unknown. We read The Little Red Hen and compared the opening scenes of each book. Both Gabriel and Gracie were able to describe the setting of The Little Red Hen from the first illustration. We talked about how the setting is progressive and in Harold's imagination. This lesson also came from the manual.
Science: Moon
The moon follows Harold through the story and I could have easily planned a 'Moon Unit' to go along with our 'row. However, there are other FIAR books that have more emphasis on the moon so we will study it in depth while 'rowing' another book. I did want to touch on the moon a little bit so we casually talked about the different phases and what the moon is made up of. They put a space puzzle together and found the moon and pointed out the craters.
Role Playing: Picnic
Our time with Harold and his purple crayon wouldn't have been complete without a simple picnic lunch with nothing but pie! They didn't seem to mind that it wasn't lunch time or the fact that there was only one pie instead of nine! :)
Our first week of school brought all of us joy and laughter. I had very low expectations but still expected them to be met. Gabriel's favorite thing we did all week were his reading lessons. Ah, music to my ears!
This coming week we are hopping over to Australia!
This coming week we are hopping over to Australia!
