FIAR Selection
“Oooohhh!” The kids gasped as they moved in for a closer look. A few of them wanted to touch the cloud that had just raised out of the jar.
I kicked off FIAR, for our co-op this semester, by reading Storm in the Night by Mary Stoltz. It’s a great book about a boy and his grandfather, who relays that everyone has experienced fear at some point in time. It’s alright to be afraid, but the best way to beat it, is to face it head on.
Therefore, I opened our discussion by talking about fear. I went first sharing a fear that I have had and how I got over it. Then the children spoke about theirs.
The Letter R
For every story our co-op reads, we have a designated letter to teach alongside the book crafts and activities. Today’s letter is R for rain, so we made raincloud R’s. Pookie and I are going to put together a book of our crafty letters.
Cloud in a Jar
For fun with science, we created a cloud in a jar. This worked wonderfully, which was such a relief. I was nervous as to whether or not it would work because we met at a park. Therefore, I had to keep the ice frozen in the heat of September (still feels like summer). Plus I had to keep the water super hot. Fortunately my cooler kept the ice and my awesome thermos (gift from my awesome step daughters) kept the water sufficiently hot.
It’s a really simple yet exciting experiment for the young ones. I used hairspray to give the water particles something to gather on. I explained to the children that in the sky the water particles collect on dust, pollution, etc.
Full directions here:
Here’s an informative video on how clouds are formed:
Educational songs about weather by The Treeschoolers:
Rain Puddle Game
I always like to get the kids moving a little, so to finish up we played a game called Rain Puddles. Make a bunch of different size/shape “puddles” with either sidewalk chalk, pieces of paper or I used jump ropes in circle-ish shapes. When I said “Go,” they had to jump over the puddles avoiding Roland inside. When I shouted, “Rain puddles,” they got to jump in the puddles.
Counting Raindrops
Here’s a great printable for number practice.
Home Study from the Grateful Heart 