Peter Rabbit: Five in a Row

Oh, what a delightful time we had with this story!!!  I purposed to spend more time planning our week and boy did it show in the things we were able to do.  I really want all of our weeks to be like this, but the reality is that some are and some aren't and I'm thankful for both!  

I need to find a schedule (for me) that works for planning for all of my children so that we can have more weeks that are like this!  I'm hoping to use the summer to do some planning.  Though I may need to work on a 6-8 weeks on and then 2 weeks off in order to have some built in time for planning.  Anyone want to share what works for them?  

We read Peter Rabbit.  I gathered resources before we started our week from printables (there is a free fold n learn from Five in a Row to go with this book), to books (other books in the series) to art lessons.    Planning and preparing really helps *me* to be better able to do the fun things that I want to do.

We read the book each day and had some great discussions on various topics.  We did some map work.  (Printable from Homeschool Share)

One of the fun things that we have done over the years in our notebook is to have a title page for each story.  I love doing this because it is fun to see their artwork and what grabs them from each story.  Typically this is done after reading the story for the first time.  I love Daniel's picture here!

So many of our lessons don't end up in pictures.  Like acting out the vocabulary/action words in the story.  That is always a silly, but fun activity!  And the discussions.  What a great tool - stories - to use to talk about life and how we would act in the same scenario.

We made a trip to the store to buy seeds.  

Of course he wanted carrot seeds!

We planted these in pots.  

Daniel worked hard in getting the pots ready.

The seeds are so very small.

As is often the case, Eliana wants to join in on the fun too!  Its so good for her to have siblings to learn from and with.

And any excuse to get messy and dirty is alright in her book!

We also bought some plants and put those in these planter boxes on our deck.  We also tried some in the yard.  We have not had much luck in the past planting in our yard (too much shade) so we'll see how it works for us this year.  It would be so much fun to have some produce from our own garden!

One day I did a fun snack idea that I read about from Gourmet Mom on the go.  It is so cute, isn't it?  Its a Peter Rabbit garden snack.  

I took a muffin tin and filled it with fruits and veggies and then covered it with green tissue paper.

Then Daniel and Eliana poked to see what was planted in their gardens. 

Eliana loved the surprise of it even though she would not try all of them

I mostly used things we had on hand and tried for a variety of colors and a mix of fruits and veggies.

This was a huge hit!  This is it for pictures.  I didn't take that many, but we did have a fun time.  Daniel loved reading more stories in the Peter Rabbit series and adding in the hands-on activities really made our time memorable.  I think this may go down as one of our favorites.  

I have more ideas on my Pinterest board if you want to check it out.  There is also a community board with more ideas for Peter Rabbit here.  

Enjoy!

Leslie