Joyful Mother of Six Children: FIAR Vol 4: Cowboy Charlie

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

FIAR Vol 4: Cowboy Charlie

This was our last co-op with our FIAR volume 4 this year. We all had a lot going on in the month of May so ending early seemed like the best thing for all of us. We are going to pick up again in the fall and finish off the remaining titles before moving on to Beyond FIAR. :) I'm glad we did that as I find that if I'm tired and overwhelmed with other things, that I just don't have as much to give to our FIAR studies. I want to really enjoy these books and our time together as it really is sweet and fun!

So, our last book of the year was Cowboy Charlie. This is a true story about Charlie Russell. Its a fascinating look at a boy who was captivated by the Wild West and then went to visit and work there and ended up staying. He worked as a cowboy, but his true passion was art. He painted beautiful pictures of the west. You can see them here.

There are so many great topics to explore in this book! We touched on a few of them in our co-op. We learned more about buffalo/bison. Did I mention that here in North America that we don't have buffalo? What we have are bison. You can read more here about the differences.

The kids did an activity where they had slips of paper with various parts of a buffalo listed on it. They learned that when the Native Americans hunted them that they used all of the parts of the animal. Then the used were listed and the kids tried to figure out which part was used for that. Make sense?

Here is a look at the picture with the parts and the uses matched. Its truly amazing how resourceful the Native Americans were!

These are incredible creatures. Our field trip to the farm just prior to the co-op to learn about them was wonderful! If you are local, you should go visit! Sunset Ridge Buffalo Farm

They learned some of the history of the area of the country where the story took place.

In particular, they compared the states of Missouri (where Charlie was born) and Montana (where he lived as an adult).

They also learned about some of the Native American customs. For their craft, the each made a teepee/wigwam. They could each choose to decorate in any fashion that they wanted.