The Pumpkin Runner

We finished rowing The Pumpkin Runner by Marsha Diane Arnold illustrated by Brad Sneed. It was so fun. We spent two days on identifying Australia, and how Australia is a whole continent. We talked about how Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, so the seasons are opposite from our seasons. The kids love watching videos from United Streaming. We especially love the show from Animal Planet, The Jeff Corwin Experience. That man is simply hilarious.

We talked about using true incidents to create a good story. We looked up information on Cliff Young, the person Pumpkin Runner is based on. B-6 was especially sad to find out that he was eventually too old to run anymore.

One of our favorite activities was from the Identifying Places Through Famous Architecture lesson. We pointed out different landmarks on our map from the book, It's A Big Big World, and identified where they are located on the map.

We also put together a paper diorama from http://www.papertoys.com/ of The Sydney Opera House suggested by Holly from the FIAR boards. We found this landmark in several shows and movies we watched that week. It was so exciting for the kids when they recognized it!

Other topics we covered from the FIAR manual: Jeeps, disagreeable people, cheating, reactions, motivation for participation in sports, bragging, vocabulary, Metric System, hot air balloons,art: perspective. Common Sayings and their meanings.