L: Lentil

L: Lentil

Welcome! The following is the 12th in a series of 24 lesson plans, Learning the ABC’s through Literature, the 1st year. It was written especially for classroom use within a homeschool co-op, and was designed to teach the alphabet, over the course of a school year, using classic childrens literature. The books are primarily taken from the Five in a Row Curriculum by Jane Lambert, with several others added as well.  The plans were designed to give just a little bit more, so it could be more usable within a classroom setting. Teachers questions, printables, craft ideas, classroom handouts, etc are included within all the lessons. This is geared towards a K-1st grade class. If you are interested in something similar for older children, the Learning through Literature series is a more developed concept of this same idea, geared towards 1st-3rd, and also uses mostly Five in a Row books. You can find it here, Learning through Literature, the 2nd year.

L: Lentil

What I Need:

  • Lentil
  • Merriam Websters Alphabet Book
  • L Handwriting Sheet (printable version here)
  • US Map
  • Lemons
  • Charcoal/Paper/Blending Stumps
  • Wide Craft Sticks
  • Straws
  • Rubber Bands

Review

By now, you may not have time to go through all the books you’ve done since the beginning of the year. If you do, great – this is a good memory / alphabetical order exercise. But in our 45 minute class, we were always running short on time, so we began to only mention the last few books we had done.  Last week we talked about K is for Katy … today, L is for … Lentil

Introduce the Book

Our Story takes place in Ohio

Take a moment to find Ohio on the map. Depending on the state (or country) that you live in, discuss the cardinal directions (north/east/south/west) you would
travel to get there (what about to get to other states?  This is a great review and reinforcement from last week’s lesson

Other questions … what Continent is Ohio on?
What Country is it in?

The main character in our story today is a boy named Lentil.
Lentil has a problem with his lips. It doesn’t say what his problem is, but for
whatever reason, he can’t pucker his lips, can’t whistle, can’t sing.
Our book takes place in a small town, in Ohio in the 1940’s. As
you are looking at the pictures, if you see something that looks like it’s from
that way back then … raise your hand. Lots of differences in the way people lived back then. Who can think of a few things that may have been very different?  (more small towns
and closer knit communities. Didn’t have distractions like TV and Internet.
Lots of time spent outside. Lots of time spent together.)

Read the Story

Things to point out:

  • differences in a 1940’s small town from today
  • puckering (have some lemon slices on hand to pass out and demonstrate)
  • Lentil’s disadvantage ended up saving
    the day.

    • God has made us exactly as he wants us for His purpose. Maybe we wish
      we could be like this other person or do this other thing … but maybe God made
      us just the way we are for a very specific purpose.

Handwriting Sheet

Click here to print

 

Craft – Homemade Harmonicas!

I really wanted to send our kiddos how with their own harmonica, or at least have their own harmonica blowing experience after reading Lentil. They I checked harmonica prices and even cheap harmonica prices and thought … enh, there must be some homemade verion on the internet. And of course, there was. This is a simple, simple craft that our kiddos LOVED. They were playing their homemade harmonicas for the rest of co-op. They have a fun sound, almost like a kazoo, but are quiet enough to not be *too* annoying to parents.

What you will need: (for each harmonica)

  • two craft sticks (popsicle sticks work too, but not quite as well
  • one wide rubber band (to go around 1 of the craft sticks)
  • two small pieces of straw
  • two small rubber bands to hold the sticks together (though wide work as well – that’s what I used, and it doesn’t make a difference, just doesn’t look quite as pretty)
  • crayons or stickers if you want to decorate (optional)

 

This is a front and back picture of our well-loved homemade harmonica, leftover from class.

 

 

You can see specific how-to instructions here:

 

 

One thing to note, you DO NOT blow through the straws to make a sound. At first, I thought I had made it wrong. You can move the straws to the left and right, which will make the sound higher or lower, but you blow through the opening between the straws. If you place the two straws in just the right spot, you can actually blow to the left of one straw, in the middle, and to the right of the other straw, and hear three different sounds … which is kind of neat. You will need to do some experimenting to see what works best.

Also … when you are assembling your harmonica. After you place one rubber band around the craft stick, add one straw piece under the rubber band and the 2nd on top of the rubber band. Then, add the second craft stick and attach with the rubber bands.

Craft – Introduction to Charcoal

When I took art in high school, charcoal was my favorite. A little smudge here, and little blending there – all of a sudden, you have something that really looks like professional art. So I loved charcoal, and I have a few charcoal supplies on hand, and I love it so much that I actually made a trip to Michaels specifically to pick up some extra pieces of charcoal and smudgers just so I could introduce the smaller guys to charcoal too.
If you’ve never worked with charcoal and this is intimidating, you may want to try something else to go with Lentil (or stick with just the Homemade Harmonica – which is a guaranteed success). But, if you’re feeling brave, you can check out this video on YouTube for some basic pointers.
We tried to turn a circle into a ball (Remember Blueberries for Sal and the Chalk? – very similar) and we turned a square into a cube, but shading our cube 3 different colors. I would say about half of the class caught on to this concept. But all of them enjoyed smearing around the little pieces of charcoal, using the blending stumps, and watching how pressing softer or harder could make their drawings lighter or darker.
Check our the tutorial above for a few more teaching tips. I will try to upload step by step pictures soon!
Click here to return to the Learning the ABC’s through Literature complete booklist and see the general instructions for each lesson.