Little Nino's Pizzeria

Little Nino's Pizzeria by Karen Barbour tells the story of Tony, a little boy who helps his father in the family pizzeria until the restaurant gets so successful that it is sold to open a fancier place.  Nino learns an important lesson about being an entrepreneur and about happiness.

Abishai loved this book.  We read it over and over, enjoying all the pictures and taking time to look and observe all the colours and art work.

We observed all that goes into making a pizza - dough, meat, vegetables, sauce.  You can make a wide variety of combinations for pizzas.  We studied the food groups and arranged them into their proper categories.  Micaiah is colouring the foods that belong in each group.

Abishai did a food group sort.  

This activity was kind of a waste of time. By doing this activity, I discovered that the boys already knew their food groups.  I guess as a family we talk a lot about food and health, and the boys have already picked up on all of this.  This is to show you that "unschooling" can be an effective method of teaching children.  But it takes a secure and confident parent to "unschool" and I am not that.

While rowing Little Nino's, we discovered homonyms.  So I picked up lots of books to build on that idea.

Amelia Bedelia loves homonyms, so Abishai read lots of Amelia Bedelia books. Abishai thought she was funny.  He couldn't wait to see what crazy thing she would do next.

We also took a look at idioms.  I even learned two or three new ones myself.  I had never heard of "a bolt from the blue".  I have already used it a few time in conversation with Daren since reading about it.

We took a look at artists like Matisse.  We read about his life and looked at a couple of his paintings.

Abishai loves painting so he asked to paint after looking at Matisse's work.

Pizza is a great way to introduce fractions.  Thank you Melissa and Doug!

 I wrote down some fractions and Abishai added the toppings.

Voila, Abishai's fraction pizza. 

We are learning subtraction in math so I grabbed this book from the library.

We made our own pizza!  Spelt pizza of course.  This was our first time ever.

Grating lots and lots of cheese!

It looks good, but did it taste good?  Noooo it didn't.  I baked it at too high of a temperature for too long.  It started to burn before the crust was cooked.  Next time I will bake it at a lower temperature.  The boys and I thought it was gross, but my husband surprisingly enjoyed it.  He's so easy to please!

Life Science video that recapped some of our previous lessons.

In Life Science we're learning about our body.  Blood vessels this week.

I've been reading Paddle to the Sea to the boys during lunch each day.  A geography story book on the Great Lakes.  

I've also been reading them a chapter or two a day from Charlotte's Web.  Abishai saw the movie before I was able to read the book to him.  How did that happen!  I was so disappointed to learn that. 

Spelling.

Teaching the boys (and my husband) how to set a table.

Snacks and cuddle times.  Saltless pretzels.  Who eats saltless pretzels?

Whats a day without house work?  Asher learning to sort.

Abishai asked for an allowance.  So my husband and I thought of extra things that he could do around the house to make money.  

I found these jars at the Dollar Store and printed off the pigs from fourpiggies.com.  My husband and I are teaching Abishai about long term saving for bigger items and about tithing and giving back to God.  So far, Abishai has shown restraint with his money, especially after discovering how hard it is to work and save up for things.  He took his money to the store to buy something the other day, but came home with nothing because he couldn't find anything that was really worth spending it on.  

Play.  I found these two in library quietly reading.

Asher's daily play.

Outside play.