FIAR-- The Rag Coat

We have just finished rowing The Rag Coat    by Lauren Mills.  I had not originally planned to explore this book, but a field trip to the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mines inspired me to find a book that has something to do with coal...and this one fit the bill perfectly!!

  In this book, we learn about friendship and forgiveness from a girl named Minna and her coal mining father.   After Minna's father dies from 'miner cough"  the quilting mamas come together to make a quilted coat for Minna so she could attend school, something she greatly desired.  Her coat was made from scrap materials--all with their own special story.

During this row we learned about coal, quilting, the parts of a story, compass orientation with a maps, and more work with mountains in the US.

Minna made a rag doll from leftover material scraps of her mothers.  This greatly intrigued Delaney and she wanted to make one too.  I had a bed sheet that was no longer serviceable so we used it to make the body of the doll.  We then cut many thin strips of the sheet to use as filling.  She sewed eyes and a mouth on. I helped her add hair and a dress...and there you go...a beautiful scrappy doll all her own.

We continued with the handiwork skills by working on a quilt that I began for Delaney about 4 years ago.....Oh wow, if my memory serves me correctly I started this quilt with my sister Elizabeth lived with us.   Now that's procrastination!  I really can do somethings well!!  Enough of that....we dug out the unfinished materials and went to work.  Cailin joined in the sewing too.  We talked about the history of quilts and read many books that centered around resourceful people and their quilting stories.

I now have all the squares I need to complete her quilt.  We will follow after the resourceful manner of past quilt makers and use Daddy's old white church shirts for the stashing between each block.  The back will be the top sheet of the sheet set that is no longer useful as a bed sheet.  (the bottom one was used to make the doll...and colonial hats.) 

Math:  When we worked on our paper quilt Delaney had more practice with a ruler and measurements. (paper quilt is shown above in the autumn colors.)

Language Arts:  We talked about the setting, and conflict of a story.  We then discussed what we felt was the Rising Action, Climax and Denouement of this story.   We also found vocabulary words that we didn't know the meaning of before.

Geography:  We mapped out what states the Appalachian Mountains are in, and which states have large amounts of coal deposits.
  We also talked about the compass of a map.  We had fun learning where north south, east and west...NE, NW, SE and SW too.
I gave them some marshmallows one day and a command to place them in the appropriate place.

Science:  We learned about coal.  Where it's found, how's it's made and used, and the ways we get it out of the earth.   We found interesting information and videos that give a biblical world view of the formation of coal. 

 "So we can conclude that only 128 years of plant growth at today’s rate and volume is all that is required to provide the energy equivalent stored in today’s known coal beds! There was, of course, ample time between Creation and Noah’s Flood for such plant growth to occur—1600 years, in fact... There was ample time, space and vegetation growth for one Noah’s Flood to produce all of today’s known coal beds." ~ Coal Beds and Noah's Flood

http://delightfullearning.blogspot.com/2011/03/rag-coat-fiar.html   ---interesting video!  

We also found a recipe for "coal cookie".  These are you basic magic bar like cookies.  However, we used the graham cracker crust to be the earth with the chips and coconut and nuts to represent the trees, vegitation, leaves, etc. the sweetened condensed milk represented the pressure that  is inflicted on the plant matter...and the heat of the oven represented the heat.  All these together create coal....or a really super yummy coal cookie!

We had a wonderful time on our field trip to the West Virginia coal mines.