The Rag Coat {FIAR}

In February, we rowed The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills.

This is the story of a little girl named Minna who lives in the Appalachian region with her family. When her father, a coal miner, dies the family is left struggling to make ends meet. Through the kindness of the women in their community, a coat is made for Minna from pieced together odds and ends. She in thrilled as this means she can now attend school. However, her new garment is not kindly received by her schoolmates.

Social Studies:

This story provided us with various things to talk about.

First, we talked about the culture of the Appalachian Mountains and pointed out specific things in the illustrations. The girls were quite interested in the dulcimer they saw hanging on the wall of the family's cabin. We ended up finding some videos of people playing the dulcimer and the girls danced their hearts out!
Our favorite? Whiskey Before Breakfast! ;)

Next, we talked about death - how people feel when they lose someone they love, traditions that often occur when someone dies and ways in which we can remember them. That weekend, their grandmother was kind enough to show them things she has that help remind her of her Mom who passed away a few years ago.

Finally, we talked about teasing, how it makes you feel and ways to respond to it.

Art:

Piper and I colored our own rag coat.

Piper and Taitum both designed their own quilts by filling in printed quilt grids.

In the story, Minna makes her own doll.

The girls were inspired by this and pulled out the craft supplies to make their own dolls!

They made these cute little toilet paper tube dolls for days!

We had a whole tribe of them by the end of the week!

Science:

We learned about coal and coal mining.

To start, we read this book which was interesting and informative.

We also watched this video which gives a good explanation of the formation of coal from a Biblical worldview.

We made sedimentary rock out of crayon.
(For instructions, watch this video.)

We also made Chunks of Coal Cookies!

This was a wonderful book!

It inspired my girls' creativity, started some fantastic conversations and led us down paths of learning that were new for all of us!