Are you looking for lapbooking materials and activities to use with the book A New Coat for Anna? If so, you’re in the right place!

Unable to find the resources I wanted to complement this book, I created my own, and am happy to share this FREE resource with you. Find out more about Five in a Row, how we create lapbooks, and a peek at our finished A New Coat for Anna lapbook.

A New Coat for Anna Summary

A New Coat for Anna is a beautifully written story by Harriet Ziefert and illustrated by Anita Lobel. It tells the story of a little girl, Anna, and her mother in post-World War II Europe. Supplies are hard to come by, however, Anna desperately needs a new coat.

Undeterred, her mother creatively acquires the necessary materials and resources within their community. They end up sharing a Christmas celebration with those that helped in the creation of Anna’s new coat.

If you’re familiar with FIAR and want to read about our activities and get the lapbook, keep scrolling until you get to A New Coat for Anna FIAR Activities.

If you’re unfamiliar with this curriculum, keep reading along for a basic overview of how and why I like using this curriculum.

What is Five in a Row?

Five in a Row is a literature-based curriculum that follows a unit study format. A unit study simply means all of your school subjects are centered around one unit, which in the case of FIAR, is the selected picture book for that week.

Weekly activities are provided for social studies, language arts, art, math, and science. In the FIAR Volume Two, 2nd edition, there are twenty picture books, one of which is A New Coat for Anna!

How Does Five in a Row Work?

With the Five in a Row curriculum, you read the selected story for the week, ideally reading the story every day; as in, five days in a row. Hence the name, Five in a Row. Depending on how you plan your week, you proceed with your subjects for the day.

I use FIAR along with daily handwriting, math, and reading. Throughout the week, I sprinkle in other learning options that I choose to include in our homeschool. Although this certainly isn’t required with the curriculum.

Why I Love Five in a Row

Essentially, I love Five in a Row because it’s centered around lovely children’s picture books. It’s a sweet, gentle approach to learning that is wonderful for the elementary years.

Additionally, this curriculum provides learning ideas from the book for each subject area. I spend a few minutes each week reviewing the suggested activities and mapping out our week.

We also love to create lapbooks to showcase all that we learn each week. To do this, I (usually) find a free lapbook online that corresponds to the story, print it out, and complete those activities and mini-books as we go along.

At the end of the week, we glue everything into a file folder, and voila! We have a completed lapbook and a sweet keepsake to showcase our learning. All my kids have enjoyed revisiting these books and the memories they contain.

Difficulty Finding the Lapbooks I Need

Unfortunately, with volume two of FIAR, I am struggling to find the lapbook resources I want! I’m finding paid resources, but if I purchase materials for each picture book in the curriculum (and there are 20 books covered), those costs would quickly add up.

I like free resources the best, don’t you?

I decided to create what I needed from scratch, guessing that someone else might need them, too. I’m pleased with the results!

I’m happy to share this A New Coat for Anna lapbook with you, as well as any lapbooks I make moving forward. 

Give Five in a Row a Try

I’m not sure how popular Five in a Row is these days. The market is flooded with homeschool curricula, and with all the shiny, new products, the older ones can get lost in the crowd. Five in a Row has been around for years and years, however, and I think that speaks to its quality.

If you’ve never tried FIAR, but love the idea of using picture books for learning and really delving into different subjects centered around that book, you will probably love FIAR. You can even download free sample units to see what this curriculum is all about. 

For second grade this year, I switched back to FIAR, which was something I hadn’t done before! In the past, I only used FIAR for kindergarten, and then used Ambleside Online (AO) for 1st grade. While there’s a good deal to love about AO, my daughter really missed the lapbooking activities. I missed the picture books. 

Since she’s my last child to homeschool, I decided to make the most of the memories and try something different for her. It’s been a wonderful change.

A New Coat for Anna FIAR Activities

I’m not going to share all of the activities we did with this story. There are a lot of suggestions in the FIAR manual! However, the lapbook I created will complement the activities suggested in the manual and allow you to make a great lapbook. 

• We made a handwoven wall hanging using an easy weaving tutorial for kids from The Artful Parent. She still needed some help, and I created the loom out of cardboard.

• We practiced dying fabric using smashed raspberries.

• She colored her own pattern. We didn’t take time to work with a store-bought pattern or design our own, but that would have been another great activity!  

• We watched a quick video about lingonberries, which is what was used to make Anna’s coat red. Did you know you can get lingonberry food items at IKEA? If I had planned better, I would have already had those on hand.

• We read a two other books with a similar theme about coats: The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills and Coat of Many Colors by Dolly Parton.

Our Completed A New Coat for Anna Lapbook

For our lapbooks, I use simple file folders of various colors. If we’re running out of space, I simply tape in a piece of card stock. I do recommend using the clear gift wrapping tape as it holds better and is invisible.

Also, its very handy to have a paper cutter and either glue sticks or adhesive mounting squares.

Here are some photos of our finished A New Coat for Anna lapbook:

We like to embellish our lapbooks with lots of stickers for a little pizzazz. As a scrapbooker, I have plenty of stickers on hand, but you could also specifically look for stickers that accompany each unit.

For this book, stickers related to Europe, sheep, Christmas, and weaving would be useful.

FREE Lapbook for A New Coat for Anna

I am happy to share with you the 11-page lapbook I made for my daughter. It’s currently available in my ever-growing Resource Library for subscribers.

When you sign up, you’ll get immediate access to this lapbook, and a whole host of other incredibly useful resources for your homeschool AND personal self-care as a homeschool mom!

Conclusion

I hope this A New Coat for Anna lapbook will benefit you as you use the FIAR curriculum. This will also work if you’re looking to read this story for the holidays and want to try making a lapbook for fun. Either way, I hope this resource is helpful and useful in your homeschooling journey!

Do you use lapbooks in your homeschool? Have you ever used Five in a Row? Leave a comment and let me know!