The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Grey Bridge / Play With Me

Friday night and I sit here in disbelief that another week of school is done. Some weeks drag on painfully slow and seem never to end. This was not one of those weeks. We didn't quite get everything done that was planned but that is ok because there is always next week. Here is a review of what we did with our Books of the Week.

Zoey was ready to get back to school work after a week off. She continued with The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Grey Bridge by Hildegarde Swifte, as her book of the week. We started off with geography and Zoey was excited to find out that the lighthouse and bridge are real structures that still exist. The bridge is the George Washington bridge in New York and the lighthouse is still there. We looked at pictures of it online and both of the girls loved this. Then they asked to go there. Um, maybe not today.... We also talked about New York City and read some books about it. We had two drawing activities this week too. In the first one we showed the balance of the title words and in the second one we showed contrast in size. Sierra has her own book of the week but she loves to join in on anything she can. Here are their drawings. I thought they were cute so I had to share. Ok, I can't get them to rotate, ugh! Well just turn your head. Nice huh? Sierra didn't quite understand to draw the lighthouse on one side and the bridge on the other but that is ok. I love how they both drew the light coming out of the lighthouse. Today we also compared lighthouses from before electricity and computers to today.

For art study we discussed the contrast in size between the lighthouse and the bridge. I asked the girls to draw pictures of something really big next to something really small. Zoey drew a bridge and a lighthouse. I guess she was not in the mood to think outside of the box on this one. Sierra drew an elephant, and alligator and a cherry or an apple. I forgot which one it was.

By far Zoey's favorite activity with this book was when we talked about how the fog made it hard for the boat captains to see. The girls took turns wearing a blindfold trying to find their way around the house. Then I stood in the middle of the living room pretending to be the lighthouse and yelled "ALARM" if they got too close to me and the pretend rocks. They played this on and off all day. There was lots of giggling and eventually fighting.

This weekend Zoey wants to set up the Brio train track set because it has a bridge in it. We are trying to figure out how to make a lighthouse to put next to the bridge. So as you can see we are still loving Five in a Row. And that was just Zoey's book.

 

Sierra finished the book Play With Me by Marie Hall Ets and started a new book. One of the first things we did with this book was to talk about the different emotions you can see in the little girl's expressions. I made funny sounds that the little girl might be making and then they begged me to do it again every time I read it after that. We also talked about the morning dew. This was amazing to Sierra that the grass was wet even though it didn't rain. Now when she sees the grass wet in the morning she gets so excited and says, "Mama, morning dew!" I know it is a simple thing to us but I love to see them discover something with their young eyes.

 

We went for a bike ride to our pond to see how many animals we could find that were the same as in the book. We saw plenty of turtles just like in the book. Later we added new animals from Play With Me to our classification cards. Sierra loved sorting them in many interesting ways. First we did it the way we usually do; mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, etc. Then Sierra made new groups. Animals that like the night. Zoey corrected, "You mean nocturnal." Animals that jump. Slimy things. Animals that like trees. Bears. Bears had their own group. I wish I could remember them all. It was so funny. She decided to dived them up even further and line them up with help from Zoey and me. That is when I took the picture.

We did a few more things but I need to go to bed. Thanks as always for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.