Mike Mulligan

Last week we read Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton. Anastasia does not enjoy this story, but Tristan likes it, so it was cool. Our week mostly involved getting moved into our temporary living situation here in PA, so I didn't feel that  we gave the "schooling" top priority. We made a steam shovel craft and practiced drawing trees and things in motion. It really makes me appreciate the illustrator (in this case Virginia Lee Burton) when I attempt to draw something similar to what they have done. Yeah, not as easy as it looks! We made a transportation collage and talked about all the modes of transportation. Thanks to Grandma, we were able to do some road building for our matchbox cars and discussed why it's easier/faster for cars to drive on a highway that is smooth and straight versus a hilly, curvy road. Mike Mulligan is a great book for counting practice as well. Counting trees, telephone poles, cars, horses, etc. We didn't get to quite a lot that could have been done talking about steam and how to harness the power of steam for accomplishing work. Here are a few links I thought were helpful/interesting. http://www.sciencekidsathome.com/science_experiments/hot_air_pinwheel.html
http://www.lovemyscience.com/steamingup.html

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