Best Friends for Frances
Our topic for this week was friendship as we read Best Friends for Frances, by Russell Hoban. We learned about how we should and should not treat friends and, that our siblings are/ should be our best friends. We enjoyed lots of time indoors this week, since it was cold and rainy most of the week. We completed the suggested activities from The Frances Study Guide, by Valerie Bendt including planning and going on an outing. This included a basket of food: pickles, pretzels, yogurt cookies, of course sandwiches and fruit and games in our basement. I added a compare and contrast Best Friends for Frances with The Berenstain Bears' No Girls Allowed. These compare and contrast exercises are so rewarding and the children always have such insight.
We learned two math rules this week. We learned that to add nine to any number, you take one away from it and add ten. This is simple, especially if looking at a number chart. We also learned that even numbers added together give even numbers.
We read the biography of Dr. Seuss this week: Oh, the Places He Went, by Maryann N. Weidt. This inspired the children so much. They wanted to read And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street as soon as we learned that it was the first book published by Dr. Seuss. When we read about how he wrote Green Eggs and Ham because of a bet from a friend, I decided Tristan should read that one to me, and he did! (The first 18 pages of it, anyhow. It's a long book!). It was really nice to see the kids excited about reading and being so inspired by the story of Dr. Seuss.
We also enjoyed some stories about winter, When Winter Comes, Nancy Van Laan (a resident of Bucks County, PA) and about trains, A Steam Train Ride, by Evelyn Clark Mott (another resident of South Eastern PA). These stories were cute, but the favorite train story this week was The John Bull, A British Locomotive Comes To America, by David Weitzman. Perhaps on one of our visits to Nana and Poppi's house we can visit the Smithsonian Museum of American History and see this historic train in person.
Our topic next week is Christmas, and then we will take some time off of "school" to celebrate Christmas. As the song says, "It's the most wonderful time of the year"!
We learned two math rules this week. We learned that to add nine to any number, you take one away from it and add ten. This is simple, especially if looking at a number chart. We also learned that even numbers added together give even numbers.
We read the biography of Dr. Seuss this week: Oh, the Places He Went, by Maryann N. Weidt. This inspired the children so much. They wanted to read And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street as soon as we learned that it was the first book published by Dr. Seuss. When we read about how he wrote Green Eggs and Ham because of a bet from a friend, I decided Tristan should read that one to me, and he did! (The first 18 pages of it, anyhow. It's a long book!). It was really nice to see the kids excited about reading and being so inspired by the story of Dr. Seuss.
We also enjoyed some stories about winter, When Winter Comes, Nancy Van Laan (a resident of Bucks County, PA) and about trains, A Steam Train Ride, by Evelyn Clark Mott (another resident of South Eastern PA). These stories were cute, but the favorite train story this week was The John Bull, A British Locomotive Comes To America, by David Weitzman. Perhaps on one of our visits to Nana and Poppi's house we can visit the Smithsonian Museum of American History and see this historic train in person.
Our topic next week is Christmas, and then we will take some time off of "school" to celebrate Christmas. As the song says, "It's the most wonderful time of the year"!
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