Mirette on the Highwire
I am a week behind on blogging. The reason for this slight delay is that we were very excited to meet our new niece, born last Saturday morning. Beautiful, perfectly healthy and born on the first day of Spring, it doesn't get much better.
Anyway, this is what we read last week, Mirette on the Highwire, by Emily Arnold McCully. The story of the young protégée to tightrope walker, The Great Bellini. This is a fictional story based on the true story of famous tightrope walker Charles Blondin (born, Jean Francios Gravelet). We also read the sequel to this story, Mirette and Bellini Cross Niagara Falls. These stories are fun, bright and entertaining, and it is easy to see why Mirette on the Highwire won the Caldecott Medal (1993).
Our vocabulary words this week: wench, protégée, feats, vagabond. We learned what makes a compound word, and proceeded to find them in our story every day. These stories provide many examples, Highwire being the first.
For math this week, we counted windows, and used our skip counting, grouping and multiplying skills. We learned that the fastest way to get from point A to point B is a straight line. We also continued reading through Franklyn Branley's Keeping Time.
For Geography we mapped all the locations mentioned in the story. We spent the first few days learning more about France and Paris. We reviewed what we already learned the week read Madeleine last year, we even checked out the same book about France. This book suggests making crepes, so we did. We ate crepes every meal one day, and then ate them the rest of the week, for at least one meal. The second half of the week we focused on learning about Niagara Falls and NY state. The children were excited to learn that NY borders PA!
Science (always my favorite) was so fun this week! We learned about balance and center of gravity, copper, as well as rivers and waterfalls. Nice to build upon what we learned about our ears, how they help us keep our balance. Also our eyes help us stay balanced. We balanced books on our head, walked along the balance beam at the playground and tried some of the fun experiments from this website:http://www.netplaces.com/kids-science-experiments/the-human-body/try-this-blind-balance.htm. Because the spring solstice fell on Friday of this week, we tried stand a raw egg on a flat surface, the idea being that due to the gravitational pull of the sun at solstice the egg should stand on it's own. Fun! http://www.kidpointz.com/kids-activities/science-activities/view/egg-balancing-experiment/
Art involved acting out a scene from Mirette on the Highwire, painting with watercolor and looking for contrasting colors in illustrations.
I continue to translate the Laurent De Brunhoff Babar book from the French. I am reading it in French to the children and we are picking up vocabulary a little at a time.
Anyway, this is what we read last week, Mirette on the Highwire, by Emily Arnold McCully. The story of the young protégée to tightrope walker, The Great Bellini. This is a fictional story based on the true story of famous tightrope walker Charles Blondin (born, Jean Francios Gravelet). We also read the sequel to this story, Mirette and Bellini Cross Niagara Falls. These stories are fun, bright and entertaining, and it is easy to see why Mirette on the Highwire won the Caldecott Medal (1993).
Our vocabulary words this week: wench, protégée, feats, vagabond. We learned what makes a compound word, and proceeded to find them in our story every day. These stories provide many examples, Highwire being the first.
For math this week, we counted windows, and used our skip counting, grouping and multiplying skills. We learned that the fastest way to get from point A to point B is a straight line. We also continued reading through Franklyn Branley's Keeping Time.
For Geography we mapped all the locations mentioned in the story. We spent the first few days learning more about France and Paris. We reviewed what we already learned the week read Madeleine last year, we even checked out the same book about France. This book suggests making crepes, so we did. We ate crepes every meal one day, and then ate them the rest of the week, for at least one meal. The second half of the week we focused on learning about Niagara Falls and NY state. The children were excited to learn that NY borders PA!
Science (always my favorite) was so fun this week! We learned about balance and center of gravity, copper, as well as rivers and waterfalls. Nice to build upon what we learned about our ears, how they help us keep our balance. Also our eyes help us stay balanced. We balanced books on our head, walked along the balance beam at the playground and tried some of the fun experiments from this website:http://www.netplaces.com/kids-science-experiments/the-human-body/try-this-blind-balance.htm. Because the spring solstice fell on Friday of this week, we tried stand a raw egg on a flat surface, the idea being that due to the gravitational pull of the sun at solstice the egg should stand on it's own. Fun! http://www.kidpointz.com/kids-activities/science-activities/view/egg-balancing-experiment/
Art involved acting out a scene from Mirette on the Highwire, painting with watercolor and looking for contrasting colors in illustrations.
I continue to translate the Laurent De Brunhoff Babar book from the French. I am reading it in French to the children and we are picking up vocabulary a little at a time.
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