Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car
Last week we read Mr.Gumpy's Motor Car by John Burningham. This is the follow-up story to Mr. Gumpy's Outing also by John Burningham. Both of these are funny, lively, unbelievable stories about a friendly man sharing life with creatures big and small. My kids enjoyed Mr. Gumpy's Outing better than Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car, but Five in a Row recommended the latter, so that was our story for last week.
Our vocabulary words for the week: Lane, Overhead, Churned and Nearly. We noticed the British slang words used, "squash, trotter". We identified Onomatopoeia: squelched, gasped, chugged and we looked at the symbolism, when the text said "rain came down" the illustration showed car driving down hill. We compared and contrasted Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car to Little Blue Truck, by Alice Schertle, and compared the excuses given in Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car to the excuses given in the classic tale, The Little Red Hen.
For Math we counted passengers in Mr. Gumpy's car. And then we added one, Mr. Gumpy, to get the total number of friends along for the ride. How many passengers could fit in two of Mr. Gumpy's cars?
In Social Studies/Geography, we reviewed the English Countryside and learned about England, placing our story disk there. We talked about what it means to be "social" and I asked the children if Mr. Gumpy was a sociable guy? They said yes, emphatically. We read The Ultimate Interactive Atlas of The World, an amazing book. We will read it through again before taking it back to the Library.
For Science we learned about clouds and cars and friction. We had fun making our own cars out of recycled toilet paper tubes using the tops of milk jugs as wheels. We attempted a few other designs, including a balloon powered car made out of popsicle sticks, but our toilet paper tube cars were by far the best!
For Art we noticed the contrasting colors used in the story. On the first color illustration, I asked the children what color stood out to them (red stood out to me) and they both said "green" almost in sync.
We noticed the clues letting us know that the story takes place in England and we noted how John Burningham drew the sun. It is the same style in both books. We attempted drawings of cars, with sunshine, using his technique. We also practiced the technique for shading that we learned during Wee Gillis week, cross-hatch.
At the end of the week we visited The Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles. Awesome place! A couple of the touring cars looked very similar to the car illustrated in Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car.
Other books we enjoyed this week:
Little Cloud, Eric Carle
The Cloud Book, Tomie DePaola
Look Inside, Cross-Section Cars, Dorling Kindersley
Clouds, Ann Rockwell
Sports Cars, Sandy Donovan
Our vocabulary words for the week: Lane, Overhead, Churned and Nearly. We noticed the British slang words used, "squash, trotter". We identified Onomatopoeia: squelched, gasped, chugged and we looked at the symbolism, when the text said "rain came down" the illustration showed car driving down hill. We compared and contrasted Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car to Little Blue Truck, by Alice Schertle, and compared the excuses given in Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car to the excuses given in the classic tale, The Little Red Hen.
For Math we counted passengers in Mr. Gumpy's car. And then we added one, Mr. Gumpy, to get the total number of friends along for the ride. How many passengers could fit in two of Mr. Gumpy's cars?
In Social Studies/Geography, we reviewed the English Countryside and learned about England, placing our story disk there. We talked about what it means to be "social" and I asked the children if Mr. Gumpy was a sociable guy? They said yes, emphatically. We read The Ultimate Interactive Atlas of The World, an amazing book. We will read it through again before taking it back to the Library.
For Science we learned about clouds and cars and friction. We had fun making our own cars out of recycled toilet paper tubes using the tops of milk jugs as wheels. We attempted a few other designs, including a balloon powered car made out of popsicle sticks, but our toilet paper tube cars were by far the best!
For Art we noticed the contrasting colors used in the story. On the first color illustration, I asked the children what color stood out to them (red stood out to me) and they both said "green" almost in sync.
We noticed the clues letting us know that the story takes place in England and we noted how John Burningham drew the sun. It is the same style in both books. We attempted drawings of cars, with sunshine, using his technique. We also practiced the technique for shading that we learned during Wee Gillis week, cross-hatch.
At the end of the week we visited The Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles. Awesome place! A couple of the touring cars looked very similar to the car illustrated in Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car.
Other books we enjoyed this week:
Little Cloud, Eric Carle
The Cloud Book, Tomie DePaola
Look Inside, Cross-Section Cars, Dorling Kindersley
Clouds, Ann Rockwell
Sports Cars, Sandy Donovan
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