Storm in the Night/A real storm/Midweek fun day
Two weeks ago we read the story Storm in the Night by Mary Stoltz. This story has subtle beauty. At first read, it seems a simple story about a grandfather and grandson weathering a short, summer thunderstorm, but after reading every day, the depth of the story becomes apparent.
Vocabulary words: errand, bough, mandarin
We noticed the words that dealt with color in the text: Navy, Mandarin, etc.
Math, Anastasia sorted small items by color, shape and we worked on counting. Tristan is doing well in his math lessons and seems to be understanding that math is important.
Science we learned about light and color. We noticed the source of light in the illustrations, and conducted some experiments with light/color. We also learned about thunder storms.
In art class we colored white on black paper. Tristan made a beautiful scene inspired by the story illustrations. We also began a sketch log of our baby caterpillars and ladybug larvae that we are growing. The caterpillars are Tristan's and the Ladybugs are Ana's. It will be fun to look back on these sketches once the butterflies and ladybugs are released into nature. Tristan adds a few words about how the caterpillars are developing.
Geography and Social Studies were light this week. We continue to learn the names, abbreviations, and capitals of the 50 United States, and it's fun to mark our dry erase maps each week as we add to what we know. For Social Studies we discussed family relationships and the importance of having someone we trust to share life with. Grandparents are special, and have wisdom to share if we are wiling to listen. We began reading Heidi by Johanna Spyri this week. Tristan was able to make the connection there between the stories. Both stories are about children who have good relationships with their grandfather.
Other books we enjoyed with Storm in the Night,
Light and Dark, Terry Jennings (nice experiments)
Color, Lawrence (nice experiments)
Just a Thunderstorm, Mercer Mayer
Colors! Colores!, Jorge Lujn, Piet Grobler
Flash, Crash, Rumble and Roll, Branley
Color, a poem by Christina G. Rosetti (Tristan memorized her poem The Caterpillar, earlier this semester. Nice to hear another title by her.)
Clouds, Delano
Henry and Mudge and the Wild Wind, Cynthia Rylant (Tristan read this one to me.)
Incidentally, we ended the week learning about Thunder storms with a big storm. By morning we had both girls sleeping on the floor of our room, and one of our apple trees blew over, split right at the graft scar. I'm glad the kids are not afraid of thunder, however, the wind on the girls' side of the house gets pretty strong and loud and that kept them from sleeping. I attempted to re-graft the apple tree. I'm not counting on success, but I felt I had to try. I'll keep you posted on the progress.
Two Wednesdays ago was Jason's birthday. We took the day off to celebrate. We had breakfast in Lancaster at Shady Maple Smorgasbord and then visited the Philadelphia Zoo. What a fun day! Now that our zoo membership is renewed the kids all want to go to the zoo for their birthdays. We assured them that we will take many more trips to the zoo this year. There is always something different and interesting to see and learn.
Vocabulary words: errand, bough, mandarin
We noticed the words that dealt with color in the text: Navy, Mandarin, etc.
Math, Anastasia sorted small items by color, shape and we worked on counting. Tristan is doing well in his math lessons and seems to be understanding that math is important.
Science we learned about light and color. We noticed the source of light in the illustrations, and conducted some experiments with light/color. We also learned about thunder storms.
In art class we colored white on black paper. Tristan made a beautiful scene inspired by the story illustrations. We also began a sketch log of our baby caterpillars and ladybug larvae that we are growing. The caterpillars are Tristan's and the Ladybugs are Ana's. It will be fun to look back on these sketches once the butterflies and ladybugs are released into nature. Tristan adds a few words about how the caterpillars are developing.
Geography and Social Studies were light this week. We continue to learn the names, abbreviations, and capitals of the 50 United States, and it's fun to mark our dry erase maps each week as we add to what we know. For Social Studies we discussed family relationships and the importance of having someone we trust to share life with. Grandparents are special, and have wisdom to share if we are wiling to listen. We began reading Heidi by Johanna Spyri this week. Tristan was able to make the connection there between the stories. Both stories are about children who have good relationships with their grandfather.
Other books we enjoyed with Storm in the Night,
Light and Dark, Terry Jennings (nice experiments)
Color, Lawrence (nice experiments)
Just a Thunderstorm, Mercer Mayer
Colors! Colores!, Jorge Lujn, Piet Grobler
Flash, Crash, Rumble and Roll, Branley
Color, a poem by Christina G. Rosetti (Tristan memorized her poem The Caterpillar, earlier this semester. Nice to hear another title by her.)
Clouds, Delano
Henry and Mudge and the Wild Wind, Cynthia Rylant (Tristan read this one to me.)
Incidentally, we ended the week learning about Thunder storms with a big storm. By morning we had both girls sleeping on the floor of our room, and one of our apple trees blew over, split right at the graft scar. I'm glad the kids are not afraid of thunder, however, the wind on the girls' side of the house gets pretty strong and loud and that kept them from sleeping. I attempted to re-graft the apple tree. I'm not counting on success, but I felt I had to try. I'll keep you posted on the progress.
Two Wednesdays ago was Jason's birthday. We took the day off to celebrate. We had breakfast in Lancaster at Shady Maple Smorgasbord and then visited the Philadelphia Zoo. What a fun day! Now that our zoo membership is renewed the kids all want to go to the zoo for their birthdays. We assured them that we will take many more trips to the zoo this year. There is always something different and interesting to see and learn.
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