Before I get into our Saturday Adventure, I'd like to give a children's book recommendation. We have it checked out from the library for our second time in the past couple of months. The book is called One Giant Leap and it is written by Robert Burleigh with paintings by Mike Wimmer. Any time the by line says "paintings by" rather than simply "illustrated by", I jump at the book. The paintings in this one are beautiful and realistic. The story is about the first trip to the moon. It uses dates, names and actual facts. It is thought provoking to both myself and my three year old--I LOVE that! Tadd and I both love to read it and Ezra loves to hear it. It is written in a mix of poetry and prose. While I have not explained the difference to my children as of yet, they hear enough of both to know what they are. There are no rhymes. If your library has this book--I recommend you get it! With this past July being the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's first steps on the moon, this book has a lot of relevance for science and history for all you homeschoolers. As a teacher, I love it when one book can reach across so many subjects and touch so many different EALRs. I can think of so many classroom projects I could jump to from this book...paintings of the moon involving texture (sponge paints--oooh! I actually might do this one with my kids)...moon research from the classroom or public library...space poems...short stories about "when I go to the moon"(thinking of doing this one with Ezra dictating his story to me since he always wants to be an astronaut after he reads this book)...a "what was it like in 1969" history study...building rocket ships with the tinker toys and then using them as a scale model to make bigger ones using toilet paper rolls, construction paper, etc.... I'll stop now. Seriously, before I make any more of a fool out of myself than I already have. But maybe, just maybe my foolishness gave you an idea of something to do with your kids some snowy/rainy/windy/boring day this winter, I hope.
Saturday morning Tadd suggested we hop into his pick up and go on An Adventure. The kids love to ride in the pick up and they love adventures, so in we piled. He drove us up into the hills behind where we live to look at fall colors and wild life.
We saw many birds and one very large, dark moose. We also saw a lot of hunters out and about with big guns. Since none of us were wearing anything that even closely resembled hunter orange, we decided that it would not be a good day to get out and hike around. As it was quite cold and slightly windy, none of us were too terribly disappointed. We did have to stop and stretch our legs a couple of times as the pick up is a very squishy fit for all 4.5 of us.
Brrr....it's cold! Let's go home for lunch and take a nap in our nice warm beds! Thanks for the fun adventure, Daddy.
Doing a little exploring.
On the way home we had to climb this hill so that Daddy could reminisce about the old days when it was just he and his pick up and also so that the pick up could show off to the kids what it can do that the mini-van surely can't do.
We got this great view of where we live as a reward for the hill climbing.
4 comments:
What a nice uninterrupted view! Those oil change snapshots are cute, too :)
Fun!! Gorgeous adventure. :-) Love your ideas for the space studies... cracked me up, its amazing how you can take one book and go nuts with the learning of all different things..I've had to put a lid on myself with that a few times, because I've gotten a little rediculous. :-)
I love the shot of Ezra & Carkine in front of the hills! What a beautiful day :) Love, pJ
It would have been fun to be along on that outing...reminds me of my dad taking some of those kinds of drives. We did a lot of autumn drives and I still think about them. I think you were a fun teacher, Brooke, with all your neat ideas! We need more of your kind of teacher!
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