(this is an old post that never ended up published due to some technical difficulties - but here it is now!)
We have been continuing with the Five in a Row curriculum, reading and studying a new book each week (or in some cases, every other week).
Our most recent study has been Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton. I love all of the books by this author, and we were lucky enough to find a collection of her works at the library, so we also read Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, The Little House (made me cry), and Maybelle the Cable Car this week.
December seemed like a good time to study a book about snow. Two weeks ago the temperatures were consistently below freezing. Well, this week it hit 60!! Most of the week was in the fifties. So, we didn't really relate to Katy's story! At least D remembers a little bit about last winter in Kentucky. When we were selling our house we were constantly barraged by snow and ice, to the point where our van doors froze shut and we couldn't even walk out onto our sloped driveway because of the thick ice. We ended up staying in the house when people came to look, since I couldn't carry the kids out to the van, and the few times I did try to drive I slid all over the place.
So... I am very thankful that it does not typically snow here. I don't care for snow (except maybe to look at it while sipping hot chocolate INSIDE), and I am happy to not have to worry about salt, ice, huge piles of grey snow blocking your view of oncoming traffic, dangerous driving, etc. So we got to read about snow plows and snow while experiencing a wet, mild Pacific Northwest week.
Katy is about a tractor owned by the Highway Department of the city of Geopolis who works on the roads in the summer and plows snow in the winter. It tells the story of her plowing out the city and restoring all its important functions after a snow storm. She plows out the road to the hospital so a doctor can get his patient there, plows out the police department and main roads so the police can protect the city, plows out a path to a fire so the fire department can make it there in time, and helps other departments of the city.
Our main project with this book was to create our own city! We used our road floor mat, city building blocks, train set, and all sorts of our trucks and cars to recreate a city like Geopolis. We built a train station, police department, fire station, city hall, post office, and other important buildings that are featured in the book.
For part of our social studies, we learned about different road signs. D surprised me by already knowing most of them. He colored and cut out the signs, then pasted them onto popsicle sticks. I wrote out the name of each sign and he traced over it for handwriting practice. Then he matched each sign with the correct name (without me reading them, so he had to sound the words out as best as he could).
For part of our science study we read several books about snow and weather. We were able to talk about all the aspects of wintery weather in the book: the storm started as rain, turned into snow, blew into drifts, broke a powerline, and burst a water pipe (that happened in our Kentucky house last year!). We also got to talk about how where we live is insulated by the bay and the mountains, and so we experience different weather patterns than the rest of the state. The science books also talked about the tundra, tree line, animals that live in the snow, and the polar regions,which we studied last week when we read Very Last First Time. It was fun to revisit things we had already learned.
We watched videos of different kinds of snow plows, from trucks, to tractors, to the plows on trains. Then, because it was mentioned in one of the books, we found several videos on huge ice breaker ships. We watched news stories on the research ship that was stuck in frozen water near Antarctica last year. Those ships are pretty impressive, so we really enjoyed learning about them!
We built another city, on our circular mat, to practice cardinal directions. The mat conveniently has roads going North, South, East, West and two other directions depending which way you turn it. This play set is really special because my grandmother sewed and handpainted the mat and my grandfather cut, sanded, painted, and glazed each block. Some pieces have handpainted windows and doors, some pieces are colorful roofs.
Each page in Katy has an illustrated compass rose, and each part of the story describes which direction Katy plows the roads. For instance, she plows the roads to the hospital in West Geopolis. We built some of the buildings from the book around the city, then D drove cars around the city as I told him to go East, South, Northeast, on so on.
For our language study we update our transportation board with new modes of transportation as we read each new book. This week we added a snow plow (I printed a picture of Katy) and a mail truck. This little activity also fits under vocabulary, social studies, and cultural studies, depending on what sort of transportation we've added. That's what is so fun about literature based learning - everything overlaps!
We also searched for actions words (which we do with every book) to write down and then act out. D has learned some great new vocabulary from this activity each week.
For our art activity this week we learned about how snowflakes are symmetrical patterns of ice. We used popsicle sticks and hot glue to build really cool snowflakes and then painted them and added glitter (thank you Pinterest!). These will be part of our Christmas decorations as soon as I get around to decorating the house.
The Five in a Row curriculum is heavily based on having meaningful conversations with your children. I don't have pictures to show you, but through this book we were able to talk about Katy's perseverance, why hard work is important and meaningful, and the functions of all the different parts of a city.
