Sunday, April 15, 2007 - Our Adventure With Madeline
This week we're rowing Madeline. While I knew the book would be a fun study I wasn't sure how the boys would take it. They are pretty much easy to please so long as they are learning something new, but this book was, after all, about a girl. If they had any doubts these were blown away when their favorite line of the book was read.. "And to the lion at the zoo, Madeline said "Poo Poo"."
Jayden rolls with laughter when he knows were on the right page. In fact they both know this line of the book by heart, but would much rather hear someone else quote it to them. You might be lucky enough to hear them say if they can stop giggling long enough to spit the words out!
Our studies led us to France this week. The boys took quickly to the Eiffel tower, and I asked them how long they thought it might take us to climb all 1665 steps. They both agreed with Daddy that they'd rather take the elevator to the top. I was the only one willing to climb the steps! They have taken to shouting "I see the 'Tower' Mom!" when they see a photo of it now. We tried a French recipe for lamb Kebabs which the boys thought were great fun to eat since they came on a stick!
On Tuesday Morgan tried his hand at writing a poem. He did really well considering this is the first time he's ever tried to rhyme words with a real purpose other then driving me insane. He opted to write his poem about Madeline:
Madeline is tiny,
Her hair is red and shiny.
She was quite ill,
but not from a spill.
It was her appendix,
the doctor did "mend-its".
She got a house,
not from a mouse.
From her Poppa,
who was on "toppa".
She had some candy,
it was quite dandy.
She got some flowers,
they gave her powers.
She has a scar,
it's not too far
From her tummy,
she showed her Mummy.
Her friends were sad,
because they had,
no toys or candy,
and didn't feel so dandy.
They sure were trying,
with all that crying,
Poor Miss Clavel was really flying.
"Thank the Lord," she said,
this poem is really over!
He also wrote a story entitled "Five Friends Help Out" which is about a hermit crab named Henry who owns a pet elephant. It was really cute, all though he lost track of attempting repetition. Instead he found himself lost in thought about The Great Wall Of China which he still wants to go visit. He's convinced that Uncle Damien didn't have a proper look over that wall when he was there because, as Morgan says, "there MUST be something more then trees and wall on the other side!" In his story some men were fixing the wall and Henry's friends got to kick down the broken bit.
Morgan even tried his hand at illustrating a few pictures to go along with it. Giving, of course, the most time to the picture where the five friends got to help kick the wall down. He was really pleased with himself for coming up with that idea for his story. The object, you might ask, for kicking it down? To create a short cut to get Tiny the elephant some peanuts!
With Easter fast approaching we took advantage of the similarities of there being 12 girls in our story and matching it up with the 12 disciples. The boys were impressed to hear the various names of all the men who helped Jesus, all though we got way laid for a few minutes when they were in shock that Peter Rabbit was one of the helpers. When I denied this fact they said, "But Mom you SAID Peter!" I clarified that this was a man not a rabbit. Morgan was accepting of this information, but when I said Thomas and James Jayden was sent over the moon because he is convinced that this means his Thomas trains new Jesus.
The boys rented every Madeline movie they could find at the local video shop and watched them in turn. Their favorite seems to be Madeline Lost In Paris, which I think is only because there is a villain in the movie who, at least for Jayden, is worth pretending to be for a short time. So Jayden proceeded to draw some pictures of Madeline (he didn't do half bad either!) and then chop them up. (In the video the villain threatens to cut off Madeline's hair..)
We talked about counting by 2's on Wednesday, which worked well. We were able to find some small pictures of Madeline and her friends to glue on a paper and see why it was easier to count by 2's for some things.
For science this week we read about the human body. This was top notch with both boys. When we were doing vocabulary words on Monday Morgan told Jayden not to worry if he didn't know what an appendix was, "Mommy will teach us in one of those books, just you wait and see!" So of course each book of the human body that we checked out had to be scanned so we locate the appendix in each one. Somehow Jayden is still convinced his appendix is in his arm?!
The boys then made little booklets with their favorite health foods listed inside, Picked out a healthy snack recipe and made a shopping list so they could get what they needed to make them. Of course after we got home they made their snacks right away. Jayden was a little disappointed that his popsicles would need to be in the freezer for a while before they'd be frozen enough to eat.
It was a good week, and the boys are still talking about Madeline. They've made us walk to the car in "two straight lines" more times then I can count. They enjoy taking turns being Pepito (the little boy who lives next door) and Madeline while chasing each other around. I don't think this will be a book they will soon forget!
