Apr. 7, 2006 - Miss Rumphius and Lady Bird Johnson
We've been rowing "Miss Rumphius" by Barbara Cooney this past week. It's been a real joy to read this book with my boys each day. However, I've loved this particular book for many years. I used to do a Miss Rumphius unit every spring when I taught 3rd grade. So this week has felt a lot like I was being reunited with a dear old friend.Here's what our week has looked like:
On Monday, we read the book and enjoyed trying to figure out which state might be the setting for the story. The boys decided on Maine, which was a very good choice. We decided upon Maine because from the setting of the story we knew it must be someplace by the sea where the winters were snowy and hard. And, after looking carefully at all the little details, we noticed that a little boy in the last picture had the word "Maine" on his t-shirt. It was very fun to look for the clues and details that pointed to the un-named setting of the story. We also talked a little about nicknames ...how some nicknames are hurtful and others are not hurtful, and how to tell the difference. This was an important discussion to have because lately my boys have taken to calling each other "dummies" when they get angry.
On Tuesday, we read the book, but did nothing else that was related. Joel was celebrating his 6th birthday that day and Nathan wasn't feeling well due to another ear infection. We mostly just spent the day making Joel feel special and Nathan feel better.
On Wednesday we painted lupines with watercolors. In the afternoon, we went to the library. We go weekly, but this week was special because in the story Miss Rumphius was a librarian. While there, we looked at how the books were arranged on the shelves, talked about fiction/non-fiction, and perused the reference section. We also found some books on wildflowers and Lady Bird Johnson to take home with us. Since that trip, Joel has started talking about how he might like to be a librarian after he is through being president.
One of those books that we checked out on Wednesday was "Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers: How a First Lady Changed America" by Kathi Appelt. My little presidential trivia buff really enjoyed that book. After reading the book, we looked at the online website for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. There were several nice pictures of wildflowers ...and we also noticed that there were several recipes of Mrs. Johnson's on the website. We printed off the ones for her spiced tea and lemon squares.
On Thursday, we talked about bushels and pecks and pints and quarts, looked at lupine seeds, planted lupine seeds and talked about how Mrs. Cooney showed evidences of wind in her paintings. We also wrote a letter to Lady Bird, who is still living and is now 93 years old. In the letter, the boys said that they had decided she was "a real life Miss Rumphius" and they thanked her for making Texas and America a more beautiful place.
In the afternoon, the boys helped me cook a meal in honor of President Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson. LBJ's favorite meal was chili, so we had chili for supper. We made a big pitcher of Lady Bird's spiced iced tea and our dessert were those delicious lemon squares that she was known for making. Everyone but Joel thought the meal was very tasty. (Joel is such a picky eater. He wouldn't even try the chili or the spiced tea. He ate a crumb of the lemon square, but said it wasn't very good at all. He seemed to be extremely happy with his bowl of plain, buttered noodles and glass of water, though.)
Today we've talked about shadows and telling directions by looking at the sun. Tomorrow we are planning to visit the Lady Bird Johnson Wildlife Center in Austin. We are excited about the daytrip and hope that it will be a fun field trip to end our enjoyable week.
Comments
Aug. 10, 2006 - I love Miss Rumphius!
Posted by Amanda625
And just about anything else by Barbara Cooney! I can't wait to get "rowing" again! Sounds like a great week!
Sep. 3, 2006 - Tagged
Posted by HarvestChristian
Copy and paste the "homeschool meme" from my blog.
