After several weeks of just doing "the basics"-- usually Explode the Code, Math U See, and having T read from All About Spelling's "Runt Pig" series, we very casually started rowing again with our Five In a Row manuals. I chose to row "
Follow the Drinking Gourd" {affiliate link} by Jeanette Winter. I wasn't sure how T was going to like this book, as it portrays a dark time in our nation's history-- slavery. However, T enjoyed listening to every reading and asked several times for me to "sing" the song! After listening to a version of "Follow the Drinking Gourd" on YouTube, I had it in my head all. day. long! We also read, "
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt" by Deborah Hopkinson, which tells of a similar storyline to FTDG, but uses a quilt to reveal the path to freedom.
I have no pictures to share all that we did conversationally-- however, we did talk about:
- the Underground Railroad,
- Geographic Directions (Big Dipper, North Star, Compass),
- Compound Words,
- Cut-Away view (art),
- Measure of time, and
- Star Groups/ Constellations.
And we'll be sharing our Contstellation Activity with you today!
The only pictures I
did manage to take during this row was of our
Watercolor Constellation activity. After reading, "
Discover the Stars" by Cynthia Nicolson, I gathered white card stock, a white crayon, watercolors & brush, and star stickers.
I used the white crayon to make dots in the form of constellations all over the paper.
This was the *one* time I encouraged T to use black and watercolor all over the white paper to reveal the dots (stars).
See the 'Big Dipper'?
After T revealed the constellations, we put stars on our dots and then I drew lines to connect the stars so the constellations were more apparent.
For another constellation activity, check out our
Constellation Viewers; learning about space is so much fun!
