The Ugly Duckling

Yesterday we began "rowing" The Ugly Duckling.  This story is not part of our Five in a Row  curriculum, but I happened to find a unit study at the thrift store for The Ugly Duckling, and since it's spring, it seems like a good time to row a book about ducklings! We started by reading The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Anderson in A Treasury of Children's Literature. I have to say that I find this version of the story very compelling. It is beautifully written, and the theme is many-layered and rich. I got to thinking about how important the lesson of this story is for children (and grown-ups) - both that people are more than what we see on the outside, and that we are more than what people say about us. The Ugly Duckling had been teased so much about being ugly that he believed it, and it took the love and care of other swans to convince him that he wasn't ugly at all. I think we'll be spending some time on this story just to let it simmer, to talk about how the things we say affect other people, but also, how we can be secure enough in ourselves to let hurtful things go. And we'll be talking about how to bring healing to others and how to repair our own mistakes when we've said destructive things to others.

Today we read another version of the story and compared it to the one we read yesterday. Then we talked about swans, what baby swans are called, where swans live, etc... Mane had already looked them up in her North American Wildlife: Birds Field Guide book. She has declared swans to be her favorite birds (though we've been through this with cardinals, whooping cranes, eagles, and owls already)! Mane learned to make a simple sketch of a swan by beginning with the number 2, and she followed instructions for making a swan hat out of paper!