Follow The Drinking Gourd

Today we started rowing Follow The Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter, about an African American family escaping from slavery before the Civil War by following the Big Dipper/The Drinking Gourd in the sky to the north. This is one of the heaviest topics we've tackled so far with Five in a Row. Mane is not unfamiliar with the idea of war, as we've talked some about the Iraq war. Mango has a cousin who spent time in Iraq, and I have an uncle who spent time there. And slavery is something we have talked about in the context of the Hebrew/Israelite people in Egypt. African American slavery was new to Mane, and we spent quite a bit of time talking about how slaves came here and why it was so dangerous for them to escape. In the story, a white man went around to all the plantations teaching people a song about following the drinking gourd, and the song gave directions for how to escape. We'll be talking later this week about other songs that came out of slavery in the U.S. . I'm thinking of reading the first book in the American Girl series about Addy to Mane. We'll see, though. I need to preview it first.

Mane started chapter 15 of Math U See, which is about numbers that add up to ten. She had no problem with this as she's been playing a solitaire card game for the last year that is based on adding the numbers up to ten. I guess we'll be moving right along. I told her she can't take the test until tomorrow. Instead, I had her practice the math facts with the solitaire game.

We'll do the first lesson for the Symbolic Butterfly Migration today and make butterflies. They need to be postmarked tomorrow. Hopefully I'll post butterfly pictures this week!