Rowing The Little Red Lighthouse

We continued rowing The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge Thursday and Friday last week. On Thursday we read the book, and Mane wrote down all the compound words she heard in her school notebook. On Friday we talked about nouns, and Mane wrote down nouns as we read through the book again. She also made a page in her school notebook for places she'd like to visit in New York someday, including the statue of Balto in Central Park, the zoo, and the Statue of Liberty.

We read several books about New York and the Statue of Liberty, including:

Building Liberty: A Statue is Born by Serge Hochain, which is a story of several people who had a part in making the Statue of Liberty happen - a young engineering apprentice in France, a boy working on the ship that brought Liberty to the U.S.A., a boy who sold newspapers in New York and helped raise money for the pedestal for the statue, and one man who helped put Liberty together after she arrived in the U.S.A..

New York, New York: The Big Apple from A to Z by Laura Krauss Melmed and Frane Lessac. This is a book with something about New York from every letter of the alphabet.

Journey Around New York from A to Z by Martha and Heather Zschock, another book with something about New York City from every letter of the alphebet.

The alphebet books led to some discussions of Wall Street and stocks, Ellis Island and immigration, and September 11th, 2001. Mane was visibly disturbed by the story of September 11th, though she didn't say anything about it. I didn't go into detail. The alphabet books brought it up under the subject of firefighters and the firefighter's museum in New York. Later she said that one of the places she'd like to visit in New York is the firefighter's museum.

Friday evening Mango spent some time looking at New York on Google Earth with Mane. Since we had focused so much on New York City, she was surprised to learn that their are mountains and wide open spaces in New York, as well.

I've been spending some time on-line looking for lighthouse models we can build from legos. This will be one of our projects for the next week.