FIAR: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

Coming off of our vacation 'high' was much tougher than I thought-- I mean wouldn't you rather be floating like this, with no cares in the world?! 

I actually enjoyed the book Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel; I don't think I had ever read it before.  We read the book for four days and listened to it via audio once, which was interesting.  We had access to the audio from Homeschool Freebie of the Day. I didn't take too many pictures this time around, so bare with me! 

Social Studies/ Geography:

Mike Mulligan wasn't set in a specific location, but Mike and Maryanne had helped build tunnels for railways, canals for boats to travel through, and basements for tall skyscrapers, so we narrowed in on the idea of a Canal, specifically the Panama Canal ( I got the idea over at The Attached Mama-- check it out!).  We colored the flag of Panama and looked up a lot of pictures of the canal, even pulled it up on Google Earth.  We briefly talked about skyscrapers and construction workers too.

Language Arts:

Explained the concept of Personification and drew pictures on the chalkboard.  I also had Tyler narrate the story for me and this is his overview, "Mike Mulligan and a steam shovel dig many years.  They built a tall building, then they rest."  Narration and sequencing are obviously something we need to work on!

Math:

We "Rolled a Skyscraper."  We each took turns rolling a die and adding so many number of blocks til they were all gone.  Hopefully you built a good foundation so it didn't tumble!  In the book it talks about Maryanne digging "four walls--neat and square" and we took this concept one step further and studied Cubes.  We made a 3D cube with marshmallows and ate a couple too!



Which one has more water?

Science:

To understand what a steam shovel is, we learned about the States of Matter.  We watched ice go from a solid to liquid to a gas and also talked about how liquids take the shape of their containers.  Briefly we talked about the differences between rivers and canals. 

Go Alongs:

"Otis" by Loren Long

"Diggerman" by Andrea Zimmerman

"Skyboys" by Deborah Hopkinson

"Space Shapes" by Stuart J. Murphy

"Science Explorer: States of Matter" by Matt Mullins

a couple States of Matter books ( I didn't write them down!)

Thanks for tuning in! 

Celebrating daddy's #30th Mike Mulligan Style!