december in france

december homeschooling, finds us learning within the newberry winning pages of "the family under the bridge." since, i've had a tough time finding any unit studies on this book...i've decided to create my own.

the story takes place under a bridge on the seine river in paris. very near nortre dame cathedral. so, i thought we should learn about nortre dame in paris and indiana! i thought we should learn about gothic archetecture and i thought we needed a little art. having just studied napoleon boneparte, this ties in nicely. especially since this day in history, he actually crowned himself emperor of france at nortre dame.

so... here comes the gothic architecture art work... tommie is covering a cheerio box and pillars with plaster of paris. it's drying as we speak... and i'll post pictures tomorrow... i also had him use different items for texture: a comb, a woven towel, etc.

today, we also did a bit of microscope work. since the story talks of fibers and fabric, i thought it would be nice to include natural and synthetic fibers. we checked out six different fabrics and he sketched what he saw.

tomorrow, i have a seine river treasure hunt planned (on-line)... which will take us up and down the river, exploring the louve and eiffel tower. we'll also be learning about the seine river watershed.

this book is wonderful for dictation and wonderfully written for sentence dissection.

i'll be back soon, with more of our adventure in paris!