Wee Gillis

My blog has been pretty quiet for the past two weeks. We had family visiting from Ohio and then we headed there to spend a week with my family. I missed out on the last two weeks of Iron Craft since I was basically without supplies or camera while we were gone. I'm finally getting the house back together and our schedules are almost back on track.

This week's story was Wee Gillis by Munro Leaf. The book is set in Scotland; but, I still thought it would be a good choice for St. Patty's week. It's the story of a boy with family in the lowlands and family in the highlands. While trying to decide where he should end up, he finds he has a certain knack for the bagpipes and proceeds to settle down right in the middle.

We studied a little about the geography of Scotland for social studies. For language arts, we read the poem "My Heart's in the Highlands" by Robert Burns. The book is illustrated in black and white so we made some monochrome paintings for art. We studied the months and seasons for math and learned about fog and mist for science.

We also listened to LOTS of bagpipe music this week, made some green shamrock sugar cookies and some new green play dough. I think the play dough was the biggest hit this week. Aidan has played with it by the hour for several days this week. He even made some little decorations out of it for our St. Patty's feast last night. We've also been outside everyday enjoying the awesome weather!

Our books for the past two weeks were Mrs. Katz and Tush by Patricia Polacco and When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant. Mrs. Katz and Tush was a tough one for us to get through. It didn't really seem to spark anyone's interest... maybe we just aren't "cat people". When I Was Young in the Mountains was a great book, though. We enjoyed studying about Appalachia and an old-fashioned way of life. We seem to be getting closer to it all the time anyway, so I guess it's good research.... Matt did get an oil lamp for his birthday (at his own request!).