Five in a Row: Madeline Part 1

05 Nov Five in a Row: Madeline Part 1

Posted at 06:00h in Five in a Row, Homeschool by Joanna 0 Comments

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“In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines
Lived twelve little girls in two straight lines
In two straight lines they broke their bread
And brushed their teeth and went to bed.
They left the house at half past nine
In two straight lines in rain or shine-
The smallest one was Madeline.”

Our next Five in a Row study is Madeline. I’ve been looking forward to this for a couple of weeks now because we have some fun activities planned!

Book Review

This is such a cute book. From the first few lines, the children were captivated with the story. It’s the story of a brave young girl, Madeline, who lived in a Boarding School in Paris. During the middle of the night, she is rushed to the hospital for an operation.

I remember enjoying it as a young girl, so I was excited to share it with my two children. I was actually a little surprised to find how much Clark and Luci loved it, too! As with previous rows, they quickly began to memorize the lines, especially the first page. A couple of times, we listened to the recording of the book from Kiddie Records as the children followed along with the book. It quickly became one of the few books that Clark really didn’t mind reading out loud.

We were especially fortunate to have my parents visiting from Canada during the time that we rowed Madeline. They added to enjoyment of reading out loud, and helped incorporate some French words into our vocabulary.

Geography

The story of Madeline is set in Paris, France. So we began by locating Paris and France in relation to where we live on our map. We did this everyday. It definitively helps to cement it into their brains!

Clark and Luci LOOOOOOVE peg dolls, so for fun I painted them a set of the 12 little girls from the book. They’re a little hard to keep track of, but the kids have incorporated them into everything. I found Luci, several times, “reading” one of the books, while acting it out with the peg dolls. I found some City of Paris paper cut outs for the kids at Made by Joel. This served as the perfectly-sized backdrop for our peg doll adventures and was also a great way to help us identify famous Paris landmarks.

We did a small study of France. First we colored in a French flag and identified it on top of the Eiffel Tower on the cover of the book. Even Luci can now identify the French flag anywhere. We learned that Paris is the capital of France. At the library, we checked out some books about France and French culture. The kids were horrified and delighted to learn about some of the things the French eat! We looked at some pictures from my photo albums from my trip to Paris many years ago. The children were not interested in learning anything in French, but I told them we need to know some French for when we go there (someday!), so they agreed to try. We tried a few French words which turned into a giggle-fest.

Art

I love travelling partly because I love to see the old architecture in other countries. It was fun to see that Clark was actually interested in the architecture, too. I showed him how the buildings in the illustrations were actually real buildings from Paris. We compared them to the ones in my photo album. We learned about L’Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral, Champs-Elysées and the Eiffel Tower.

Clark was quite fascinated with the Eiffel Tower and really wanted to go and see it. Unfortunately that wasn’t quite an option at this point, so we settled on learning all about it and looking at lots of pictures, including an awesome 360 panorama from the Eiffel Tower!

The Eiffel Tower in Chocolate Wafers

We ended by trying to recreate the Eiffel Tower with chocolate wafers. Best tasting Eiffel Tower ever!

I had seen some great pictures of this, of some brilliant Eiffel Towers made by some very talented people, but we didn’t have the luck, skill or patience to get this to work! It wasn’t from lack of trying, but ours crashed before we even completed the first level. Nobody seemed to mind, though….

Artist Study

As part of the art component, we took a little time to look at the French Impressionist artist, Claude Monet, who is responsible for some of my favorite classic paintings. I love Impressionist paintings because of their ability to capture light. It is my hope that I can convey some art appreciation to my little ones as we work through Five in a Row.

Today, I chose several paintings by Monet and had Clark and Luci choose their favorite. Clark loved the bright and varied colors of “The Iris Garden at Giverny” and Luci chose the more muted “Water Lilies, Evening Effect.”

We sat down and tried to paint the same picture ourselves. It wasn’t easy, but since the focus of Impressionist painting is light, feeling and movement, so I think our interpretations are absolutely fantastic!