13 Jul Five in a Row: Miss Rumphius

For our next Five in a Row study, we decided to read Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney just as the bluebonnets were blooming here in Texas.  Based on the cover of the book, it seemed the perfect time.

This is the story of a young girl who follows in her grandfather’s footsteps, travelling the world and living a full life.  When the time comes, she decides to settle down by the sea.  From her little house on a bluff, she find a way to make the world a little more beautiful.

How have I never heard of this book before Five in a Row?  As we finished our first reading of the book, I just sat there, speechless and so inspired.  This, my friends, is the kind of book that we want our children to be reading! What a beautiful message!

Geography

As well usually do, we began by learning where the story took place.  Miss Rumphius had travelled throughout the world, so we decided to learn a little bit about where she decided to settle down.  As instructed in the guidebook, I had Clark look at the pictures for clues.  He very quickly found a little boy wearing a T-shirt with a lobster and “Maine” written on it.  We found Maine on the map and learned that it was right on the Atlantic Ocean.  Luci noticed that it was right near where Grandma and Grandpa live – along the Canadian border.

We did a puzzle together of the northeastern United States.  Clark and Luci both love puzzles, so doing it together was a bit of a competitive challenge.  Clark saved the last piece – he wanted to finish it with Maine.

We took some time to learn a little bit about New England and it’s largest state, Maine.  We watched some videos of the beautiful, rocky coastline with its’ lighthouses, the scenic byways with their covered bridges and some lobster catching.  We decided, as with each book we study, that we may need to visit Maine very soon.

I found some material from Homeschool Share containing information on the New England States, so we spent a little extra time learning about each of the 6 six states, their abbreviations, capitols, state birds and state flowers.  Luci got just as involved as Clark with this and helped him draw the birds and flowers for a couple of the states.

On her journeys, Miss Rumphius travelled through many geographical regions.  We looked specifically at jungles and deserts.  We got some books from the library to read about each.

Language Arts:  Introduction to Library Skills

Miss Rumphius worked in a library, so we thought we should go to our library and learn a little bit more about it.  We are fortunate to live in a little city that has awesome library services for children.  The second floor of our library is just for the kids, so no worries about noise!  In fact there are play areas in every corner!

We often go to the library, but I thought it might be a good time for Clark to start learning how to search for subjects that he is interested in.  Who remembers the card catalogues and the Dewey Decimal System?  Seriously, that triggers nightmares for me.  Thank-goodness card catalogues don’t exist anymore, but the Dewey Decimal System does and it’s as confusing as ever!  We decided to start with learning how to do a search on the internet, on the computers provided.  We then learned some basics in how to match the numbers to find the book.

We found some books to take home and a couple to read while at the library.  Clark wanted to learn about the insides of plants and I wanted to cover the New England states, so we got a pile!  Learning how to use the library to its fullest potential is something that we will build upon each time we go.

Art

We created some beautiful pieces of art with this row!  Click on the image below to see the details.

Science:  Gardening

Clark and Luci love flowers.  They will go to great lengths to hunt down and find even a dandelion in a field to enjoy.  You can imagine, then, how finding  a field of bluebonnets was pretty inspiring for all of us!

As part of our Miss Rumphius row, we decided we should plant flowers at our house.  We have several flower pots outside including our favorite, which is our fairy garden which we made last year.  Our poor fairy garden did not survive the winter well, so we made a trip to Home Depot to get some plants and flowers to freshen it up.  With Clark and Luci’s help we got the fairy garden all beautified.  You can read about it in more detail HERE.

We had studied plants last year, so this year Clark and Luci were eager to learn more.  We while at the library we checked out a TON of books. No matter how much we learned, Clark had more questions!  Of course that is the great thing about Five in a Row – we can follow that trail as long as we need to!  So we did…

We learned the parts of the seeds, the parts of the plants, we talked about how a seed germinates and what it needs to grow. 

For the grand finale of this Five in a Row, we took a picnic to a field of bluebonnets. Together with friends, we ate and took the obligatory Texas bluebonnet pictures.

There were lots of things to cover in this row, and we loved each of them! Miss Rumphius a another book we will keep on our bookshelves to enjoy in the years to come.