Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

Our row for the past 8 days has been Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.

Little Britches had been dying to get his hands on this book since it first arrived in the mail, so he was estatic to FINALLY get to read it! He is all about anything with wheels, but especially heavy equipment--his daddy is a heavy equipment mechanic...which explains the obsession! LOL! Anyways, he eagerly cuddled in for our read.

Day 1~Social Studies: History

We read the book and then we chatted about things that use steam. He has an All About John Deere movie which focuses on Steam Tractors and threshers with mention of Steam locomotives...so he was able to carry on a nice dialogue about things that run on steam. We even spoke about Thomas the Train since he's a "steamy" too! LOL! Then I had him color and put together a little minit book about steam things.

Day 2~ Science

We tried to do the pinwheel with steam...but our paper pinwheel just curled up and wouldn't spin...LOL! So I'm going to snag a "real" pinwheel at the store tonight so we can try it one more time tomorrow when we finish up our row.

Day 3~ummm....history?

So today was just one of those days where you have early release...LOL! So we just read the book again and didn't do anything. LOL! BUT we did go online and look at Youtube videos of old steam shovels...THAT was something he LOVED!

Day 4~Math-Story Problems

I absolutely LOVED the story problems worksheet that coordinates with Mike Mulligan! It was easy to read and easy to follow. Little Britches enjoyed using my button collection to help him work thru the problems--even choosing a special RED button for Mary Ann! He wrote all his numbers by himself which was a great achievement for him!

Day 5~Language: Literature-Personification

Today after we read the story, I introduced Personification. I used the manual for explanation and then we looked in the book for places with facial expressions of Mary Ann. Then we thought about other things that Little Britches pretends is "human"--like his teddy bear. He knows what it means, but has problems pronouncing it! LOL! We did a little page for his lapbook. Then he colored some construction equipment pages.

Day 6~ Language: Story Writing-Characters and Vocabulary

We discussed the new words "Canal" and "Cellar" and then found some canals on our world map. We are adding these words to our vocabulary box. Then we talked about characters. I started off by asking Little Britches about his favorite cartoon "tom and Jerry" and who the cartoon was about. This gave him an idea about characters. So then he was easily able to tell me who the main characters were in our book. We filled out the Character paper for Mike Mulligan. Then we had some fun and I let Little Britches create his own character. He really got in the swing of things and I was writing as fast as I could to keep up with him! Then he did one more set of coloring equipment.

He also colored a picture for his book row--I used the free printable by Tamara at Homemaker's Heart that she created for the FIAR books. You can see the links for all the volumes on her post HERE.

Day 7~Art: Drawing- Trees

This was a fun day because Little Britches had never used paints before! After we read the book, we examined the different types of tree drawings and talked about how they were different. Then I gave him a sheet of watercolor paper and let him use his set of watercolor paints ($1 store special! LOL!). He REALLY enjoyed this! I gave him an example of what the trees would look like far away and then up close and let him have some fun. He did a good job...and even told me a story about one of his trees. The only thing we had issues with...there is no brown in his paint palatte...not very good for trees...but he decided a black tree trunk was close enough. LOL!

Day 8~Handwriting

For our last day, I had him do the copywork page which I found again over on Tamara's Blog. (THANKS, TAMARA!!) Little Britches was very sad that we weren't going to be working on Mike Mulligan anymore, and he declared that he was going to read it with daddy EVERY night.

As you can see, we rowed this book a little longer, but it still worked perfectly fine and Little Britches WANTED to make it last longer, so we did!

Our next book will be Madeline...and I'm not sure how well that will be received coming on the heels of the "best book ever"...any ideas for making a totally girly story more boy friendly?