The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge

Two weeks ago we started a FIAR book we have not done before in honor of a trip we were supposed to have taken a couple weekends ago. The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge is a wonderful little story about a lighthouse on the Hudson River right on Manhattan Island. We had this trip to NYC scheduled earlier this year- another tag along trip with Dan. Unfortunately, we have been all kinds of sick. Even Dan missed three days of work. We had one on the nebulizer, one with a fever keeping her up at night, and one with severe pollen allergies. Though, E11 is on copious allergy meds including an antihistamine for his eyes, his eyes were nearly swollen shut from going outside. So, we've been doing some light schooling and I've been busy taking care of everyone and making sure they are all taking their medicine. So...no trip to New York City this time.

I purchased the FIAR fold n learn to go with this story and we had some fun today putting together the folders for an actual lapbook. I don't always use the file folders so this was a novelty.

We spent some time mapping New York State. It's always nice when we visit our home state with a study. I always take the opportunity to pause and get a good look around so we can report on that for the quarter. I used the Old World Maps from Homeschool in the Woods and I used the state report page from the US Map set. I really like it, but it did challenge the kids to go beyond the state bird and flower. They didn't like that so much. The book below is The United States of America- A State by State Guide.


Our kids love maps. I mean really love maps. They will come to me and ask if they can print them so they can play adventure. How can you refuse that? Print on kids! Map the world!
Both E11 and R9 have designed a New York State board game. E11's is almost done. He's actually waiting on me to cut up some more cards from poster board. I took the time to order the game boards from Bare Books along with some NY stickers. E11's game is called The Truth about New York and is a combination of trivia and real estate activity. You can buy cities as "properties" and instead of building just hotels, you have to make some improvement like parks and museums. His game is well thought out and pretty clever. Once he gets those property cards made, then we need to play it a few times to see how it plays. He's been enjoying the process. I'll be sure to blog on the final product.

More on this study to come!