Miss Twiggley's Tree

 

Miss Twiggley's Treet by Dorthea Warren Fox was a new book for our family to read it and we really loved it!  It is a wonderful story of a shy woman who lives in a tree alone with her dog.  When a hurricane comes to her town she invites everyone to come stay in her home to stay safe, even those people who were not always kind to her.  It was such a sweet story and there were lots of good lessons to learn in the book.

 

We continued learning about Hurricanes and all sorts of weather emergencies reading some extra books including Hurricanes by Gail Gibbons (which they recommended in Memoria Press's Enrichment guide),  Exploring Weather, Hurricanes! and Rain and Lightning. 

 

 

 

Since we were discussing weather we used this opportunity to discuss our weather plans in our home.  We talked about what to do in a fire or tornado (the most common weather concerns in our area of the country) and discussed our fire escape route.  We used our kids 911 Emergency Phone to practice calling 911, telling them our address (our 6 and 4 year old already knew their address, but our 3 year old memorized it this week), and what the problem is.  We played around with lots of different scenarios and they had a lot of fun. 

 

We also did a tornado drill and discussed where in our house we would go.  Ironically for September we then had a tornado warning this week.  When the city sirens went off our kids were SO EXCITED that they had practiced and knew exactly where to go. 

 

Next, we made a Hurricane or Tornado in a Bottle!  All you have to do is get two 1 or 2 liter bottles and a Tornado Tube.  Fill one bottle up with water, hook it all up, give it a shake and you are good to go!  We all had so much fun and have probably played with it over 100 times this week.  We also played with our lighting light and discussed how lighting works.

 

In the book Miss Twiggley did a good deed to let others come to her house during a time of need even when they were not always nice to her.  The poem that we read this week followed the same theme called "The Golden Rule" in A Child's Book of Poems.  We also read the bible verse Matthew 7:12 which says: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you".

Finally, we studied the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major 3 by Bach and the Tree of Life window panel by Louis Tiffany.  It was great to have the children learn that art comes in many different forms.  After studying this image of the stained glass window this week our son exclaimed during daily mass "Mom, look the windows at church are all art!"