The Caboose Who Got Loose

 

This week we read The Caboose Who Got Loose by Bill Peet for our Memoria Press Enrichment.  We love books by Bill Peet and have read this book before, but we love diving deeper into the books and learning more about the themes in the books.  We decided to add to our learning by pulling out all of our Bill Peet books, and also books about Trains that we have in our home library.  We have learned that we love to take out books at the beginning of the week and keep them in a giant basket in our living room.  Then throughout the week as we have free time we grab a book or two, cuddle up and read together!

 

 

Our art piece that we studied this week was Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway by J. M. W. Turner.  Our children do not often get very interested in the art, but for some reason they really loved this piece.  They loved the fog and steam and seeing the image beyond that of the train coming in, the boat in the water and the bridges.
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Doing so much learning about trains we decided to take a field trip to the Durham Western Museum to learn more about the history of trains and the Union Pacific Railroad.  Our train loving boys had a blast exploring.  Their favorite thing to do is to watch the extensive model train village and trains, which is especially special to them since their grandparents donate to the museum in the names of each of our children each year to have a train car dedicated to them!

 

In the story, The Caboose Who Got Loose, Katy the Caboose ends up un-coupling from the train cars, flying off the track and landing in between two trees.  She loves her new life in the trees with all of the animals.  We took the time to learn about trees reading Leaf Man, Trees, Leaves and Bark and I Can Name 50 Trees Today!  We also read the poem Three Little Trees.  The weather has been so beautiful here that we have been spending most of our time outside playing and having fun.  I also do love how when some of our children our playing our 6 year old will bring books outside to read!  It was another fun week of exploring and learning together!