stArt: The Little House

A Story + Art = A Great stART!

As part of our unit study on community, we read The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton. It is about a little house in the country that was built so well that the owner never wanted it to be sold. Seasons change, generations go by and the house sees the countryside change as the city comes in and takes over. At one point, skyscrapers are built all around the little house. To find out how the book ends, you'll have to read the book yourself. :)

I was "lucky" again this week as Will took it upon himself to do something based on a book we'd read. Here he is with his skyscraper... "many stories high," as he said. (The paper he's holding is an award he gave himself for the world record in skyscraper building. LOL!)

stArt: Planes and How They Work

A Story + Art = A Great stART!

I stumbled across this book (along with the books on Ships, Trains, and Cars) at Books.A.Million on their reduced table and immediately fell in love with them. They were the answer to a long search for age appropriate books that explain how big machines work.

Will, age 7, has loved trains since we was 2. Not only does he play with his train tracks daily, he talks of boilers, domes, pistons and the like. These books are perfect for broadening his horizons to other machines while giving the younger boys an inside look into them as well.



These are flap books and pull-out books at the same time. Not all pages have flaps, but all pages have the side pull-out that goes into more detail about what is inside the machine. Above is a sample from the Plane book. (You should be able to click on the image to make it larger.) This page discusses the wings and tails. The pull-out page discusses what material the tail is made of and goes into a little more detail about the rudder and elevators. I love that these books use the real-life names for the parts, too.

Now for the ART PART!

Will constructed the following planes on his own without help or prompting from me. I just happen to have the camera nearby and was pleased to see that our first stART project in action!

I was informed that the first two are bi-planes and that the final is a jet that has the engines in the rear.

I was also informed that Witt (2 years old) was flying his jet backwards... the round blue pieces are the engines that should be in the rear. :)

For more StART participants, click HERE.