Read-Aloud Thursday: Wisconsin and The Whipping Boy!

It's read-aloud Thursday...probably my favorite blogging day of the week!   I received a beautiful book last weekend at a luncheon with the ladies from Apologia.   Sarah Clarkson's book, Read for the Heart, is a must have for your library - it will help you choose Christian read-alouds for your family.  I have just spent a few minutes going through the book, but I've already reserved several books from the library I found out about through Sarah!  The Homeschool Village did a wonderful interview with Sarah on their blog earlier this week.  You'll want to read it - such a lovely example of what a homeschool graduate is accomplishing!  

I'm finding more and more that I need guidance choosing the books we read.  There are so many good books out there, but I just want to read the BEST.   When you think about it, we have our children for such a short time.  I want to make their education COUNT by providing them with the most beautiful, thought-provoking literature possible!  

This week's installment of Read Aloud Thursday features our favorite picture and chapter book of the week.  Enjoy!

Earlier this week I posted about the beginning of our 50 State Study.   I looked for books about the state of Wisconsin (our state this week) and we found this excellent book, which we fortunately could get on reserve at our local library.  The Legend of Wisconsin is a legend about the Giant Hare, Nanabush, and how Wisconsin got many of its natural features. We found ourselves going to the map to see the Great Lakes that surround Wisconsin and also looking up pictures natural Wisconsin.    We thoroughly enjoyed this book; it was a good supplement to our state study.   

We also listened to a book on CD over the past week - The Whipping Boy.  If you've never listened to/read this short Newberry Award book by Sid Fleischman, you really should. Prince Horace is spoiled rotten and there is a rule in the kingdom that it is unlawful to spank the prince.  So, instead of spanking him, they bring in a "Whipping Boy" to receive the spankings!  From the get-go this outraged my children, and the rest of the book keeps their attention just as well!     The bratty prince and his whipping boy change places after getting mixed up with some shady characters, and the story continues! 

  

As always, I enjoying linking to Amy at Hope is The Word for Read-Aloud Thursday!

Unveiling A Special Unit!

We have begun our study of the "Fifty Nifty United States".   I've been really excited to unveil this unit to the kids!  We began with watching this YouTube video of The Fifty Nifty United States song by Ray Charles... as my son later told me, "Mom, I wish you wouldn't have taught us that song because now it's stuck in my head and I can't concentrate on anything else!"

We love this video - I used it an infinite number of times when I taught elementary music, and my own children love it just as much.  I gave them an alphabetical listing of the states to help them follow along.  Right now Target has great state flash cards and puzzles, too. I also ordered this map of the United States and put it up in our kitchen... we are always looking at the map this way.  

In planning our state study, I found Jimmie's Squidoo lens to be very helpful.   We chose to use a 50 state notebooking set which we downloaded from Currclick.  My oldest will be expected to complete several notebooking pages on her own each week for the assigned state.   For my youngest, we are using the state printables from Crayola, which are perfect for his age.   

Thanks to Christine, at Fruit in Season, we have been receiving lots of postcards from different states.  If you ever have the opportunity to participate in a postcard swap, you should... it's enhanced our learning so much! Of course there are always a few people who don't hold up their end of the bargain in these swaps, but if you go into it realizing that, it's not so bad.  My children and I sent out our postcards in July and had fun learning many facts about our own state to include.  

I plan to choose a different patriotic song to highlight each week with my children.  This week the song is "This Land Is Your Land" by Woodie Guthrie.   They love it when we sit around the piano and mom plays and they sing...I just have to be intentional about doing it.

Our first state was Wisconsin.  I let the children choose which they want to study.  We have a lot of relatives in Wisconsin, and it was also the most recent postcard we had received.  Coincidentally, we read that malted milk was invented by James Horlick in Racine, Wisconsin.   I have an old Horlick's Malted Milk glass container from my mother, so we set the table tonight with that and our postcard.  We planned a dinner with malts for dessert and invited our granddaddy to share it with us.  

Chocolate Peanut Butter Malts with mini Oreos and marshmallows are quite decadent I must say.   Miss B and her dad made them.

I'm not sure if every state will get its own special dessert, but this was a fun way to remember this interesting fact about Wisconsin.

Have you done a 50 states unit with your children?    Do you have any suggestions and/or resources for me?    I love to fly by the seat of my pants, so I'm open to anything!