Southwest States Week 2

I apologize for this late in coming post. Last weekend we were out of town so this Southwest State post will be short and sweet. We spent 3 days at a cabin with friends in the Sequoia National forest. The kids had a blast. It was like a giant sleep over. Lots of play, hiking, eating and sight seeing. I will post some pictures soon. Right now I will give a quick glimpse of what we did for our second week desert study....

We learned about the dust bowl state, Oklahoma on Monday. We topped it off by watching the musical Oklahoma. My dancer loved the singing and dancing numbers and the beautiful colorful dresses in the show.

Tuesday we moved on to the Lone star state of Texas. My little cowboy was excited that we got to revisit Davey Crockett. We learned about the events of the Alamo and watched the Disney version of the Alamo.

Wednesday we explored caves and learned what animals and plant life can survive in caves. Since Carlsbad Caverns is located in New Mexico we also learned about stalagcyites and stalagmites. Sadly, we had so much preparation for our trip that we will have to set up our stalagcyite and stalagmite experiment for another time.

We also took the time this week to finish our desert diorama. The kids painted their desert animals and added sand. They came out looking great.

Here is a list of books that we read this week...

- S is for Sooner: An Oklahoma Alphabet by Devin Scilian
- Dust for Dinner by Ann Turner
- Welcome to the USA Oklahoma by Ann Heinrichs
- Welcome to the USA Texas by Ann Heinrichs
- The Alamo by Dennis Brindell Fradin
- The Inside-Outside book of Texas by Roxie Munro
- The Story of the Alamo by Norman Richards
- Pecos Bill by Steven Kellogg
- Let's Take a Field Trip to a Cave by Kathy Furgang
- Welcome to the USA New Mexico by Ann Heinrichs

Southwest States Week 1

Do you know the Bible has many references in it about the desert? The two main stories that may come to mind is Moses and the Israelites wandering in the desert after fleeing the Egyptians and Jesus' 40 days in the desert. The desert offers beauty, solitude, challenges and many obstacles just to name a few. The desert is an amazing habitat created by God and we learned some interesting things about it ....

The first thing I did with my kids was to find out what they already knew about a desert. Since we live in California they have as the privilege of being able to drive through a desert. Now when we learned about swamp life that was a bit of a stretch of the imagination. (One of these years we will make it to the south.)

Next, I taught them the trick on how to spell desert. I told them the years in school that I would improperly spell desert with two "SS" instead of one. We all had a laugh.

One thing I never realized that there are so many varieties of cactus'. We learned bout the animals that live in them and around them. How to get water from them if you are ever stranded in a desert. I had them make a model of one out of cardboard. I had precut the pieces. They painted and added the spikes or spines on them. Then they made desert animals out of modeling clay. We will have to paint them next week, after they harden up more.

They also made a sand art desert animal and colored a picture of the Grand Canyon.

Here is a list of books that we read this week on the Southwest...

-Desert Animals at Night by Lynn Stone

- A Walk in the Desert by Caroline Arnold

- The Seed and the Giant Saguaro by Jennifer Ward

- Cactus in the Desert by Phyllis Busch

- Around one Cactus by Anthiny Fredericks

- Welcome to the USA Arizona by Ann Heinrichs

- Meet Josefina: An American Girl by Valerie Trip