Five in a Row-Miss Rumphius

     Well, it's Spring, and here in Texas, this is the perfect time of year to row Miss Rumphius. :) We did a LOT of things relating to plants with this one. The first thing we did was to go strawberry picking. That doesn't really relate to the book, but it is strawberry season, we love strawberries, and they are beautiful plants. So, off we went!

We definitely wanted to plant something during this row, so we went to the nursery, and grabbed some seeds, dirt and flowers. We spent a morning planting some flowers for our front porch area. We discussed the difference between perennials and annuals. The ones we planted are annuals, so we will need to plant more next year.

Since Lily is almost nine, I have her read the book to me some of the time. She really enjoyed the story illustrations. 

After she read the story, we discussed the location. We decided that Miss Rumphius might have lived in Maine, based on the clues in the book. We talked about the different oceans. We talked about how Miss Rumphius probably lived more North, since there was snow on the roofs. We discussed the weather in different parts of the country. After that, Lily put together a Geo-Puzzle, and located the 5 oceans on a map.

We talked about the different far-away places that Miss Rumphius visited. We talked about where she may have tried the coconuts, and where she may have seen kangaroos. We talked about the deserts where Miss Rumphius rode a camel. Lily has actually ridden a camel before, and she thought it was funny that Miss Rumphius did, too. We got some coconut water at the store, and Lily tried it. She loved it! It is now her new favorite drink. 

One morning, I made Lily some oatmeal for breakfast, and we talked about how it is like the porridge that Miss Rumphius ate as a little girl. Lily wasn't too sure about the oatmeal. She decided that it was ok. I don't think she will be asking for it every day. 

We talked about how Miss Rumphius made the world more beautiful, and talked about ways that we could make the world more beautiful. Lily's Girl Scout troop had JUST gone on a field trip to clean trash up at a local park. Lily said that was one thing she could do.

We downloaded a unit from Teachers Pay Teachers, and there were a TON of great things in there. One of them was this little Earth, and a place to write down what we can do to make the world more beautiful.

The unit also had some great vocabulary and parts of speech activities. We worked on those while we listened to Calypso music. (Still going with the tropical island theme)

If you want to download the unit, it is here: Miss Rumphius Unit

We talked about Bushels and Pecks. I couldn't find  a bushel basket, so I tried to give Lily an idea of the sizes of bushels and pecks, but without the visual, I am not sure how much she got from that. 

We talked a LOT about seeds. We watched the Magic School Bus Goes to Seed, and Rock N Learn Life Science videos. We learned about photosynthesis, and the life cycle of a seed. We even planted seeds in a baggie and put it on the window so we could watch them sprout.

We downloaded another packet from Teachers Pay Teachers, and it had a TON of seed/plant activities in it.  You can find that one here: Seed Unit

We collected leaves and made Chlorophyll rubbings.

We also did an experiment to see how the plants absorb water and take it up to the leaves.

We talked about the different shapes of leaves, and how their shape determines how well they soak up energy from the sun. We did an experiment with hand positions to see which shape gets the most sun. 

For art, we branched off from what was in the manual. Lily goes to an art class weekly, and we decided to paint Lupines on some pots.

After we painted the pots, we decided to plant some Lupines in them. 

We talked about Miss Rumphius being a librarian, and about the Dewey Decimal System. We took a trip to the library to look a little further into that. We also needed to grab some books for our next row. :) 

We discussed how people used the sun to determine direction. We talked about the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. This led to a discussion of people using the sun to tell time, so we made a sun dial. It was fun, but it blew away not long after we got it outside. If you make one, make sure you weigh it down! 

Our last activity was to go out and find some Lupines! The Bluebonnet is the Texas state flower, and it happens to be a lupine! We read about lupines, and the Legend of the Bluebonnet. Then, we headed about an hour away to the bluebonnet fields. 

While we were in Brenham, we headed for the Blue Bell Creamery. That had absolutely nothing to do with the row, but-Ice cream! We HAD to go! We went upstairs to the observatory, and watched them make ice cream. The day we went, they were making strawberry, vanilla and rainbow sherbet. Lily wanted to try the rainbow sherbet. It was yummy!

And that was our row of Miss Rumphius! It was a fabulous couple of weeks. Lily had a lot of fun with it, and said she was having "Fun lupine days."  I'm still trying to decide on our next row. Too many choices! See you soon!