Seige Towers, Atmosphere and Eric Carle

Assyrian siege towers, Science with Daddy and Eric Carle family art time... just a normal week in the Hawkins house : ) Love our little adventures...

River's enrichment class is learning about Eric Carle books during the month of February so we decided to do the same at home.  We checked out about 20 Eric Carle books from the library and had fun reading through them and trying our hand at some of the illustrations. 

 

 

We are learning about the Earth's atmosphere in Science and Tony helped the kids do a couple of labs to explore the air around us.

This week in Story of the World we learned about the Assyrian Empire and the kids got to build their very own siege tower with legos.  Very cool.

Valentine's Day

 

Inside the Orchestra

 

The kids got this book, The Story of the Orchestra, for Christmas this year and we decided to start off the new year with a unit on the Orchestra.  Both the kids really enjoyed learning all about the strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion... It was just a basic intro to the orchestra (I'm sure we will be studying the orchestra more in depth in years to come) but I was very encouraged by how much they picked up.  The book is fabulous and includes a CD with a track for each instrument, composer, etc.  We have attended the Tiny Tots Inside the Orchestra concert a couple of times before, but it was much more special and meaningful this year, after the kids were so familiar with the instruments and the sounds they made.  River's favorite is the cello and Scout's is the piano and the tympani drum.  Since, the concert was at the Wild Life Experience in Parker we decided to make a day of it and invited some good friend along for the adventure.  Great memories!
Here are a few other books we enjoyed during this unit and, of course, pictures from our fun day... 


           
The Philharmonic Gets Dressed                                        Zin! Zin! Zin! a Violin

 

The Nutcracker