They Were Strong and Good

We rowed They Were Strong and Good at the end of October.  This book follows the stories of the ancestors of the narrator, and shows how throughout the various circumstances of their lives, they remained Strong and Good.  Something to live up to.  The author is Robert Lawson, who also illustrated two other favorite FIAR books, Ferdinand and Wee Gillis.  The illustrations are entertaining and full of detail in this book as well.

 

We did not do many activities other than what are described in the manual, and my recollections of rowing this book are pretty hazy by now. 

 

One of our Social Studies topics was How Cities Change.  I checked out a couple of books from the library that showed photos of our city when it was first founded.  Much has changed, of course.  We later happened to be driving through an old part of town and observed that there are still some of the original houses we saw in the photos.  

 

For a field trip, B took the kids to the local historical museum while I stayed home with the baby.  They had a very good time.  Here is a picture of K and T with a display of animals that used to roam the area:

 

 

There was also a detailed interactive display about scientific labratories.  They had a "hot box" with a remote controlled robotic arm for people to try to complete various tasks.  Here is K attempting to manuever the Lincoln Logs:

 

 

Here is a closer picture of K with the control arm:

 

 

T had fun with this also, but in the pictures taken of him it is difficult to see what is happening.

 

Other activities for this book included thinking of additional words that made us think of "strength"; making a list of all the locations mentioned in the book and finding them on a map; playing an online compass game; discussing occupations; and discussing our own family history.

 

We also spent a day learning a little more about Panama and the Panama Canal.  We watched a video of the every day life of children who live in Puetro Rico.  K and T were intrigued by the home of one of the girls-- little frogs were encourage to live in the house because they eat insects.  Those frogs were really noisy!  I also printed out some animal cards of creatures that live in Central America (found on Homeschool Share) to discuss and for T to sort.  K researched Puetro Rico in a little more detail.

 

We had a good time with this book!