The Great Gray Bridge and the Little Red Lighthouse--FIAR

We have been rowwing through the book "The Great Gray Bridge and the Little Red Lighthouse" by Marjorie Swift for the past few weeks.  Actually this 'Five in a Row' book has become more like a 'Five Week' row book.     

During this book we looked at the purpose and history of lighthouses.  While on our beach vacation we visited a real, working lighthouse.  The Oak Harbor lighthouse located a the mouth of the Cape Fear River and Atlantic Ocean.  We read many other books about female heroines who kept lighthouse light burning during difficult times and storms.  (ie. Keep the Lights Burning Abby)

We also watch you tube videos/on line tours of the real Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge (Washington Bridge), which spans the Hudson River in New York City.

Lighthouse is a compound word so we explored other compound words.  Delaney had fun seeing how two different word could combine to make a new word, like jelly and fish...to make jellyfish.

In the book the bridge and the lighthouse took on person like traits...they show feelings, talked, and expressed emotion, just as a human would.  When a non human object takes on person like qualities this is called personification and is used quite liberally in our literature and entertainment.  ie. Veggie tales, Thomas the Tank Engine etc.  Both Delaney and Liam caught on to this concept.  Liam especially loved to shout out personified objects when he noticed them....like Pixar's movie 'Cars' with Lightening McQueen and others.

Someone had lots of fun....namely the principal of our homeschool, with this cantalope.  I think Cailin named him Bob....but then everything right now in her life is named Bob!

We drew our own personified copies of the Little Red Lighthouse.  They had fun giving it different emotions.

This book is set in New York City so we decided to find an NY style food to eat.  As there are so many different cultures converging and living in NY, there really isn't one food type.  However, NY is known to have fantastic Italian food....some that rival that of Italy itself.  We made New York style pizza.  Which is really just over large slices so that you can fold it in half like this while you eat it!  Mmmmm, perfect for our Friday night, pizza night dinner!