We don't get dirty enough. It's May, and I wanted to take advantage of having the outside to ourselves before school gets out for the summer and do a combined project.
So today for Geography we went to the vacant lot near our home (don't worry, I edited out the graffiti fence for our viewers) and made our own Mississippi.
First Mocking Bird Y2 and Bowery Bird Y4 did a plan, complete with smiley and sad faces, by looking at the maps in Minn of the Mississippi, a beautiful tale of a snapping turtle's journey along the Mississippi and life in general.
Then we took a bucket of water and some spades and dug in!
Canary is sitting about in Lake Itsaca, and Mocking Bird is stealing water from the "Hungry Gulf of Mexico." That's the Missouri River on the right, and Ohio River on the left of course. A gentle slope mimics the melting Minnesota snows...
She and Kingfisher scooped the water from the south and replenished the Northern Lakes to start it all over again. An impromptu water cycle application fit in here, then it started raining as if to drive the point home. After this we cleaned up and watched one of my favorite guys; Bill Nye's Water Cycle episode, where we all learned we are drinking in fact, dinosaur spit.
Here's a better view. We're going for the basics here. I think it was effective, eventually when, quizzed enoughMocking Bird what she was working she started saying "The Hungry Gulf of Mexico" with a look, instead of "...a big lake..."
And our other goal- to get dirty. But we could have gotten more...city kids...