Five In A Row (Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel)

Hello Lovely People

I must say I really enjoyed rowing Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, this is such a great book with some really great character lessons attached that opened some wonderful doors to explore with the boys.

The main things we discussed were:

Day 1: Stewardship- we talked about how Mike LOVED Mary Ann, how he loved her so much that he took such good care of her, so much so that Mary Ann never looked old. I then went on to discuss with them how they can be pretty rough with their toys and how if they became good stewards and looked after their toys they would also never grow old. I loved that this book brought this lesson out, well Five in a Row highlighted this aspect.

Day 2: We also spoke about self control and attitude, how even thought Henry B Swapp was quite nasty to Mike, Mike still had enough self control to be nice to him anyway and always kept a great attitude.

Day 3: We made a 3d square with grapes and toothpicks, the boys LOVED LOVED LOVED this, it was a great visual tool to see how to actually construct a square and then to see it in 3d form, and this is one of those activities where you go, hmmmmm this is way too fun, are they actually learning anything?… But yet you know that they are (I have many a momant like this). Jordan went on to then construct a 3d triangle on his own and then that beautiful spider looking thing!

 

Little Jesse loved this activity equally and really enjoyed being taught how to construct a 3d square, he was equally if not more happy with the other two creations he made and i experienced that exhale WINNER MOM moment (because i have not found many activities that he has loved as much to date).

Day 4: We talked about the Panama Canal and watched some real you tube videos of steam shovels in action, also a you tube on diesel vs steam and it was a thomas the tank you tube showing what goes on inside Thomas (Steam) and Diesel (diesel) and that was super interesting the boys wanted to watch that one again.

Day 5: We CELEBRATED Mike Mulligan with a deliceous Dirt Shake!

Recipe:

2 Frozen Banannas

2 Cups of Milk

1 Tsp raw honey

1 Tsp Cacao powder

1/2 a sachet of Chocolate plant based protein powder +

Crushed dark nestle chocolate chips for the dirt on top.

Jordans favourite part of his milkshake was dipping his grapes on toothpicks into it and eating them!

What a great Row, Mike has enriched out lives and i hope you get some nice ideas from our week, all ideas (except the dirt shake recipe which is my own) here thanks to Pinterest! I would love to get origional one day but Pinterest is way to convenient for that hahahaha.

Thanks for stopping by leave a comment and let me know if you did anything different, or if you tried these ideas and what your kids thought.

God Bless you all, have a great weekend!

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