How we "rowed" Climbing Kansas Mountains.

Since Climbing Kansas Mountains is out of print and I could not find it at the library, we made our own row based on what I found from these books about Kansas or the prairie.

-Sarah Plain and Tall-

-Out on the Prairie-

-The Buffalo are Back-

-Little Town on the Prairie-

-The Wonderful Wizard of Oz-

First we studied wheat because it's grown in Kansas. I had the kids dissect the wheat then we looked at the grains under our USB microscope. 

We read how gluten is a thirsty protein and that is why, when water is added to flour, the water soaks in quickly and it's easy to form a ball of dough. We did an experiment to test this out. We used regular white flour and almond flour. I added water to each. We could easily form the white flour dough into a ball but the almond flour fell apart. There is no gluten to soak up the water. 

We also recorded our wheat observations in our nature journals. I have them sketch and watercolor in their journals whenever I can. It forces them to observe their subject and take their time at replicating what they see. Therefore imbedding it in their minds and forever recording it on paper. 

We also studied the sunflower because they're commonly grown in Kansas and it is the state flower. I intended on having them dissect a sunflower but we ran out of time. We did watch a YouTube video of a guy dissecting one. And we documented our findings in our nature journals, of course. 

We moved on to prairie life after this. We talked about the great Dust Bowl. The Pony Express. And how people used to wash their clothes. Liam and I made a covered wagon and Olivia made her and her sisters corn husk dolls. We also played Oregon Trail and had a few laughs. 

Because Kansas is in the path of Tornado Alley, we studied tornadoes for science. We watched Tornado Chasers and videos on how tornadoes form. We also made our own "tornadoes" in jars. And we made some beautiful chalk art pieces. Here are some great books to read too! Here and here. 

We talked about tornado safety and looked up the best things to do to stay safe during a storm. Afterwards I had them all create an underground storm shelter on Minecraft and I gave them extra points for coming up with some great ideas. Olivia stored extra building supplies and money to rebuild after the storm. Liam used a concrete door instead of a wooden one. Faye made sure her shelter was really really far down in the ground. She even created a huge tornado above. 

To finish up our "rows" I like to write an exam to do a mental wrap-up of all we studied. I add funny questions or options for answering questions. I love to make them laugh. In one question I asked: Who got lost when we played Oregon Trail? The answer was Faye. Of course. 

We really enjoyed this "row" and I hope you do too!