Sunday, February 7, 2016

Hanna's Cold Winter

Title: Hanna's Cold Winter
Author: Trish Marx
Illustrator: Barbara Knutson
Copyright: 1993
Summary: A cold winter, starving animals and a town with a heart weaves a story based on a true incident that will intrigue all of its readers.



This story was appealing to both Lily and Aj. They really enjoyed reading this book and all the activities that went along with it. The kids leaned about hippos and World War 2. They also went on a field trip and learned how to ration butter. 



Social Studies- (Geography, Budapest, Hungary)
Hanna's Cold Winter takes place in the country of Hungary and in the city called Budapest. We placed our story disk on Hungary because of this. Lily and Also found Hungary on the globe.This children spent time reading books to learn about this country. They also made poster boards with all of the information they learned. Some of the information they learned includes population, the Danube river and the monetary unit used.








Language Arts- (Copy work, First Person Point of View)
The kids copied a page from the book in their best handwriting. They also learned that this book was written in first point of view. We discussed the pronoun "I" and how it is used for the person telling a story. Then the kids wrote about what they would do if the went to Hungry in first person point of view. We also read and discussed a chapter book Number the Starts by Lois Lowry. This story was about a ten year old girl helping her best friend who was Jewish escape into a safer country during World War 2.









Science-(Zoology-Hippopotamuses)
The Name hippopotamus comes from two words that mean "river horse". The children learned this and many other interesting facts about the hippo.They read books and did worksheets.They also put together a collage of facts and pictures that they learned. Lily and Aj also played Hungry Hungry Hippo to get into the animal spirit.






Art-(Drawing)
The kids worked really hard on drawing a picture of a zoo with animals. They used crayons, markers and craft items.



Mathematics-(Odd Numbers,Counting by Five, Estimation)
The children estimated how many pieces of candy could fit in a hippos mouth. They also did 2 worksheets on counting by 5's and odd numbers. All the worksheets had a hippo theme.







Social studies-(World War 2) The conflict of the plot of Hanna's Cold Winter stems from the fact that the Budapest Zoo animals can't get enough food that winter due to World War 2. This story gives the children a strong foundation for history lessons in later years. I took the opportunity to find simple books and videos to tie together many aspects of the war.  We also were able to discuss Lily and Aj's Grandfather who was a paratrooper in the war. We looked through tons of memorabilia about the children's grandfather. They found it interesting. We watched 2 videos on the history channel. The movies were about Rosie the riveter and the Hiroshima atomic bomb. They colored a picture of Rosie the riveter. We also leaned how to ration butter. We enjoyed bread with rationed butter as a snack. The children also learned the physics of dropping bombs by pretending they were airplanes dropping bombs on city's. They learned this was harder to do then it looked.





















Field Trip-(Fort Tabor/Fort Rodman in New Bedford, Ma)
We went to Fort Tabor/ Fort Rodman and we were able to see a lot of memorabilia from World War Two and many other wars. They had a tanks, pictures, models and so much more. Lily and Aj tried on hats and they saw a demonstration on how cannons were loaded.  We walked around 2 forts. One was from the civil war  and the other was from World War Two. There is so much history to explore at this museum. If your in the area I recommend it.
























Here are some other books we read and discussed but did not do any formal work with them.




      * work sheets came from homeschoolshare.com and teachme.com*


Thanks For Reading! Hope You Enjoyed This Post.

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