The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge

I used to collect lighthouses when I was a kid. I'm not sure why, or if perhaps someone else started my lighthouse collection for me and then it just grew... and grew and grew. We've donated many a lighthouse to Goodwill over the years as we've taken (baby) steps to clean out our garage. But I do still like lighthouses which is only one reason I really liked this book: The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde H. Swift and Lynd Ward.

It's the true story of a still-existent lighthouse on the shores of the Hudson River in New York. The account, beautifully told, tells the story from the lighthouse's point of view as a great gray bridge (The George Washington Bridge) is built overhead. This book is not only a great story, wonderfully told, but an opportunity rich in content to unearth.

We spent a couple of weeks with this book and here's some of what we explored:

New York. First we checked the U.S. map to see where New York is along with which states surround it. We learned it's capital and this was a fun book to get to know the state.

We also learned about the Hudson River, mainly looking at photos of the river from a book I found at the library.

We studied rivers in general with this river nomenclature book.

And visited a nearby river to stomp around in - and throw rocks in! - ourselves.

We also looked at what kinds of animals live in and around rivers. We used this book for that. And I love TOOB, so I had TOOB river animals sitting out which the kids played with over the course of our study. I put the river animals on a blue silky scarf which I surrounded with small rocks, sticks and moss (I took photos but can't find them!). Nearby was a lighthouse the kids made out of an upside down red plastic cup with a battery-operated tea light on top (Dollar Store) and a smaller clear plastic cup upside down on top of that. I so wish I could find those pictures so you could see! : )

We did learn about lighthouses as well. I like Gail Gibbons' book Beacons of Light.

And here's some video from the little red lighthouse itself!

We also studied bridges. We watched this great video about painting the George Washington Bridge. Then we explored the four main types of bridges with this book. The book has more ideas for bridge building projects than I was ready to do at this point with my 3 and 6 year olds. But we did do one of the many suggested activities, and that was to try and build the four basic types of bridges with books, paper and materials around the house to see which structure is strongest.

Our unit was complete with a weekend trip to the Golden Gate Bridge.

We also hope to visit a lighthouse sometime soon. Pictures will follow (if I don't lose them first!). : )

Feel free to check out my Pinterest Board for more ideas! https://www.pinterest.com/shelleypimentel/