Tuesday, February 9, 2010

One Day in the Desert

After 5 degree temps yesterday and more snow today, I decided to rebel. We spent the afternoon reading this book by Jean Craighead George called One Day in the Desert. We also acted out the book as we were reading it, drew pictures of characters we didn't have props for, and turned our living room into a Sonoran desert.
This was our paloverde (a type of tree) area where the peccaries (pigs), tortoise, cactus wren, and ringtailed cat hung out by the saguaro, teddy-bear, and prickly pear cacti.

These are the other characters to our story. The rattlesnake (or old bike tire), the Papago Indian hut, Clarissa as Bird Wing, the mountain lion, Diesel the coyote, Jared the sound effects man, the red Scorpion Mountain and Krystal's drawing of a kangaroo rat (but she refused to be in the picture). It was fun and we even did some math, science, and writing along with the art and acting. But, the best part was that whether it was just in my mind or not, I was actually warm the whole 2 hours. Also, it brought back fond memories of the three (Mojave, Great Basin, and Chihuahuan) different deserts that I've lived in.

3 comments:

Jo said...

You're such a good mom! And so on top of posting. I love it! I feel like a neighbor :) We spent our rainy day (today) just hanging out with Michelle, Ian and Luke.

Amber Walker said...

Was Diesel the director? He looks like he's supervising.

Nicki said...

Jean Craighead George is one of my favorite authors. I have a large collection of her books if you want to read more.