E Is For Enchantment

Our Poppins Book Nook selection for this month’s theme of “Where In The World” is none of the ones that I was thinking when I wrote the intro post earlier this month. We went to my mom and dad’s in New Mexico for a much needed break and mom had gotten E Is For Enchantment: A New Mexico Alphabet for the girls. I immediately knew we were changing the planned book for this month. This one was THE ONE and it has been so much fun.

E Is For Enchantment: A New Mexico Alphabet is written by Helen Foster James and is illustrated by Neecy Twinem. Each letter of the alphabet features an important or unique aspect of the state of New Mexico. One of the neat things about this ABC book is that the letter is prominent in the chosen word for the letter but it is not necessarily the first letter of the first word. An example: B is for Smokey Bear. You might ask “why did she not put Smokey Bear under S?” Well, I don’t know her answer but I do know that under S you will find Santa Fe, an interesting place in the state and you can’t very well file that under a different letter.

Another thing that I love about E Is For Enchantment is that there are a couple of different ways to read it. You can read just the short, 4 line rhyme about the letter and the word for that letter. Or you can read the rhyme and the informational paragraphs with the details about the word chosen for the letter. This allows you to use this with preschool students on up through junior high or older. It can be just an ABC book or it can be a history book or a cultural book. So many possibilities. We used it as a bit of all of the above.

I grew up in NM and we go back several times a year to visit. I want the girls to learn about that lovely state and all that it has to offer. There is so much richness in NM. They learned a little bit about NM during the 50 states study but this was an easy way to offer them even more. So what did we do, you ask?

Of course we read through the book and most of the informational parts during a couple of readings. The older two giggly girls picked it up a few times and read it on their own, as well.

A is for the Ancient Ones…

We looked through some pictures and books from when their dad and I visited Chaco Canyon (Chaco  Culture National Historical Park) a couple of years ago and looked up the placement of Chaco, Bandalier, and Aztec on a map. We also talked about the Spanish word mesa.

B is for famous Smokey Bear…

We read The True Story of Smokey Bear and talked a bit about fire safety. The girls understand first hand the dangers and damage of a forest fire because their grandparents property was burned by the Little Bear Fire in 2012. The Little Bear fire was in the Lincoln National Forest and surrounding lands close to Capitan, NM, just like the fire that burned Smokey. We also learned the song and watched this video on YouTube.

C is for Carlsbad Caverns…

We revisited some of the things we remembered about visiting Carlsbad Caverns last summer. The girls really remembered the bats and a couple of the formations. We looked up some of the pictures we took and talked the patches they earned from the National Park Service for completing activities in a booklet about the caverns.

D for the storyteller Doll…

The girls had never noticed our storyteller doll. I pulled it out and we talked about it, using the information from the book for the historical part. We talked about some of the storyteller dolls that have as many as 40 or more children climbing on them. It is interesting to see the combination of the oral tradition and the pottery tradition come together. Because this page also talks about the pottery tradition, we took a look at a piece of Native American pottery that we have sitting on the mantle and observed some of the details of the piece.

F is for…Favorite Food…

We love New Mexican foods but the girls don’t like spicy hot yet. We do make enchiladas with chili powder and no tomatoes, like a true New Mexican would. For this project, though, we went right for the biscochito – the state cookie. (I didn’t know there was a state cookie until we read this book but we have loved biscochitos for a long time.)

E is for “Land of Enchantment”…

and

H is for Hot Air Balloons…

Hot air balloons are always fascinating. We love to watch them and hope to visit the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque in the next couple of years. Until then, we’ll just have to draw them. The girls chose their media (combinations of crayons, markers, and colored pencils) and were asked to draw a hot air balloon or a NM sunset. We got a good mix of the two.

J will be for Jewelry…

The giggly girls had no idea how much jewely we had that was either New Mexican in origin or style. We pulled a bunch of it out and talked about what made it New Mexican. A lot of it was the silver and/or turquoise. This reminded them of the baby spoons that their New Mexican grandparents gave each of them. The youngest giggly girl was the one who remembered and she ran to pull them out. These have different combinations of silver, turquoise, and…

Let’s make K for Kokopelli…

Two of the baby spoons had Kokopelli on it. (Things just roll one right into another and I love how it happens. I hadn’t planned on that or even thought of it.)

…O’Keeffe begins with an O.

Georgia O’Keeffe is such an interesting artist. We love to read about her and look at her artwork. So, it is only natural that one of our activities had to do with her. We read My Name is Georgia by Jeanette Winter. We talked about the different paintings that O’Keefe did and what inspired her. We then related that to what inspires us. This was done prior to the artwork that the girls did so that they could use the same sort of inspiration that she had for their artwork.

 

We actually did even more (ristras, pueblo, and zia to name a few) but this will have to do for this long post. ABC books about places offer so much learning and activity. What is your favorite ABC book? Will you share it with us in the comments? We would love to read more ABC books. At Home.

 

Clip art by Melon Headz http://www.etsy.com/shop/melonheadzdoodles

 

Find more books from the Poppins Book Nook book club by visiting my co-hosts:
Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ 3 Dinosaurs ~ To the Moon and Back ~ Planet Smarty Pants ~ Farm Fresh Adventures ~ Growing in God’s Grace ~ Chestnut Grove Academy ~ Faith and Good Works ~ Learning and Growing the Piwi Way ~ The Usual Mayhem~ Preschool Powol Packets ~ Monsters Ed Homeschool Academy ~ Adventures in Mommydom ~ Teach Beside Me ~ Life with Moore Babies ~ Kathy’s Cluttered Mind ~ Are We There Yet? ~ Our Crafts N Things ~ Hopkins Homeschool ~ ABC Creative Learning ~ Joy Focused Learning ~ P is for Preschooler ~ Laugh and Learn ~ A Mommy’s Adventures ~ Inspiring 2 New Hampshire Children ~ World for Learning ~ The Kennedy Adventures ~ Ever After in the Woods ~ Golden Grasses ~ Our Simple Kinda Life ~ A glimpse of our life ~ Journey to Excellence ~ Happy Little Homemaker ~ Little Homeschool Blessings ~ Simplicity Breeds Happiness ~ Raventhreads ~ Water on the Floor ~ Learning Fundamentals ~ Tots and Me ~ As We Walk Along The Road ~ Stir the Wonder ~ For This Season ~ Where Imagination Grows ~ Lextin Academy ~ The Canadian Homeschooler ~ School Time Snippets ~ Peakle Pie ~ Mom’s Heart ~ A Moment in our World ~ Every Bed of Roses ~ Finchnwren ~ At Home Where Life Happens ~ Suncoast Momma ~ The Library Adventure ~ Embracing Destiny ~ Day by Day in our World ~ Our Homeschool Studio ~ A “Peace” of Mind ~ Thou Shall Not Whine ~ SAHM I am ~ eLeMeNo-P Kids ~ Simple Living Mama

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Tagged: art, books, E, food, homeschool, J, L, Poppins Book Nook