High wires and hearing

We learned to face our fears in class on Thursday!

Our book, Mirette on the High Wire, took us to Paris where a little girl meets the famous Bellini, a high wire walker.
She quickly becomes enamored with
Bellini and begs him to teach her to walk the wire. He tells her no, but that doesn't stop her. She tries to walk the wire by herself. She tries and tries again. He sees her insistence and desire and finally helps her train. She is a natural!

She discovers that Bellini is world famous and has even walked a wire across Niagara Falls! On his way back across the falls he stops in the middle and makes an omelette! That's just how amazing he is!
She begs him to do these stunts again but he says he has a fear of the rope now.
She tells him he must face his fear.
In the end, he faces his fear with the help of Mirette and they go on tour together walking wires around the world!

We identified the setting, characters, problems, solutions, and the themes in the book. We are getting so good at this! I'm astounded at the themes they find hidden in the pages. It would be great to remind your child of these literary elements as you read together.

Next, we talked about ears?! Why ears, you ask....because they are essential for keeping our balance!
And Mirette had an amazing sense of balance.
We learned that ears help us hear and the fluid found in the vestibular canals keep us balanced. We experimented by turning in circles over and over again. This disrupted the fluid in our ears and made us feel very dizzy!
We then tested our ears ability to hear by trying to identify what items were found in the mysterious Easter eggs. We shook the eggs and tried to figure out if they held a penny, button, bell, noodles or a foam block.
It was a bit tricky, but our ears didn't let us down!
Next week, we are going to test our balance as we perform amazing feats of circus skill!