M: Mirette on the High Wire

Welcome! The following is the 13th in a series of 24 lesson plans, Learning the ABCs through Literature, the 1st year. It was written especially for classroom use within a homeschool co-op, and was designed to teach the alphabet, over the course of a school year, using classic children’s literature. The books are primarily taken from the Five in a Row Curriculum by Jane Lambert, with several others added as well. The plans were designed to give just a little bit more, so it could be more usable within a classroom setting. Teachers’ questions, printables, craft ideas, classroom handouts, etc are included within all the lessons. This is geared towards a K-1st grade class. If you are interested in something similar for older children, the Learning through Literature series is a more developed concept of this same idea, geared towards 1st-3rd, and also uses mostly Five in a Row books. You can find it here, Learning through Literature, the 2nd year.

M: Mirette on the High Wire

What I Need:

Mirette on the High Wire
Letter M Handwriting Sheet (printable version here)
Globe/Map
Small Beam/Bricks for “high wire”
Pictures of Niagara Falls
Crayons
Mirette and Belinni Cut-outs (printable version here)
Star Practice – optional (printable version here)
Blue/Black construction paper
String
Glue

Review:

By now, you may not have time to go through all the books you’ve done since the beginning of the year. If you do, great – this is a good memory / alphabetical order exercise. But in our 45-minute class, we were always running short on time, so we began to only mention the last few books we had done. Last week we talked about L is for … Lentil. Today M, says …. and our story today is about a little girl named Mirette.

Introduce the Story:

Our Story takes place in Paris, France

What continent is France in?
Can we name/find the other 6 continents?

It is based on a real person known as “Blondin” who really did cross Niagara Falls many times. There also was a real man named Bellini who crossed Niagara Falls, but the stunts listed in the book more closely match those done by Blondin. You can see a neat history of early tightrope walkers, here. If you have extra time, these two videos below may be fun to show your class.

Anyone know where Niagara Falls is?
How long is it? (1000 feet. More than 3 football fields across)

Show Pictures (or videos)

In our story today, Mirette is learning to cross a tightrope. But does anyone want to try to cross our mini pretend tight rope? (we used a thin solid piece of wood, with three bricks spread out under it for support. ) Let the class take turns crossing. Be sure to encourage them to try again if they can’t cross the first time, as this will play into the theme of the day.

Read the Story

If you have time, you may want to introduce these new words to the class, or at least take a moment to explain what they mean as you are reading.

protegee
agent
stupendous
feats
salute
hemp
winch
vagabond
retired
omelet
trance

Theme to Emphasize:

Not every book had such a lesson or such a clear theme, but this one is clear. There is a famous saying that goes, “if at first, you don’t succeed, try, try, again”. And a famous proverb that says, “the righteous fall seven times, but gets up again” (Proverbs 24:16). Anytime we want to do well at something, we must try and try again. Success comes from diligence and hard work. Did Mirette give up when she fell off the first time? Did she give up when she fell off the second time? Did she just go out and practice a few minutes here and a few minutes there? No, she really gave herself to practice. She made time to practice. She was diligent.

Another possible theme that could be brought out, as Bellini says, “don’t boast!”

“Pride goes before a fall” Proverbs 16:18

Craft: Night Scene in Paris

*This craft works best if the students are able to follow you, step by step. Try to complete each step with all the students before going on to the next one.

Give each student a black or navy blue piece of construction paper.

Using crayons, draw a city backdrop, like Paris. Buildings, windows, steeples, chimneys, etc. You can encourage the kids to use simple shapes, rectangle buildings with triangle tops. Rectangle doors and windows. Artsy students could be encouraged to draw a steeple or include other shapes. Encourage the students to keep the buildings in the lower 2/3 of the paper.

Now, using white or yellow crayons, have the students draw stars and a moon in the upper portion of their paper. This is a great time to teach how to draw the 5 pointed star and let the kids practice drawing them over and over. The printable below is a quick and easy way to help them get down the star pattern, using a simple dot-to-dot method.

Click here for printable version

Glue on a piece of string (brown twine works best, as it has a rope like appearance) and the Mirette and Bellini cutouts (below).

Print off the silhouettes below. I made these myself after spending hours searching (unsuccessfully) one night and thinking there should be something like this out here for this book. Yes, the templates are a little rough – but once they are cut out, and used as silhouettes, no one will know the difference. I had to get a little creative with a cheap photo program :). If you have a class that is not so good with scissors, you may want to pre-cut the silhouettes for them, as there are a few tight angles on these.

Click here for printable version

The Final Product:

Handwriting Sheet

If you still have time, take a moment to review the handwriting song, from HWT, sung to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It”

“Where do you start your letters?” (at the top)

“If you want to write a letter, then you better, better, better

Remember, to start it at the top”

*There are a handful of handwriting programs out there, and almost all of them teach the capital “M” differently. Follow the handwriting guides of your choice with the class. I instructed our class differently than this handout. They didn’t seem to have a problem following my description over the guides on the paper