Madeline

Written and Illustrated by Ludwig Bemelmans

Key Scriptures:
1 Corinthians 14:33a For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
1 Corinthians 14:40 Let all things be done decently and in order.

Philippians 4:8 Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.

This classic children's book has been one of Claire & Justin's favorites and many of the activities we began during our two weeks with Madeline have remained favorites ever since. Many of the board games, coloring pages, and other pencil and paper activities that we did to go along with this book were printed out from the Madeline computer programs that we introduced along with this book. The kids have really enjoyed their Preschool and Kindergarten Classroom Companion CD-ROMs and we also had fun playing through Madeline's European Adventure together. These programs have really helped to reinforce many of the skills that the children have been learning throughout the year as well as helping them to learn some introductory French vocabulary!

We began our time with Madeline by placing our story disk on France, and finding the location of Paris. We also painted pictures of the flag of France. We related both of these to Blue Bug Goes To Paris, one of a fun series of easy readers.

Our scripture focus for the first week was on how God is a God of order and not disorder. We discussed how the 12 little girls did things in an orderly way and how order is important in our lives.

We had a special "French style" meal together as a family which included mini quiche, baguette, meat, cheese, French onion soup, chocolate eclairs, and sparkling cider (in lieu of wine). As we shared this meal, we talked about the differences between French and English spelling and pronunciation and about how many words in English are borrowed from other languages.

We discussed a little bit regarding Bemelmans' use of color in the illustrations - how there were a few pictures in full color, but most were done simply in black, white, and yellow. Claire "painted" a picture on the computer using only those 3 colors to experiment with the effect. Both Claire and Justin did some neat things in the area of art with this book. Claire added some details from the story (the rabbit-shaped crack in the ceiling) to a coloring page of Madeline's hospital room and drew lots of pictures of Madeline and her companions. Justin did a wonderful job of staying inside the lines as he colored in a simple picture of Madeline.

Our scripture focus for the second week was discerning good and evil and giving approval to those things that are good. Claire did a lovely job of copying Philippians 4:8 for handwriting practice. We discussed how the 12 little girls learned to distinguish good and evil and how they showed their approval and disapproval. We also read Madeline and the Bad Hat and discussed good behavior and bad behavior and how Pepito learned his lesson. We also discussed how a true positive change in character can ONLY come through God changing the person.

We did some really fun activities with the number 12 and various ways of grouping. We were able to do this with mini "pictures" of the girls that were a part of one of the printable games from the computer CD. We also did some fun sequencing and board games to reinforce other math skills.

One of our much-anticipated activities was building a simple model of the Eiffel Tower using our Duplo blocks. We began by following the instructions for the simple version found on a website. On one of the steps it showed alternating blocks (6 of each of 2 colors) and Claire connected this to the "12 little girls in 2 straight lines" -- remembering that 2 groups of 6 make 12! After we finished with the model built according to the "instructions" Claire decided that it didn't look right and proceeded to build a very nice one of her own design. Click here to see a picture of her with her design.

Towards the end of our second week, Claire announced that "If Miss Clavel didn't want Madeline anymore she could live here and do Sing, Spell, Read, and Write with me!" While clearly understanding that Madeline IS a fictional character, the kids have had a wonderful time pretending that they are Madeline & Pepito and having various adventures.