Roman Feast

We celebrated the conclusion of our ancient history studies by having a Roman Feast!  Gracie did almost all of the food preparation.

So what does one eat at a Roman Feast?  Nothing too complicated, thankfully!  Crustulum is garlic bread and cecina is a baked mashed garbanzo bean dish.  (Recipes from Hands-On Heritage Activity and Coloring Books - Activity Book, Ancient Rome and The Story of the World. Activity Book 1: Ancient Times (Revised Edition) (Bk. 1). 

Plates and silverware are strictly forbidden.  Sitting on the floor is encouraged.

Don't forget to wear your laurel (or, er... ceanothus) wreath!

 

Bird Beak Activity

This activity demonstrates that different bird beaks are better adapted to eating different types of food. I took several activities I had found online and modified them to match what I had on hand in my home and came up with this.

Supplies:

Five cups (representing stomachs) labeled with hummingbird, duck, robin, nuthatch, and woodpecker.

Five "beaks": straw, slotted spoon, clothespin, tweezers, toothpick or skewer.Five foods: marshmallows (grubs), cheerios (beetles), rubber bands (worms), water in a narrow-mouthed container (nectar), and rice krispies in water (water plants). Challenge ths student to fill each stomach with the appropriate food and the appropriate beak. No using hands except to manipulate the beak! After all, birds don't have hands!

Here are the correct matches.

Hummingbird: Straw beak with water in a narrow container. Use the thumb plug method to transfer the water rather than sipping the water and spitting it into the cup, especially if doing with a group of students.

Ducks: Slotted spoon beak with rice krispie water plants.

Robin: Clothespin beak with rubber band worms.

Nuthatch: Tweezer beak with cheerio beetles.

Woodpecker: Toothpick/skewer beak with marshmallow grubs. Put the marshmallows under a box lid with holes cut out just large enough for the marshmallows to fit through. This will represent the wood that the grubs like to live in.

Adapt this activity to what you have on hand and it will be great fun!

The Creation of a Theme Unit

For the next two weeks, we'll be doing a unit on birds and I thought I would document the process of what I do to put together a unit study.

1. Choose a topic

I chose all my topics at the beginning of the year which allows me plenty of time to collect ideas. I wrote more about choosing a topic here.

2. Make a concept map

I have a spiral notebook that I use to keep track of ideas for theme units. At the beginning of the year I gave each topic a page and as I think of things or come across ideas, I write it down. I do take some time at the beginning of the year and go through all the topics I plan to cover and just write down as many things as I can come up with. They may or may not be relevant, but I'd rather write it down and not use the idea than wonder, "What was that great idea I had last night?" (which happens quite a bit, too!)

The concept map is not complete ideas, but really just a page of word associations with that topic. Although if I do have a specific idea, I'll jot it down as well, so I won't forget. Here's on that I made for this unit:

3. Find good literature

I start with any relevant titles that I can think of, especially from our own book collection. I plan on using these books from our collection:

• Make Way for Ducklings (McCloskey)


• The Ugly Duckling (Andersen)


• Stellaluna (Cannen) (Mostly about bats, but also about birds)

The California Department of Education (CDE) website has a helpful list of recommended literature. This list is obviously not comprehensive, but it is a good starting point. The list does have a search category, but I prefer to go through the entire list for the appropriate grade level and look for books for all my themes all at once. I will keep my list of themes next to me (because I will forget some!) and refer to it as I look at the literature list. Additional information, including a summary of the book, is available by clicking on the title if I am not sure of its subject.

Here's what I wrote down from the CDE list (grades K-2):

• The Ugly Duckling(Anderson)


• Baby Bird's First Nest(Asch)


• Beautiful Blackbird(Ashley)


• Urban Roosts(Bash)


• Chick and Duckling(Gingsburg)


• Ducks Don't Get Wet(Goldin)


• Bluebird Summer(Hopkinson)


• Song of the Swallows(Politi)


• Dancers in the Garden(Ryder)


• Birdsong(Wood)

My final stop is a search of our local library's online catalog. I'll start by searching for the books I found on CDE's website. Then I'll do a general search for my topic. When I find a book I want, or even think I want, I'll put a hold on the book. this is the key for me. By putting a hold on the book, the library will find it, even it's at another branch, bring it to my library, and put it on a shelf for me with my name on it. This way, I can walk in, pick up my personalized pile of books (and sometimes movies), check them out, and be done in 5 minutes in the most calm and peaceful manner, no matter what kind of mood my kids are in.

When I look at the library website I can see from reviews and summaries that some books are more fitting than others, and some books are just not available. Here are the books I ended up taking home with me:

• Urban Roosts(Bash)


• Birdsong(Wood)


• Ducks Don't Get Wet(Goldin)
  
• Song of the Swallows(Politi)
  
• Dancers in the Garden(Ryder)


• A Poet's Bird Garden(Montenegro)


• Bird, Bird, Bird! (A Chirping Chant) (Sayre)


• Feathers for Lunch (Ehlert)


• Bird (Eyewitness Book)


• Bird(Eyewitness DVD)

4. Find other resources

As I go about the Internet I often run across a good idea or activity on a topic I'll be covering, so I'll save it to my Favorites file. I organize my Favorites by theme , so when it comes time for that unit, I can go to my favorites list and have several ideas ready and waiting for me.

• Beak adaptation lesson


• Another bird beak adaptation lesson


• One more beak adaptation lesson!


• The Egg Book comparing egg sizes in a printable book


• Make a nest craft
  
• Be part of an official bird count. We got our free kit here.

I also use Netflix for appropriate movies. Instead of searching my theme topic (i.e. birds) I seem to find more relevant movies by going through the entire educational section. I use a method similar to how I use the CDE's list of recommended literature. This does take time, but I only do it once or twice a year. At the beginning of the year or semester I go through the list of educational movies and add the ones I want for all my themes to my queue. When the appropriate theme comes up, I'll bump it to the top of my list. All that to say, I didn't really find any relevant movies on birds through Netflix.

Lastly, don't forget to check for resources you may have at home. We have binoculars, an owl pellet dissection kit and the book Birds, Nests, and Eggs from our charter school curriculum. We may or may not be able to check out a box of bird resources from the local library, so I have not included any of those resources in my plans.

5. Choose activities, lessons, field trips, learning opportunities

On of the reasons I chose this theme was our amazing local resources. The San Bernardino County Museum has on of the largest collection of bird eggs in the world, as well an extensive collections of birds. We also have a local bird farm which we'll be visiting for the first time.

I also wanted to get out do some real birdwatching in our National Forest, so I saved this for the spring, when the weather would be a little more cooperative for us.

6. Create main learning topics

I do this last because I want to prevent being disappointed if a certain book or resource is unavailable. I don't want to plan two days dissecting owl pellets if the owl pellets haven't arrived yet!

First I wrote out a rough schedule with the main topic or activity to be covered each day of our two week unit:

1 day eggs
1 day field trip to museum
1 day field trip to Bracken bird farm
1 day habitats
1 day bird beak adaptations
1 day predator/prey & owl pellets
1 day nests
1 day migration
1 day field trip to birdwatching
1 day Bible story

7. Create a schedule

Next I'll put days in order, putting things in logical order and working around set field trip days.

Monday: habitats
Tuesday: eggs
Wednesday: field trip to the museum
Thursday: nests
Friday: Bible story
Monday: field trip to Bracken bird farm
Tuesday: migration
Wednesday: bird beak adaptations
Thursday: predator/prey and owl pellets
Friday: bird watching

Finally I'll list the books and activities that go along with the topic of each day.

Monday: habitats

• Read Birdsong and begin Urban Roosts.
• Make categories of different bird habitats and list a few that belong in each category. For example flamingos and pelicans are water birds, penguins are arctic birds, and macaws and parrots are tropical birds.

Tuesday: eggs

• Finish Urban Roosts and refer to Birds Nests, Eggs.
• Make the egg book and talk about differences in eggs from various birds.
• Break open and egg and discuss the parts of the egg. Draw a picture and label the parts in science journal.

Wednesday: field trip to the museum

• scavenger hunt for certain birds, eggs, and nests at the museum.
• Draw picture of student's favorite nest in science journal.

Thursday: nests

• Read more Birds, Nests, and Eggs.
• Discuss bird nests seen at the museum and nest drawing in science journal.
• Make a nest.

Friday: Bible story

• Read I Kings 17:1-6.
• Discuss how God always provides for us even when there seems to be no way.
• Memory Verse Matthew 6:26

Monday: field trip to Bracken bird farm and feathers (I added feathers as an afterthought on this day because I didn't have a better place for it.)

• Collect feathers on the ground at the Bird Farm.
• Read Ducks Don't Get Wet.
• Feather & oil experiment
• Feather painting. Use a feather as a paint brush for interesting patterns.

Tuesday: migration

• Read Song of the Swallows or Make Way for Ducklings.
• Look at the migration route of different birds on a map. Find routes here.
• Have student write or dictate a simple story about a migrating bird and what he saw. You can follow this pattern or create your own.

A swallow was flying to his summer home. First, he
saw__________. Then, he saw _________. Next, he saw
___________. Then he was home.

Wednesday: bird beak adaptations

• Birds (Eyewitness).
• Do one of the bird beak activities listed above.

Thursday: predator/prey and owl pellets

• Read Feathers for Lunch.
• Define predator and prey and examples of bird predators (owls, hawks, eagles) and their prey (mice, small birds, snakes).
• Dissect owl pellets and glue recreated skeleton with the bones onto construction paper.

Friday: bird watching

• Read Dancers in the Garden.
• Birdwatch and complete urban birds survey.

Finally I'll check to see if anything is lacking. Are we doing something from each subject (reading, writing, math, social studies, science, PE?) I don't always have lessons for each subject, but I try to be fairly balanced. In this case I added the story frame to migration day. We really don't have PE, but we'll be doing some walking when we go birdwatching. This theme is obviously very heavy on science, which is just fine.

There's a few books that I didn't find a specific place for during our lessons, but I'll leave them out, and they'll probably get read. If not, that's okay, too. I like to over plan and have an abundance of books on a subject so that my kids are immersed in a topic. I don't want them to close the books when we're done with school and forget about until the next day.

This plan is NOT set in stone. I definitely like to capitalize upon teachable moments, but having a plan is a good way to keep me on track. It does take some work to make your own theme unit, but it's also a lot of fun and a great way to personalize your child's education!

5 Senses: Activities

Tasting:

• Identify a variety of different foods while blindfolded.
• Introduce the four main tastes: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. Using a representative from each category (we used salt water, sugar water, lemon juice, and vanilla(surprisingly bitter!)) and a q-tip, find the place on your tongue that is most sensitive to each taste. Mark it on a tongue diagram and you've got a personalized tongue map! Here's Gracie's:
  

Smell:

• Identify various scents without using sight. We put different scents (vanilla, vinegar, coffee, mint extract, orange extract, maple extract) onto cotton balls and had Gracie identify them.
• Discover the strong connection between smell and taste by chewing on a few coffee grounds with your nose pinched shut. When you let go of your nose, the coffee taste should become immediately apparent. (We didn't try this one, but it sounds pretty cool!)
  

Touch

• Put together a collection of "touchable" objects (Some examples: sandpaper, cotton balls, fabric, orange peel, lotion, duct tape, ice, marbles, wood). Have a blindfolded student touch objects one at a time and guess what each one is.

Hearing

• Learn that sound is caused by vibration by touching a radio, television, or a drum.
• Experiment in making sound change with a paper towel roll. Does it make it louder or go a certain direction?
• Create a water marimba with several glasses filled to different levels with water. Observe the vibrations in the water as the glass is struck.

Sight

• We have been doing an artist study on Pablo Picasso, so on "Sight" day we looked at some of his paintings, and Gracie worked on her own art project.
• Go on a color scavenger hunt. Make a booklet with half sheets of construction paper in different colors. Try to find something that matches each page. Write down the name of the object or glue the actual object or cut-out magazine picture to the page.
• Some topics to explore with sight: camouflage, sketching of objects, colors/color mixing. i am in art mode right now so that's all I am thinking of! Pretty much any lesson here or here would be great!

Lesson from the garden

When spring is in the air, I know it's just about that time. Time to get outside, dig in the dirt, and plant a garden. I love gardening, but I admit it's difficult to take the time needed to keep it up, especially with little ones that are often more hinderance than help. (No! Don't eat the dirt! That's basil, not a weed! Walk around the plants, not on them!) But I continue to try. Most years my crops are pretty meager, but there's just something about it that I love.

At dinner one night this week, my oldest daughter informed me that we wouldn't have to buy so many vegetable at the store this year. At first I didn't understand where that comment came from, but we had just made our seed-buying trip and started preparing some beds. I was amazed at the connection she made. We weren't just playing in the dirt, we were working to produce our own food!

There are so many lessons to be learned in the garden. Even the basic art of gardening is a dying one, yet it is such a valuable skill to have! My children are learning stewardship and know what goes in the compost bucket and what goes in the trash. They are learning to economize by providing their own food. For math, there's measuring the beds and the distance between rows and plants. For science there's the life cycle of plants, pollination, and nutrition. What better way to feel like a pioneer than to grow your own vegetable just like Ma Ingalls?! And there is a wealth of garden-themed literature out there. These are some of my very favorites:

Weslandia by Paul Fleischman
The Gardener by Sarah Stewart
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert

It doesn't have to be complicated and just a few simple pots can be your garden. Gardening provides not only food for my family, but so many valuable lessons and skills. And I'm think my children (at least most of them) might be more help than hinderance this year!

Abraham Lincoln: Activities

Language Arts:

Write a letter to the president just like Grace Bedell (in Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers) did. What advice would you give him? (LA.W 1.1)

Read a book by candlelight just like Lincoln did when he was a boy. (LA.R.1.9)

Math:

Do math with chalk on the back of a shovel like Lincoln did as a boy. (M.NS 2.1)

Have a money scavenger hunt and try to find Lincoln on a coin and a bill. Take a closer look at the other people, symbols, and monuments represented on different coins and bills.

Social Studies (K.6.1):

Look at a map of the United States and find Lincoln's birthplace (Kentucky), and boyhood home (Illinois) and other significant places in his life. (SS.K.4.2)

Make a list of some of qualities in Abraham Lincoln that made him so admired. (SS.K.1.2)

Science:

Abraham Lincoln had lots of pets. Think of a pet you have, someone else has, or you would like to have. What would it need to be healthy and happy? (SS.K.2.a)

Miscellaneous:

Build a log cabin with pretzel sticks and frosting or glue popsicle sticks to a box.

Chinese New Year: Activities

Language Arts:

Compare The Lion Dancer with Why Rat Comes First and discuss realistic fiction vs. fantasy. (LA.R.3.1)

Math:

We made this book and practiced writing, too.

Make pictures with tangrams (MG 2.1, 2.2)

Science:

Explain that the Chinese New is determined by the moon. Keep a moon journal. Draw a picture of the moon at least once a week for a month and observe the changes. (S 4a, 4e)

Compare and contrast the lion of the lion dance to a real lion. (S2b)

Social Studies:

Learn to identify China on a map. (SS.K.4.2)

Ancestry is an important part of the New Year celebration. Make a family tree of your own.

Art:

Make a scroll with simple Chinese characters like the ones here.

Make a dragon like this one.

P.E.

Create your own dragon dance with your handmade dragon, a scarf, or a piece of ribbon. (PE 1.10)

Miscellaneous:

Have a Chinese New year feast with your favorite dishes or try some new ones. The ingredients for these are in my fridge right now!

Go to Chinese New Year parade or celebration. We'll be going to this on Saturday.

Check out youtube.com for really cool lion dances like this one.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: Activities

Social Studies:

Look on a map for places significant in MLK's life such as Atlanta, Georgia.

Compare and contrast the childhood of MLK and that of children today.

Watch MLK give his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on Youtube.com.

Math:

Make a timeline of MLK's life. Use increments of 5s on the timeline to teach counting by fives. Practice ordering numbers (focus on the last two digits of the years) by placing significant events on the timeline.

MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech refers to a check marked "insufficient funds." Practice math skills by playing store, making pretend purchases and making sure there is enough money.

Figure out a way to treat everyone equally by passing out cheerios or other objects fairly among everyone in a group (of siblings or stuffed animals!) and introduce simple division.

Language Arts:

MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech is full of figurative language. Introduce the concept of word pictures by having student(s) make sentences following this pattern: The _____ is like a ______.

Write your own "I Have a Dream" essay/sentence.

Science/Art:

Experiment with mixing different colors of paint together to see the results.

Social Studies/Art:

Make a paper quilt of significant African-Americans in history that may have inspired MLK. We used the pictures from this mini-book to make our quilt. Look for pictures of the finished product later in the week!

Transportation: Activities

Language Arts

• Create a transportation ABC book. (A is for airplane, etc.) Use magazine pictures, drawings, or downloaded images plus a simple sentence or word. We did Q is for quarterhorse, X is for Xterra, and Z is for zeppelin. Any other ideas? (K W1.1)

Match transportation pictures to word cards. We used a lot of the pictures from this activity for our ABC book.

Use transportation pictures (again) and sort by characteristic. (i.e. number of wheels, number of passengers, etc.)(K R1.17)

Social Studies

• Take a bus ride. Just a loop around town can be exciting to a public transportation novice.


• Check out youtube to see some unique modes of transportation in action like unicycles, dogsleds, and the space shuttle.
  
• Create a map of your neighborhood or a made-up one including road signs and significant places. (SS K.4.4)


• Talk to a local train buff (grandpa is ours!) for more info than you could imagine!
  
• Look for various types of vehicles while on the road. We saw a truck hauling a load of grapefruit and a tanker truck. Horse trailers, cement trucks, oversize loads can make for some great teachable moments.
• Discuss transportation methods used in other parts of the world (gondolas, elephants, rickshaws, etc.).
• Discuss earlier versions of transportation methods used in other time periods (biplanes, steam trains, early cars, etc.)
  

Science

• Have a race event using toy cars. Engage some scientific curiosity by changing some variables. Tip a board or flat piece of cardboard to change the angle of the race surface or add a blanket to change the texture of the race surface.
  

Math

Introduce counting by twos or fours by figuring out the number of wheels on a group of bicycles or cars.

• Other

Make a stop sign model, both with paper and red, green, and yellow M&Ms on a frosted graham cracker!