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Mary G
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| Posted: Sept 09 2005 at 12:33pm | IP Logged
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I was absolutely overwhelmed by how to work with my 6 and 5 yo on science -- I knew I wanted to teach them about animals, at least for half the year or so, but which ones, how to get my hands around it, what would be the best way for them to learn?
I finally had a brain-wave: I asked them to each pick a mammal, a bird and a fish they would like to study. I added one for each category also. So now we have 9 animals that we will "unit study" for a couple of weeks each -- we took turns drawing out of a bag the different animals for our order of attack so that noone feels that their animal is being ignored!
So here's our list:
Thomas: wolf, eagle, shark (can you tell he's 6 and a boy  )
Maggie: rabbit, robin, sea horse
Mom: squirrel (we have so many in the yard eating my bird food  ), penguin, trout
We'll start next week with the robin and go on from there....after all the living books on robins that I've requested come into the library 
Just thought this idea might help someone ....
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MaryG
3 boys (22, 12, 8)2 girls (20, 11)
my website that combines my schooling, hand-knits work, writing and everything else in one spot!
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juliecinci
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| Posted: Sept 09 2005 at 3:55pm | IP Logged
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Great idea! We did something like this a few years ago. You might find a lot of help in the ZooBooks magazines at the library. We would check them out for the animals of choice, Xerox photos and then narrate about the animals (i'd jot down the narrations into books with the photos taped in). The kids loved rereading these that year.
Julie
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Julie
Homeschooling five for fourteen years
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BrendaPeter
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| Posted: Sept 09 2005 at 8:46pm | IP Logged
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Hi Mary,
That's a great idea & I see how it might help lots of other moms who are struggling with what to do with science. I jumped in here because I have had the same struggles with "how" to study certain things. For instance, I've looked at the artists & composers for years, but it never seemed to work flying around from one to the other. This month I finally decided to just pick a composer & study him - well, it's working! Even I'm "getting" it.
Just another idea for science. Each of the kids has a 3-ring binder set up as a Nature Notebook. Fortunately, where we live is quite rural so I decided the Nature Notebooks could be somewhat of a "nature guide" for our yard. This has worked so well for us because it gives us the freedom to "rabbit trail." For instance, this week we found a 4" long praying mantis. We've been waiting to find one for a few years! 1st we took a photo & printed out a copy for each of the kids, then they drew a picture of it, then colored a picture, then we printed out the classification from the computer. Everyone cut out their pictures with "fancy" scissors, pasted it on colored paper, slid it into a sheet protector & then put it into the INSECT section of their nature notebook. (When it's a more complicated find, I have them do a quick narration & sometimes we find a poem for their page.) You can only imagine what treasures these notebooks have become for them!
Once we run out of discoveries in our own yard, we can have the kids pick animals like you did. Thx for the suggestion!
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Brenda (mom to 6)
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Mary G
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| Posted: Sept 09 2005 at 9:38pm | IP Logged
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Brenda:
Now I really like the idea of photgraphing the specimen in situ so that they can take their time to draw later -- my 6 yos is rather stressed if he has to rush, or the animal moves or whatever!
Sounds like yet another reason to upgrade my 7 yrold digital 
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MaryG
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Kelly
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| Posted: Sept 09 2005 at 10:06pm | IP Logged
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We do this, too,always a fun project. We started our "Animals of Our Backyard" book with random studies of animals that live in our area. When we were in the Florida Keys for a while, we did notebooks on "Animals of the Florida Keys". For both notebooks, we drew heavily on the Audobon Birds portfolio and Audobon's "Animals of North America" book of prints. We also learned quite a lot about Audobon in the process. In the end, I figured they were getting science info, some real art expertise, art history AND a little plain old history, to boot.
We put all the pictures in one big 3-ring binder,appropriately labeled "Animals of Our Backyard", along with articles the children wrote on the animals. We now have a nice little "nature guide" for our backyard as well as for the Florida Keys. It was a lot of fun.
For the really little kids, I incorporate nature notebooks with phonics. EG. I drew an outline of the animal we were studying in heavy black marker, and then wrote its name in big letters, underlining the first letter. Occasionally, I'll xerox the Audobon picture, in black and white, and let the little ones color it in with markers, then label it accordingly. We then put these pictures in their "Alphabet Book". So we have some pretty funny pictures in those Alphabet books---would you EVER think of "Upside-Down Jellyfish" for the letter "U"? Still, the children love going back and ruminating over these old alphabet books. We also put in post cards of places we visit--like "K"..."Key West" with a pic, or "Bat Tower" for letter "B". If I'm really motivated, I dash down the date we visited the place below the picture. So the alphabet books serve many purposes, not just phonics or science!
Kelly in FL
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Karen T
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Thanks for all the wonderful ideas! I'd gotten my 5.5 yo ds a spiral sketchbook for a nature study book this year, like his older ds does, but I think having a 3 ring binder would work better and we can do more with it. I'll just let him use the spiral book for the drawing and then cut it out (with "fancy" scissors, too!) and put it on a page into a protector so they can all look at it without messing it up.
I like the idea, too, of making a list of animals to "research."
Here in Atlanta we have a new aquarium opening in November. It is the largest one in the world. It is going to be so great to have for visits, so I think we will pick sea animals and fish to study this fall in preparation for going to see them.
Karen T
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MacBeth
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| Posted: Sept 11 2005 at 2:09pm | IP Logged
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Mary G. wrote:
Mom: squirrel (we have so many in the yard eating my bird food
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Mary, you might like to try this Squirrel Project I wrote a few years ago to draw the kids into learning about the habits of our little grey thieves.
Also, here's an article from from Brevard College on a squirrel of a different color (or rather, lack thereof!): White Squirrels. I think there are some cream-colored squirrels, too.
This is a funny find, though...when black squirrels (we have some right in our neighborhood) were getting some notice, folks were saying that they were a product of evolution (as opposed to simple type variation), and they would blend better with dirty buildings. One article I read said that the white ones would surely blend better with the new shiny buildings popping up in modern cities. 
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MacBeth in NY
Don's wife since '88; "Mom" to the Fab 4
Nature Study
MacBeth's Blog 
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Karen T
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| Posted: Sept 11 2005 at 7:39pm | IP Logged
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This just reminded me of a great Bill Peet book about a squirrel (Merle the High Flying Squirrel, I *think*). My kids have all loved the Bill Peet books.
Karen T
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Kelly
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| Posted: Sept 11 2005 at 11:16pm | IP Logged
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MacBeth,
I noticed your link on White Squirrels and was interested to see it, as we have had white squirrels living down near our beach house (on the Florida Panhandle) for YEARS. Sometimes they have a little grey dorsal stripe, but they are mostly all white, tho not albino. Well, I went over to the link and was surprised to see, LO!, an entire paragraph on the "Florida Connection"...which went on to an update all about white squirrels in our own little Tallahasseee, at our own little nature museum (I've seen those white squirrels there) and on white squirrel sitings in the very area of our aforementioned beach house. I never imagined our little white squirrels had "gone National"! 
Kelly in White Squirrel Territory
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Mary G
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| Posted: Sept 12 2005 at 6:41am | IP Logged
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Karen T wrote:
This just reminded me of a great Bill Peet book about a squirrel (Merle the High Flying Squirrel, I *think*). My kids have all loved the Bill Peet books.
Karen T |
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Karen:
Thanks! This one sounds great (and my library HAS it!). We love Bill Peet -- we read his Capyboppy last year and his autobiography is great -- talking about working at Disney was very funny!
We may need to do a "unit" just on Bill Pett
Thanks again!
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MaryG
3 boys (22, 12, 8)2 girls (20, 11)
my website that combines my schooling, hand-knits work, writing and everything else in one spot!
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MacBeth
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| Posted: Sept 12 2005 at 7:40am | IP Logged
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Kelly wrote:
I never imagined our little white squirrels had "gone National"!
Kelly in White Squirrel Territory |
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And international. The original article I read was from Scotland! Wish I could find it...but they are found in spots throughout the UK, too.
I have never seen one in person, but they look quite funny!
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God Bless!
MacBeth in NY
Don's wife since '88; "Mom" to the Fab 4
Nature Study
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4Real Forums : Exploring God's Creation in Nature and Science
Topic: How we’re doing animals this year
