School Cancelled Due to the Weather

Yes, that is rain. In Utah. Wahoo! A cold, windy, March rain--but rain, nonetheless. Of course school was instantly cancelled when we noticed the first few drops. Nothing messes with a child's concentration more than the weather.

They want to be out in it. Even if they're freezing.

Cowen's tough. He lasted a whole three minutes longer than Miriam.

Wait, wait!! Isn't that snow?? Why yes, it is snow. That was two days before the rain day. School was cancelled for several hours that day as well. I couldn't bring myself to stand between my boy and his shovel. Especially since it will probably be quite some time before there is snow again.

Don't feel too sorry for him. He's turned his snow shovel into a dirt shovel and has spent hours during the past two warm days digging a hole. That shovel was the best investment of my life.

Mountain Man Unit--Favorite Books

Here are our favorite books from our Mountain Man Unit. All the books in this post are available from the Davis County Utah Library System.

Forest Cats of North America by Jerry Kobalenko (OV 599.75 K75). We used this book for the magnificent pictures. Since the book covers bobcats, lynx, and cougars, we learned how to tell each type of cat apart. Also, the information was easy for me to scan while the kids were poring over the pictures, so I was able to slip in lots of info without much effort on my part. The Hogle Zoo is home to two cougars and a Siberian lynx. The Logan Zoo (which is tiny, but cheap and you get to see the animals up close) has two bobcats. They are incredible jumpers!

Mountain Men: Cornerstones of Freedom by Andrew Santella (X 978.02 S234). I read sections of this book but not the entirety to my children as it was rather long and dry for their attention spans. However, it had the most complete information and included several really useful maps.


Jedediah Smith by Sharlene Nelson (X 92. S651n). This is a good adventure story.











Grizzly Bear by Jason Stone (X 599.784 S878). I'm sure there are numerous high quality books about grizzlies in the library system. However, this was our favorite. The pictures were great and the information was right on level for my youngsters. Learning about grizzlies was my children's favorite part of the Mountain Man Unit. Now, every picture of a bear they happen upon must be evaluated (hump, length of claws, size) to determine if it is a noble grizzly or subpar brown.




Kit Carson by Jan Gleiter (X 92. C321g). This was one of our favorite biographies.









Audubon: Painter of Birds on the Wild Frontier by Jennifer Armstrong (OV X 92. A916a). We loved this book. Audubon had all sorts of exciting adventures and he did all sorts of clever things in order to paint his birds as accurately as possible. Besides the nice pictures and good storytelling, this book opens up a world of possible activities. Fantastic!

There were several other books we loved. Unfortunately, I couldn't find pictures of the covers. Still, I don't want to leave them out.

The Wonder of Wolves by Patricia Lantier-Sampon (X 599.7444 L296). Again, there are numerous books about wolves but this one was perfect for the ages of my children. There is a wolf at the Hogle Zoo.

Albert Bierstadt: Painter of the American West by Gordon Hendricks (OV 92 B588H). This was another favorite. It is a collection of many of Bierstadt's works. I've only seen his most well-known pictures and was surprised by how much I liked some of his lesser known pieces. My children loved looking at the pictures and pulled this book out during free time constantly.

A Celebration of Monsters

Another month, another book club meeting! This month we (me and my children, my homeschooling buddy, Julie, and her two children) read Beyond the Deep Woods by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell. If you have a boy between the ages of four-twelve, you should probably put this book into his hands. Unless he doesn't like gory monsters. *chuckling* Right, right--boys and monsters just go together. As a sidenote, my daughter likes the book too.

The book isn't much on plot or moral lessons. It is about a boy, Twig, who gets lost in the extremely dangerous Deep Woods and almost dies about every fifteen pages in a variety of gruesome ways. There's a carnivorous tree, goblins, trogs, etc. Before you get too worried, I did read this to my four year old. It's not that gruesome. Just enough to keep your kids on the edge of their seats. Very fun.

Since the Deep Woods is about monsters, our book club meeting/party was monster themed. We all made individual monster pizzas. I know Emeline's looks like it is wearing a hair bow (not scary) but it is not. Those are ears (very scary).

We also made monster cupcakes.

Then we ate all the monsters. Yum, yum.

To round out the monster theme, we let the children watch Labyrinth. The small people thought it was hilarious. As do I.

It was a lovely party and a fun read-aloud. The book, Beyond the Deep Woods is available from the Davis County Library System.

Insect Unit: Actual Unit with Lesson Plans

Here's the Insect Unit Overview with a brief synopsis of each day's lesson plan. I did two insect lessons per week. I used this unit for my first grader and two pre-schoolers. It would be fairly easy to adapt. If you need suggestions for a different age group--just drop me a comment! Also, I didn't include the music we learned here but there is another post about it if you're interested.

Day One: Look through the book Bugs Up Close. Go through online tutorial at http://urbanext.illinois.edu/insects/. Emphasise the differences between bugs and insects. Let kids design their own bugs at http://urbanext.illinois.edu/insects/newbug.html. Look at pictures of insects on google images.

Day Two: Look through more of Bugs Up Close. Give the children a bunch of pictures of bugs/insects and have them glue each one to a chart with one column labeled "bug" and the other column labeled "insect."

Day Three: Read Face to Face with Caterpillars and make egg carton caterpillars. As found on this site: http://www.dltk-kids.com/CRAFTS/INSECTS/mcaterpillar.htm.

Day Four: Give kids Fancy Nancy the Explorer book. Watch Miriam go crazy with joy. Read the book. Give the kids the bug jar with magnifying lid and go outside and look for bugs. (I also gave my girls butterfly shirts. I found them dirt cheap and couldn't resist!)

Day Five: Read pgs. 9-11 in caterpillar book about metamorphosis. Evaluate what stage our butterflies are in and guess when they'll change to the next stage. Go to this website: http://www.kidzone.ws/animals/monarch_butterfly.htm and look through the information. Print out coloring pages and color them. (The coloring pages are found at the bottom of the kidzone page.

Day Six: Review metamorphosis. Color life cycle worksheet found here: http://www.kidzone.ws/animals/monarchlifecycle.htm.

Day Seven: Read Bug-a-licious, make chocolate pudding (mud) with oreo crumbs (dirt) and worms or other edible bugs.

Day Eight: Read What Do You Call a Group of Butterflies? and make butterfly masks found here: http://www.dltk-kids.com/CRAFTS/mardigras/mmasks.htm.

Day Nine: Read Bugs Up Close pgs. 18-19 and Hidden Walkingsticks pgs. 16-19. Make paper dragonfly craft found here: http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/insects/mpaperdragonfly.htm (or any dragonfly craft--there are lots of them).

Day Ten: Read Praying Mantises book and Weird and Wonderful Insects pgs. 16-19. Talk about weird bugs. Make funny faces. Try to walk like a weird bug. Be silly.

Day Eleven: Read any remaining bug books that the children have been pestering you to read. Label the parts of the grasshopper found here: http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/ythfacts/4h/unit1/grassho.gif.

Day Twelve: UGLY BUG BALL. Have a ball!

Ball Prep: Draw an insect on a huge piece of poster paper and make separate wings for "Pin the Wings on the Insect." Print off pictures of ten-twelve insects and number them. Make corresponding answer sheets and gather enough pencils/pens for all the party attendees for "Name that Bug!" Buy a cool insect craft from Oriental Trading. Make cupcakes and chocolate frosting and buy gummy worms or other edible bugs with which to decorate the cupcakes. Or--do anything you like!

Another bug idea, for Utahns, is going to the planetarium in Salt Lake and watching a 3-D bug movie. Awesome.

Insect Unit #5: Growing a Butterfly

They hatched. Is that what it's called? Broke out of their cacoon? Emerged? I did study this stuff--I promise!

I read several complaints online about buying caterpillars for the purpose of observing metamorphosis--only to be sent dud caterpillars. Ours all did fine even after spending two days under the very hot sun. (We were visiting my parents when the caterpillars were delivered.)

For several weeks the highlight of my children's day was checking on their caterpillars. I was worried that they would lose interest, but I didn't realize just how fast the process is. One day you're looking at these tiny caterpillars and the next day they are huge and the next day they are climbing to the roof and hanging upside down. Strange. Okay, not quite that fast but fast enough to keep everyone in the house interested. It was fun to watch my hubby's nightly routine change from get home from work, kiss wife, put away keys to get home from work, kiss wife, check on caterpillars, put away keys. Like I said--it was really interesting.

I bought our butterfly house from Delta Science but you can buy them from numerous internet sites. Amazon was cheaper than Delta Science, just an FYI. Also, that strange magnifying glass Miriam is using is the lid to a bug observation jar. It is a great idea--a container with a magnifying glass lid and then an additional magnifying glass attached to the lid. My kids loved it for a few weeks. And then they wrecked it. Not so surprising. Despite the loss of the container, the kids used the lid for months until it mysteriously disappeared.

There are lots of bug magnifying jars out there. If you've had success with one--meaning it held up to usage by children--please, let me know!

PS Yes, I am aware that going out and finding a caterpillar is cheaper. Don't hate me for being lazy.

Insect Unit #4: The Ugly Bug Ball

No bug unit would be complete without a buggy party! In this case--I threw an Ugly Bug Ball and invited the nearby cousins. Good times were had by all.

My sister Megan provided two insect crafts that she ordered from Oriental Trading. We both relied heavily on Oriental Trading for all our bug needs. They came through for us.

I know it has been done before, but I couldn't resist making bug cupcakes. It is just so much fun to pretend you're eating dirt. Again, the edible bugs that the kids placed on top were from Oriental Trading, as were the big bugs I used to decorate the tables.

As it was a costume party, my children wore (for about thirty seconds) the butterfly masks they'd made several days before. The pattern can by found on DLTK. Didn't Miriam look so enthused? I think Cowen was trying to look buggy. I think.

I love balloons. They make such lovely decorations and then, later, such lovely entertainment.

My brother Wyatt manned the video camera.

And that is all the pictures I took. WHY???? I don't know. Maybe I was too busy partying. Or maybe I just plum' forgot. Either way, I regret the lack of pictures. You'll just have to imagine the goings-ons. First, we danced with our costumes on because it was, after all, a ball. Next came the "Tape the Wings on the Insect" game. My hubby has skills--including "draw an insect" skill. It came in handy for the making of the afore-mentioned game. After that I led the children to the far wall where I'd taped a series of pictures of different insects. The children identified as many of the insects as they could and then whoever identified the most, won. There was a three-way tie for first place for the three contestants who got nine out of ten. (Miriam was one of them--yeah, Miriam!) My sister, Megan, who is a smarty-pants, was mad she missed one. Termites. You just don't see as many pictures of them as you do albino praying mantises.

After the game we did some buggy crafts, ate pizza, and decorated our bug cupcakes. Then we let the kids go wild with the balloons while the adults cleaned up. It was a lovely party and a fantastic way to end our insect studies.

Insect Unit #3: A few other fun sites

Insect crafts abound and you can pretty much google "insect crafts" and get a multitude of options. My favorite insect craft site is DLTK. I'm sure you've all heard of DLTK but just in case, I thought I'd throw it out there.

Another fantastic insect site is the University of Illinois "Let's Talk About Insects" extension. It contains a slideshow that describes the attributes of insects vs. bugs and goes through insect body parts and whatnot. My children thought it was awesome because they were allowed to watch something on the computer. I thought it was very well-done.

The best part of the University of Illinois site was the "Eee Gads! A New Bug!" section where you create your own bug by choosing from a variety of body types, wing sizes, antenna shapes, etc. You can make your insect different colors, give it a name and a description, and enter it into the new bug hall of fame. You can also email it to someone so my parents and my husband were inundated with emails about new bugs. Fun, fun!