Adventures in Mommydom: swimming creatures

Showing posts with label swimming creatures. Show all posts

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Science Sunday: Shark report

To finish up our study of Swimming Creatures I had each of my kids choose their favorite sea animal to write a report on. I was able to predict exactly what animal each of my kids would write about.

We used the stapleless book I shared about yesterday.

Today, I’m going to share Superman’s report, Sharks by Superman. Very original title.

Each page had one fact and an illustration of that fact.
Sharks hach (hatch) out of egt (egg) cas (cases).
Make sharks teeth are sharp.

The whale shark is the bigest (biggest) shark.
The Tiger Shark teeth are like a sa (saw).

Sharks hav (have) cartilage. (I let him copy cartilage).
Sharks are colb bloobb (cold blooded).

Two pictures of sharks drinking sprite (his favorite drink).

About the author page: Superman and his sharks.

Then he made a visual aid of a shark. You can see it in the bottom corner of the left hand picture and read his report to two different adults, Daddy and Mrs. E. He was SO proud of himself. I don’t blame him.

I see a shark there, don’t you?

Have you ever had your kids do reports? Did you grade them? This time I didn’t, but I think next time I’ll use a rubric.

Let’s see what others did this week:

The Homeschool Scientist shared about the snake they found and some follow up ideas.

No Doubt Learning shared their model eardrum. I loved her follow on suggestions.

Fit Kids Clubhouse shared about “Solid, Liquid, and Gas” for pre-schoolers using balloons.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Science Sunday: Shrimp

A few months ago I shared how we dissected a shrimp, however the shrimp we got from our grocery store was already beheaded. We got ones with shells on, so they saw the tails and legs and such stuff, but they really wanted to know what the head looked like, up close and personal.

I joked about going out for sushi and making my brother order fried shrimp heads again (he did it on a dare once, it was AWESOME), but Jeff didn’t think that was the best plan, for many perfectly valid reasons.

Then, when we were in Virginia we ate at this perfectly horrible Chinese/Japanese buffet.

Horrible, they messed up jello so badly I couldn’t eat it.

But, they had shrimp with their heads on. So, right there in the restaurant we had a science lesson.

First thing we noticed is how HUGE the eyes are. I personally think they’re kind of freaky.

Next we noticed the length of the antennae. They’re about as long as the shrimp itself.

This required a lot of playing and fiddling around to see how much it could be moved.

And then some general exploration of how it moves and the different parts of it.

Of course eventually it was eaten.

I guess that day we played with our food.

Let’s see what others did this week:

Finding the Teachable Moments shared about their Fire Safety week, a great pre-school/early elementary unit (you have to see what her husband brought home from work!).

Homeschool Mo did a couple of things this week, but I really loved her illustration for the earth circling the sun using a pie pan.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Science Sunday: starfish

You remember how ages and ages ago I asked for recommendations about starfish, and then I lost my camera with the pictures of what we did?

Well I found it. Or more accurately, when I made the kids clean out the dog’s toy box of all of their stuff they found it. My guess, I had them clean and they put it all in the dog’s toy box.

Needless to say I was not a happy Mommy.

First we looked as the starfish my Mother-in-Law had given us from a trip she took and picked up for them. I’ve been holding on to these for quite some time. We noticed the little bumpy things on the bottom and talked about how those are little suction cups that let the starfish move around.

After we poked around and looked at them under a magnifying glass, I said we were going to try and see what it was like. Then one at a time I ushered my unsuspecting kids into the bathroom and they got to play with the plunger in the toilet.

After I was suitably disgusted by their fascination (and they now think of the least excuse why the bathroom needs the plunger, racing downstairs to get it), and they managed to not cover my bathroom floor with water. We continued on to the next part.

Then we cut out a starfish from sandpaper and recorded our observations of what it felt like to try and move like a starfish. We did a similar craft before, a couple of years ago for our ocean animals book.

I’d like to thank: Fantastic Five, Alex Nguyen Portraits, Books 4 Learning, and Enchanted Homeschooling Mom for all coming up with some fun ideas to do. Between all of their ideas, links, and suggestions I could have spent a couple of weeks on starfish, unfortunately my kids interest level was not as high as mine.

Does anyone else ever run into the problem of being more interested in a topic than their kids are?

Let’s see what others did this week:

Fantastic Five combined science and art for a fun astronomy lesson.

I loved the idea of using a rolling pin for a pulley from Quirky Momma.

Next Gen Homeschooler did a great job of trying to earthquake proof buildings.

Dottie’s Homeschool Universe shared about rocks and how they’re formed.

Don’t forget to have a link back here somewhere on your front page.

Oh, and one last request: If you have any posts, old or new, about land animals I’d love to see them linked up. We’re going to be studying land animals next and my land animals pinterest board is rather sparse.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Science Sunday: Sea Cucumbers

Now who here read that title and said “Sea Cucumbers is that a vegetable?” I admit I did at first when I first read that part.

But, they’re really rather fascinating. There are two different kinds. One that just eats sand and filters its food out of it. The other has large numbers of tentacles and uses the tentacles to bring the food to its mouth.

Well after reading all about this we decided to make our own models, but first we needed play dough.