The Lore of Dragons & Damsels

This was the final week of our Pond study.  To cap everything off we learned about dragonflies and damselflies.  How are they similar? How are they different?  I never knew to even wonder before, but now that I've had to study up on them for this - they are actually fairly fascinating.  I learned so much more than I think I even taught the girls!

Learn to make this dragonfly at the bottom of the post.

Day 1: The Dragonfly

We learned all about the dragonfly today.  Here are some of the fun facts that we learned:

• Dragonflies are carnivorous - they eat other insects like mosquitoes.
• Dragonflies lay eggs in or around calm waters (like ponds!)  The eggs hatch into baby dragonfly larvae called nymphs.  Nymphs do not have wings, they live in the water.  As the nymph grows it sheds it skin.  When the nymph is ready to become a dragonfly it will crawl out of the water and shed its skin one last time, emerging as a dragonfly with wings.  The whole process can take anywhere from a few weeks to four years depending on the type of dragonfly.
• Dragonflies have 6 legs, 4 wings, and 3 body segments.
• Dragonflies have 2 sets of wings that are dissimilar in shape.
• Dragonflies usually keep their wings either held out away from their bodies horizontally.
• Dragonfly eyes are set high on their head and close together, almost touching.
• Dragonflies have a stocky body.
• Dragonflies are very poor walkers, they use their legs for landing, not walking.  They fly everywhere.

 We did art time with dragonflies - Abby drew a very cute set of dragonflies.  I showed her step by step how to draw one and she did fairly well.

Day 2: The Damselfly
Today we learned about the damselfly.  The damselfly and dragonfly are very similar.  Here is some facts about the damselfly:

• Damselflies are carnivorous - they eat other insects like mosquitoes.
• Damselflies lay eggs in or around calm waters (like ponds!)  The eggs hatch into baby damselfly larvae called nymphs.  Nymphs do not have wings, they live in the water.  As the nymph grows it sheds it skin.  When the nymph is ready to become a damselfly it will crawl out of the water and shed its skin one last time, emerging as a damselfly with wings.  The whole process can take anywhere from a few weeks to years depending on the type of damselfly.
• Damselflies have 6 legs, 4 wings, and 3 body segments.
• Damselflies have 2 sets of wings that are similar in shape.
• Damselflies usually keep their wings held together and parallel to their body.
• Damselfly eyes are set on either side of their head and far apart.
• Damselflies have a very thin long body.
• Damselflies are very poor walkers, they use their legs for landing, not walking.  They fly everywhere.

Today we did some art practice with damselflies.  Since we did dragonflies yesterday I emphasized the differences in the damsel and dragonflies.

Day 3: Difference between a damsel and a dragon
Although the dragonfly and damselfly may appear very similar, and have a lot of similarities, they also have many differences and are easily distinguished from one another.  Here is how you differentiate a dragonfly from a damselfly:

• The larvae of each appears similar, however the damselfly larvae are much more slender and have 3 gills at the posterior instead of 2 like a dragonfly nymph.
• The damselfly body is much more slender than a dragonfly.
• The back wings of a dragonfly are shaped differently than the front wings, on a damselfly all 4 wings appear the same.
• A dragonfly holds its wings out horizontal when at rest, but a damselfly will hold the wings together over its back instead.
• The eyes of a dragonfly are on top of its head nearly touching, damselfly eyes are farther apart near the sides of their head.

We did a very fun craft for the last day of Pond month.  This might be a bit messy for you, but it was really neat (at least to me) and the girls loved it too. It is also a great way to get rid of any broken crayons in your house without wasting them!

Make Your Own Dragonfly

What you will need for the craft:

• A towel (it may get wax on it, so make it one you don't like)
•  Wax paper
• broken crayons in different colors
• small plate or bowel(s)
• scissors
• iron
• pipe cleaner (1/2 per dragonfly)
• fuzz ball (x1 per dragonfly)
• google eyes (x2 per dragonfly)
• glue

If you want to prep for the craft you should use the scissors to scrape off flakes of wax from the broken crayons onto the plate or into a bowl.  You can use a different bowl/plate for each color if you want to make things go quickly, or one for less mess.  Keeping the colors separate will make the end product more colorful (less brown or gray).  Also set the towel down on a flat surface and flatten it out as much as possible.

Cut a strip of wax paper (about 3-4 inches long and the whole width of the roll wide), fold it in 1/2 and set it down on the towel.  Sprinkle the wax paper with the colored wax shavings in any pattern you like.  Try not to make the shavings too thick in any one part.

Once you have created the desired design with the shavings, fold the other half of the wax paper over it.

Cover with the other 1/2 of the towel or a second towel.  Again, try to keep the towel as flat as possible.

Set the iron to low or medium (do not use high or you might overcook the dragonfly).

Iron over the towel for a minute (or until you can peek underneath and it appears fully melted together).  Allow the wax to cool for several minutes.

Next you draw a pair of dragonfly wings over the wax wherever it appears the "prettiest," then cut them out.

I used only 1/2 a pipe cleaner, but if you make a larger set of wings you can use a whole pipe cleaner.

 Fold the pipe cleaner in 1/2 and slide the wings into the pipe cleaner all the way up to where it is bent, then twist it to secure the wings in place.

 Continue to twist the the pipe cleaner to the end, but leave the two ends poking out (to mimic a real dragonfly).

 Put a generous drop of glue at the top of the pipe cleaner.

 Press down the fuzz ball and hold it for several seconds to make sure it will stay in place.

 Add 2 small drops of glue to the top of the fuzz ball.  Be careful not to move the fuzz ball out of place, it will take a while for the whole thing to dry.  If it does fall off, just add more glue and put it back in place. ;)

 Add the google eyes on the top of the fuzz ball.

 And wallah!  You have totally cute dragonflies!

 They might have turned out a little cuter if I'd had smaller fuzzballs, or bigger wings?  But these were SO ADORABLE!  I love them.

 So here is our finished pond window collage.  I'm going to let it remain up the rest of this week, then next week we'll move on to a different habitat. 

In other news, Abbagail is learning about dimes now, and thus counting by 10's.  She loves doing real life math - I make these sheets for her with different objects that cost different amounts, then make her budget her money to accomplish a task.  Today's was making lunch for everyone.  She had to pick which bread, peanut butter, jelly, drinks, and fruit to get everyone.  I threw her a few curve balls today by telling her that some of the bread and jelly some people don't like, and that each person wanted a different kind of fruit.  Then Mommy and daddy needed lunch on top of her and her sisters, so she had to "re-shop" for more drinks and fruit.  Then we counted her change.  Fun stuff.

I printed out another month of math for Tahlia and Serenity too - they are reviewing 1-5 and learning 6-10.  Serenity already knows them fairly well, but this is Tahlia's first time through.  Fun stuff!  They are also learning Letter C this week.  I'm amazed at how well Tahlia is doing for her first time through the alphabet.  This is Serenity's 2nd time through, so she is able to do all the work fairly easily because she already recognizes the letters and mainly is working on just the sounds and writing practice.  Their work is so fast and easy.

The mail has been awesome too.  All the mail we hadn't gotten for 2 wks has been arriving and Abbagail has been ecstatic about her gifts!  I'm always so amazed that everyone gets such great stuff for my kids.  I can never figure out what kids really like (even my own!) but everyone else seems to get just the right thing.  I'm so clueless.  Sigh... To each his own I guess - can't be good at everything.
Special hugs and love to everyone who sent her cards and gifts - thank you for making my baby so happy!  You blessed me even more than her, it really has made this month wonderful watching the joy you all brought to her (and her sisters too!)

Lots of Other Fish in the Pond

So this week we continue learning about our Pond habitat by learning about the fish that live in the pond. 

Day 1: Like always this day was packed full of introducing information.  I read lots of books to the girls about fish and we learned what makes a fish, a fish!  Here are some of the cool facts we learned about fish:

• Fish have backbones
• Some fish have hard bones like people, other fish have soft bendy bones made of cartilage (same stuff that makes up our ears).
• Fish have a head, body, and tail. They also have eyes and gills on the head, scales all over their body, and fins on their backs, tummy, sides, and tail.
• Fish swim with their fins
• Fish breathe with their gills by sucking in water through their mouth, then closing their mouth and pushing the water out through the gills.  The gills take oxygen out of the water so the fish can breathe.
• Scales are like tiny little overlapping plates that keep the fish safe, they can come in lots of colors and can be smooth or rough, big or small.
• Some fish have spines on them to help protect them too.  When they are scared, they stick out the spines to poke predators (predators are animals that eat other animals).
• Fish are cold blooded, which means they are the same temperature as their environment.  If you take a fish out of his home water and stick him in new water that is a different temperature, it hurts the fish, just like if someone were to put us in ice or boiling water.  We discussed the proper way to transfer fish from one tank to another - or when cleaning the tank how to re-introduce the fish to the water by placing it in a baggie with its old water and setting the whole thing in the new tank for several hrs so the fish becomes the same temperature gradually over time.
• Fish are omnivorous, they eat plants, bugs, and even other smaller fish or animals.
• Lots of people like to go fishing and catch fish to eat - they taste yummy and are good for us.  They help us grow up big and strong.  Fish are a part of the meat group.

I'm sure we learned other things, but those are the main facts that we learned this week about fish.

Day 2:  Since I got a cold from a small child at Safeway on Saturday (yep, I know it was this kid because she was EXPLODING with boogies and I was stuck behind her and her mom waiting to get Abby's b-day cake), we were a bit mellow this week too.  Today we did some fish drawing.  I've been finding some things online that are step by step drawing instructions, and I think the concept is still too advanced for Serenity or Tahlia, but Abbagail did some very cute fish.

Here is one fish colored, one not colored. They were striped fish.

Day 3: I wanted all the girls to get into the science thing again (Abby has been monopolizing most of it) so we did fish collages today with tissue paper.  I also put up all the art they have been doing in the front window in an attempt to get them more energized about what they are learning - nothing like a little showing off to all their friends to get them not only talking about what they learned, but I caught them teaching their friends about the animals too!  I didn't even think it would do more than look cute, but they get to talk about what is in the window with others and it helps them recall the info I'm teaching and put it into their own words.  Totally awesome idea that I didn't even mean to be so awesome! Yay me!

Serenity really liked making the collage. I think because I sat and helped tear the paper.

Tahlia kept telling me "I can't do it!" Looks pretty done to me kid!

Abbagail wanted to make her scales herself, she said they were supposed to be smaller. She is not afraid of intricate and tedious tasks - just like mommy.

This is our front window pond.  I used some brown paper for mud at the bottom (you can't see it here) and green tissue paper for the water plants.  The very top is Abbagail's duck picture, the frog collages are below that, and the new fish collages are swimming down in the water. We'll add more when we learn bugs next week and hopefully I'll get a pic before we switch it out for July.

 Day 4: We had our test today and labeled fish pictures with the basic parts.  I also asked them questions about fish to make sure they got something out of our week.  Overall it was a fun relaxed day.

This week was long, but we only did fish every other day.  Mostly I had just enough energy for math and reading for everyone and a simple art project.  Hopefully the weekend will help me recover - I'm taking Sat and Sun off from schooling at all or working at all even (all the chores will be there Monday I'm sure!)  If I don't get over the cold I wont be able to finish bug week before July 1st!

A few of the other fun things we got to do this week were: the splash park, playing outside in some nice sunny weather (for a change!), 2 trips to the library, and lots of "The Little Mermaid" and "Finding Nemo"!  (They also watched "Ponyo," but not many of you will know that one - it is cute though).  I couldn't find any fish songs to sing... and I wasn't feeling up to the internet searches for video clips of real fish, but oh well.  We had one really windy day on which I attempted to make a home made kite... but although it would fly briefly, it wasn't stable (kept spinning) and I couldn't fix that... but the girls were excited for a full hour watching me try to get it to work and taking turns having it lift off and spin around before crashing back to the earth.

there is a neat army car for the kids to play with at the playground

Abbagail is the only one who will go in the water 

Serenity enjoys being wherever I am

Abby is learning more about money in math right now, she can count pennies and write them as cents (with the cent sign and everything) she can say how many cents things are, add the cents, and even recognize what she can buy with a certain number of pennies.  This coming week we'll introduce nickels and keep her moving on.  Our calendar is working great - she now puts her full name and date on all her homework by herself. Yay!  She kept wanting to write her middle name too, but it wont fit so I convinced her it was overkill.


We started a "Book E. Worm" - he's a little pea head who loves to eat books.  Abby is going to feed him all the books she reads (has to read it without any mistakes) and earn prizes for every time she gets to a green body part. (that will be every 8th book).  I got myself a little treasure chest with small prizes like pencils, erasers, stickers, notepads, coloring pages, markers, tattoos, etc. in it.  Things that are a dime a dozen and the girls love to play with. I should go buy a sheet of bubble wrap and cut it up - they love that stuff!!!  I might end up having to make it more books per prize though - I think she's going to get like 4-5 books done on Monday alone!

Abbagail thinks it's hilarious to call him a "little pea head."

That's everything new for now.  I have a lot more that I want to do with the girls this coming week.  Our school is really evolving as we get into more subjects now that the girls are getting older.  I have so much stuff that they know so well I don't even need anymore - like all my "learning colors" books and printables.  Oh well, they are fun to use with Tahlia, they keep her occupied with something easy when I need more time to devote to everyone else.

A Week Off for Abby's 6th Birthday

Here is a Pond Themed Snack for everyone to try for our Pond habitat theme.  I found it on a different blog and thought it was a great tie in.  Basically it is a bagel with blue cream cheese as the little pond, a cucumber slice for a lily pad, and a fruit snack frog on top of the cucumber.  Very cute.

We had an exciting past week of finding a real live frog in our backyard!  The quote of the week goes to Abbagail for saying "He's not dead mommy!" then putting the frog on the ground where he promptly feigned death on his back for just long enough to be hilarious!  Then he quickly rolled over and hopped off into the grass.  

I set up a lot more of my school area - here is a pic of what it looks like so far.

This is Abbagail's desk, she has the computer since she's the only one in her own grade so far.

We also got out the modeling clay a few days this week and worked on making different things.  Abbagail was very interested in the horse I made and re-created it fairly well on her own.  She really is good at art, but she needs inspiration to get started.  I can't seem to get her to try to make or draw anything without something to look at - unless she just spontaneously does it without me asking. 

We found a ton of little yellow flowers that smelled delightful in our backyard.  I tried making some flower perfume out of them... but it didn't really take.  I'll have to look up the recipe again and see what I did wrong.  The flowers smelled like honeysuckle when we picked them, but the perfume just smelled like fresh cut grass.  Not a bad smell... but not what we were going for.  It was still a fun project.

 

Abbagail turned 6 and we had her birthday part with her friends from the neighborhood.  She was really excited at having her first ever "friend" party.  They played in her playroom with all the toys, did bubble wands outside (I'd bought enough jumbo bubble wands for every kid to have one to take home) and they did sidewalk chalk too.  We had pin the tail on the donkey, which Abby cheated and peeked so of course she got the best one, but we let her friend Gabriel have the prize instead because he didn't cheat.  There was the best chocolate cake (Safeway of all places, it was so delicious!!! I was shocked, I generally hate cake), and then present time.  It was too gray for the waterballoon fight I'd planned, but we had a great time anyway.  The kids had more fun blowing up my extra balloons and playing with the helium filled balloons than they did with anything I tried to plan out for them.  I love little kids!

It was so funny, every kid at the party helped Abbagail hold up her scooter so I could take a picture of it.

 We are currently going through freshwater fish (and hitting on a few other fish while we're at it) for our pond habitat, I'll write a post at the end of the week on what we've been doing.  I got offset a few days by the birthday bash, but that's fine we had a fun week of off topic work anyway.

Time to Make a Calendar

Well I finally decided that we need a calendar for our "classroom."  Decided as in Abbagail's math lessons just got to teaching about calendars and we don't even have one up on our wall right now.  I've been meaning to do it (no, really, I have), but... well, yeah that's about as far as the procrastination excuses get and I realize I'm just putting it off because I've never had any clue what to do.

So - I did my research the past few days in my off time, all 3 minutes of it, and we made a rough draft calendar for our wall.  Here it is.

 Yeah, it isn't gorgeous.  I actually made it from scratch paper we had laying about and a large piece of the leftover paper from our move that was still relatively not crumply. (yes I'm aware that is not a real word - I take it upon myself to invent words as needed since my brain turned to jelly a few years back... coincidentally right around the same time I had my kids and really needed it!)

We have the year, month, days of the week, and all the days of the month on the calendar of course, but I'm also customizing the calendar to fit our specific classroom needs as well.  All my kids already know all their shapes and colors, so I'm not wasting space with a daily or weekly of any of that.  Instead I added a section at the top for showing how to write the day's date, both in civilian and in military form (but me & Bryan disagreed on how military time is written so I have to go look it up now... I could have sworn it was all numbers ddmmyyyy, but he says that it is dd Month (spelled out or abbreviated) yyyy.  So I'll look that up and be adding it - I think it is a nifty little tidbit they should know since they are army brats!  I'll also be adding a line for writing out the entire date (ex: Saturday June 11th, 2011).

In addition to the nifty dates, I also added a small section for our ecosystem of the month with the word and a picture of the ecosystem - like my fancy artwork?  Below the ecosystem is the Animals we are studying, I'll add a picture of each additional animal as we start learning about it (so you can see the frog from last week and the duck & goose picture from this week).

Below the Ecosystem items there is our weather chart.  I had the girls look outside and tell me what the weather is like.  Honestly we probably only need 2 cards in this little pocket - cloudy and raining.  You can see from the picture - we lucked out today! It is only cloudy.  I'm sort of kidding, we get partly cloudy days too...  ;)

That is our calendar for now, but I'll be adding more as we add more lessons to our school week.  I'm getting into the groove of the ecosystem thing, so we might add some geography and/or history in the coming months.  I might also make a mini-board for each of the girls to chronicle what they are learning in which area - Serenity and Tahlia are each learning letters, so I could put their letter of the week up next to their desks, and their number of the week.  We'll see.