The Polar Region and S Blends...

Well, wouldn't you know it, the timing worked out great...

Just as Big Bro has been very curious about Polar Animals, and countries that touch the Arctic Circle, and just as he is in need of a little work about s blend words, the two managed to come together.

Big Bro's curiosity about the Arctic Circle has grown over the last few days, as they have mentioned it here and there during the coverage of the Winter Olympics.
Then, his homeschool co-op recently discussed hibernation, migration, and adaptation, and he became curious about Polar Bears and Arctic Foxes.

Well, lo and behold, we happen to have two books that are just at his reading level, along with some extensions to tie on with these. And luckily, they are all works that managed to look interesting to Big Bro. He chose to do them back to back today and seemed to enjoy every minute of it.

The first book is called Polar Bears.
It is from the Learn to Read - Planet Earth Phonics Program. We ordered this set of little books from Scholastic and they have been very interesting, enjoyable books for him to read.

Polar Bears happens to go over S blends: skin, slide, slip, slope, snow, snug, snuggle, stay, steer, and swim.

What is nice about these books is that they are not as contrived as some phonics readers tend to be. They are also quite challenging and have lovely photos on each page.

As an extension to this book for spelling, I made up cards for Big Bro to complete.
He had to first, find the word in the text.
Next, he had to spell the word with letter tiles.
Then, he had to write out the word.
He then had to turn the card over, close his eyes, and spell the word with his finger in the air as he spelled the word aloud. He then opened his eyes and checked his spelling.
As a control of error, the words were all spelled out on the back side of each card.
He had to check off each step as he completed them, to make it more of an independent work and to help him keep track of where he is at with respect to each word.

After this part of the work, he then got out the second book called Polar Bears.
It is part of the North American Biomes Readers from Waseca.

For this book, he first read the text cards for the book and matched them to the picture cards.
For the first go around, the text cards and picture cards were all in story order.

Then, he read the Polar Bears little book that just has the text of the story in it...no picture clues.

The next steps for these include drawing a picture to go with the story, then mixing up the picture cards and text cards and putting them back in story order.

We are getting ready to send some packages out to some friends so I will most likely let him choose his favorite drawings about the books he is reading to go in the package.

As a follow up / additional practice for S blends, I happened to have a file folder game that is back from my more traditional teaching days.
The game is called Space Race.
Big Bro and I played the game together. The game covered some of the same words from the Polar Bears books, but then, it had a few others. We made up some new rules and some challenges to go with all of the start spaces on the game board.
Instead of just having to give an S blend word, he had to read the clue, figure out an appropriate s blend word to answer the clue, etc.
What was interesting is that he came up with some s blends that worked as the answers, even though they weren't what I initially had thought of for the answer. For example, one clue was "cookies, cake, and candy are all this"
I was thinking "sweet" but big bro suggested that "swell" could also work for that clue.
For another, the clue was "you may need this if you are tired." My answer was "sleep" but Big Bro said, "Well, snack could also work because sometimes if you are tired, if you eat a snack, it gives you energy and you wake up."

Photo Tour of All Things Egyptian...

Little Bro's cartouche
Big Bro's cat sculpture

Little Bro's work about cats...
Mummies. The base for these was made out of aluminum foil. The boys had to shape the bodies out of the foil then, they had to cover the foil bodies with plaster strips.

Each boy made a sarcophagus. They had fun painting the exteriors of the boxes, as well as making objects and mummies for the interior of the boxes. Big Bro even included hieroglyphics on his!
Desert and Pyramid scene...if you decide to do a study of Egypt, be sure to pick up the Kleenex boxes that are shaped like orange and lime wedges. By simply taping the tops of the Kleenex boxes, you have a nearly perfect pyramid shape to start!
Both boys made their own mixture of sand, glue, and tan colored paint to cover their cardboard base and tissue box pyramid. They used this mixture to cover the pyramid structure and to represent the desert. They then mixed a variety of blue paints and painted an area on their scene to be the Nile River. They added plastic animals to both the desert animals (namely camels and snakes) and the river animals (namely hippos and crocodiles).

Big Bro's mummy
Both boys made King Tut hand puppets. This is Big Bro's hand puppet.
Flora of Egypt...made duplicates of our Egyptian three part cards for Little Bro to add to his work. Big Bro actually used the set of three part cards and did them as regular work.
One page from Big Bro's work about camels.
Cover for Big Bro's work about the Nile River...
Some of Big Bro's work...
Very age appropriate facts about mummies and pyramids...
Very cool book...very informative and interesting...

Nice resource and again, age appropriate for 3-6.
This is one of two neat kits I found to go with Egypt. This kit included a hieroglyphics stencil, an Egyptian tin, some small replicas of Egyptian artwork, and a research guide.
This Geo Safari Kit was great! The boys got to pretend to be archeologists and got to dig out artifacts. They then went online (with my assistance) and we researched the artifacts. Then, they got to take the clay dirt, add some water to it, and pour it into molds to make a miniature Pyramid and a mini Sphinx.
Some of Little Bro's work about the fauna of Egypt.

These Zoobooks were very helpful. We read one on camels, one on hippos, and one on snakes.
Both boys loved learning about the animals of Egypt, especially the camels! They liked learning about camels so much that we did a field trip to the zoo and they got to learn about them first hand! Big Bro had fun being quizzed by the camel handler. She was impressed that they boys knew so much about camels.
It was a special day, because Daddy (aka my Dear Hubby) came with us.
He seemed to enjoy the camel ride as well.

Daddy, Big Bro, and Little Bro aboard Mongo, the Dromedary Camel.

Christmas Cookies and Big Cats

Well, we had an interesting day today...

Started our morning going to an animal sanctuary that rescues mostly Big Cats, but also takes in others...
They had three beautiful Siberian tigers, several Asian and African leopards, a bobcat, a panther, an ostrich, and a few emus.

Did some Christmas shopping and lunch...
Then, came home and attempted to make some cookies today...

Dear Hubby, the boys, and I were all psyched to bake.
Litttle Bro enjoyed it more so than Big Bro.
Big Bro was torn, because he wanted to help but wanted to watch "The Nutcracker".
So, the baking started out fine...the triple chocolate ones turned out great!
However, the peppermint snowballs were a bit of a flop.
We followed the recipe exactly for the snowballs, so go figure.
A more appropriate name would be something more like "peppermint chewy twists".

Well, our kitchen took a beating with all of the concoctions we had going on...we cleaned it up and then, we decided to just go out to dinner.

Once everything was tidy, we decided to leave it that way and went out to a Japanese Steakhouse for some dinner. Yummy!

All in all, a nice family day:)

Big Chickens (aka Dear Hubby and Me)

Well, Dear Hubby started out being brave with the monkey, but after one monkey bit him and the others started making a sport of taking his ball cap, as well as trying to score with his wallet, Dear Hubby became a little chicken...
Ouch!
He took my cap!
Mommy tried to hold a bird, but it brought back memories of being a child at Parrot Jungle and just wishing that they would get the birds off ASAP.
Notice that there are no other photos of Mommy holding animals. I opted to play photographer for the day (Mommy is a VERY BIG CHICKEN!!!)
Dear Hubby liked the birds and the deer. They were more chilled out than the monkeys.
All in all, a very fun time!

Little Bro and the Animals

Little Bro was a bit more cautious around the animals. He tended to let Big Bro try out holding the animals, and then, he would decide whether or not to attempt to hold the animals based on how it went for Big Bro. Little Bro passed on holding the birds...

Little Bro loved feeding the Island Deer. They were such sweet animals.
Feeding the deer was Little Bro's favorite part of our visit.
Little Bro got brave and went into the monkey area. He tried to get one of the monkey's attention, but the monkey was too busy eating his snack.
Little Bro enjoyed the monkeys. He was far more brave than Mommy, who stayed back and took photos.

Big Bro at Bodden's Monkey Business in Roatan

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More Belize Beasts

Belize Zoo Photos

Big Bro was very excited to be the first one to hold the boa. He loves snakes!
Awesome looking ocelot
This is a tapir. He is also called a mountain cow. This one came to the zoo as a baby. His parents had been killed and he had been kept as a pet of sorts. The family who had him kept him tethered outside and he had severe rope burns around his neck when he was rescued.
This is a male iguana.
We learned from our tour guide/ bus driver, Gus, that males are this peachy-orange color to attract females. If you see an emerald green iguana, it is a female. He was hanging out in the tree becaue it had rained earlier in the day and he was sunning himself.
Little Bro and a boa...he thought it was pretty cool for a few seconds.