Moving Beyond the Page Level 5-7: Unit 1-Week 3

This week we finished up our Animal Habitats unit. Lily has had so much fun with this unit. She loves  all things animals. :)

We began this week talking about measuring and tools. Lily was to go on a scavenger hunt for tools around the house-anything that we use to make our life easier.

After sorting the tools, we discussed what each tool is used for, and how it makes life easier for us, Lily picked a few to measure.

We talked about caring for our pets. Lily took a couple of stuffed animals and demonstrated how we can care for our pets. She actually is in charge of feeding our animals every night, so we talked about that, too.

 After we discussed pet care, we read The Salamander Room, by  Anne Mazer. We discussed what kind of environment the salamander would need, and whether or not the boy in the story could give the salamander the kind of habitat it had when it lived in the forest. Then we went outside and collected some materials to make a home for a salamander. A clay salamander. :)

We continued with RightStart math. Lily is really enjoying this so far. She likes the fact there are not a lot of worksheets in this math curriculum.

We played lots of educational games this week. Games that taught early physics, sentence structure and vocabulary words. Lily loves games, and we incorporate them into our schooling whenever possible.

We talked about how different animals have body parts that help them move. Lily acted out different animals and showed how their body  parts helped them move in different ways.

Our next activity was to make the different animal habitats. I put circles of yarn on the floor, and labeled them with a card. Lily sorted her little toy animals into different groups. Then, we blindfolded her, and I moved some of them around. She found them immediately, and put them back where they belonged.

Lily was supposed to pick an animal to learn more about. She chose the starfish, or sea star. We went to the library and got lots of books about them. Lily decided she wanted to paint a sea star. Or four.

For her final project, Lily chose an animal to learn more about. She was to do a research paper about it. She chose the shark. We got lots of books on sharks and Lily and I read some. She got Daddy in on the reading, too! Then she got to work on her paper.

That wraps up our animal habitats and environment unit. Next week, we start learning about weather!

Moving Beyond the Page 5-7: Unit 1: Habitats and Homes-week 2

We just finished our second week of MBTP 5-7. We are working on Animal Habitats. Lily has enjoyed this unit. This week we spent a lot of time identifying different habitats and talking about how each habitat provides things for animals to be healthy and safe.

Lily had to identify each habitat and write the name in the box. Lily usually writes entirely too large for the space provided, so she did pretty good with this activity.

We talked a lot about the Arctic this week. Lily said that is her favorite habitat. We spent some time on a few animal websites, and discussed the habitats.

The websites we visited were:  www.movingbeyondthepage.com/link/415 www.movingbeyondthepage.com/link/416 and www.movingbeyondthepage.com/link/417

We worked on some handwriting and number writing this week:

 

Lily isn't really big on drawing, so I was pretty pleased that she actually took the time to draw some Arctic animals for her habitat this week.

She drew a reindeer, and dictated a story for me to write down.

A little extra math was included in this week's lesson. 

We talked about graphs this week. Lily made a graph out of animal crackers. She enjoyed this activity-she got to eat them when she was finished. :)

Part of the lesson this week was for Lily to research the animal of her choice, and write a story about it. Lily chose the reindeer for this.

We also got some extra handwriting practice in. We used the Draw Write Now book for this. It had a reindeer in it, and a little bit of information to trace for handwriting practice.

We LOVE the Wild Kratts series. We watched a few episodes this week. 

Lily had to do a little role-playing this week. She was to act out the behavior of an animal, and we had to guess what she was.

We found a Leap Frog animal habitat sticker activity. It included the Aquatic and Rainforest habitats.

 

 We finished out our week with a trip to the aquarium. This was a great way for Lily to explore the Aquatic habitat, and she even got to see a couple of other habitats represented. We discussed how coral keeps fish safe and healthy by providing shelter and food. She even got to see some of the smaller fish hiding out in the coral.

She got to see a couple of animals that live in a desert habitat.

She got to see some rain forest animals.

 The rays were a very interesting part of the trip.

There is a marshland between the 2 aquarium buildings. We took a walk outside so we could see a marshland habitat up close.

 

 We found some aquatic animals at the gift shop. Lily spent the rest of the evening playing with those.

We finished up our week with another episode of the Wild Kratts.

 

Lily is really enjoying this unit on animal habitats. It has really sparked her interest in specific animals, and encouraging her to find out as much as she can about them. :)  We will see where next week leads us!