Goliath's Secret: A Review, Giant Frogs, Lifecycles & Sign language

I am so pleased to be able to share a great Picture book called Goliath's Secret written by Bonnie Feuer and illustrated by Sharai Platt. Following the review are some fun ways we 'stretched the book' and it's message.

Told in prose and rhyme, this story is about a group of West African animals watching a Goliath Frog. At first they are confused when he will not respond to them. Throughout the day each Animal tries to get him to say something using they way they each think is the best. Still the Goliath says nothing. By nightfall all the Animals are feeling sorry him until he ultimately shows them that he has no problem making himself understood.

The illustrations are beautiful and show off the beauty of the African river habitat. Overall the book spreads an important message of Caring, Diversity and Acceptance. It teaches an important lesson: we should not assume that there is 'something wrong' with someone that does not behave how we expect they should. It also touches on the need to respect all people regardless of their abilities.

 Learning more about Goliath Frogs:

• Endangered Animals for Kid from Konicaminolta.com provides a very good overview of the Goliath Frog and the reason for the decline in Population.
• A Short video showing a Goliath frog up close from Arkive.com..what an amazing animal!
• Animal Diversity Web from The Musuem of Zoology (University of Michigan) is an Amazing resource! It is a lot of text and perhaps a bit much for younger grades but still worth a read together for lots interesting facts,

Here is what Miss K discovered when we did some research together on the Internet.
The Goliath is the largest Frog in the world, weighing around 7 pounds and up to a foot in length! You might think it would have a very loud croak. However, this species does not have a vocal sack and so is mute.

Different ways to communicate:
We discussed what it might mean if a Person is unable to speak. Both kids were able to think of different ways to communicate without their voices. Together we all learnt how to sign 'Frog' in American Sign language and Finger spell our names.
Some other methods of Non verbal communication we talked about were Body language, Written words, Braille and Art.

Making a 'Pond Life cycle flap book'

There are so many amazing Free Montessori Frog resources available. Here are the ones I used with Mini Piwi (Pre K)

• Frog Match up and Memory game from Montessori Print Shop
• Parts of a Frog Nomenclature Cards & Book from Montessori Print Shop
• Frog Life cycle sequence cards from Montessori Mom (these are the images we used on the Pond craft)

One of my favorite resources this week was only 99c. 'A Life Cycle App' is full of information about the Life cycles and Cycles of a variety of Insects, Frogs, Rocks, the Moon and more...it was will worth a download on my Kindle!

As chance would have it, a few days after this project we had a visitor on our front porch...

This guy was 'only' around 3 inches long and a Toad but we decided that was as close as we were going to get to a Goliath Frog in Texas!

I come from a long line of Reptile 'Phobs' (ironic since New Zealand is Snake and Giant Lizard Free). My kids are fascinated with them...from a safe distance. How do you feel about Frogs, Snakes and Lizards?

Follow all the Fun and Learning!

Butterfly Unit Study & Lap Book

Our Earth day inspired project focused on helping local Monarch butterflies. If you haven't seen all the fun and learning we have been having then please go and check out Our Save the Monarchs posts and Pinterest board.

Miss K wanted to know more about all the local butterflies not just the Monarchs. All her reading and observations culminated into a colorful lap book.

The final product contains the printables from two free lap book as well as some of our own mini books.

Free Butterfly Mini Helper lap book by Home school bits

Butterfly Lap book from Home school Share

Title Page

We had just finished with a Hans Christian Andersen unit so Miss K added this quote from 'The Butterfly' to her title page.

The Lifespan tri-fold book was for Miss K to record the number days 6 different species spend in each stage of their life cycle. The Host plant flap book listed 20 different plants and the Caterpillars that use them as food sources.

Life cycle, Host Plants, Life span

Anatomy, Anatomy Glossary

The Anatomy of the Butterfly had us all amazed. Miss K would have happily spent several weeks learning about each species. A trip to Butterfly house got everyone even more excited!

Butterfly feeding

Butterfly or Moth, Wingspan, Texas Butterfly species.

Miss K is on the look out now for a pocket Butterfly Identification guide (and a flower guide...and one for trees). At the moment I am trying to decide between the Caterpillars, Bugs and Butterflies: Take Along Guide for younger kids or get one that will be good for years to come like the Peterson First Guide to Butterflies and Moths.

Mini Piwi had a week of Butterflies too!

Preschool Butterfly science and Food art

We have been seeing a lot of Monarchs and Painted Ladies in the park this week. What Butterflies have you noticed near you?

Hans Christian Anderson Unit Study & Lapbook (Free download)

Source for book title Image

The theme for the Second month of the Poppin's Book Nook is Wizards!  Our "Magical' book this month was 'The Perfect Wizard' by Jane Yolen and illustrated by Dennis Nolan. 

This whimsical picture book is a biography of story telling Wizard, Hans Christian Andersen. It introduces us to a young, awkward and eccentric Hans and describes how he overcomes the odds to become one of the best known children's fairy tale authors. Small excepts from his stories throughout the book cleverly highlights how much of his inspiration was drawn from his own experiences. Dennis Nolan's beautiful illustrations are whimsical and dream like. To see them for your selves you can click on the book cover to see inside the book on Amazon (affiliate link).

Miss K and I read the book together because it does contain some themes that she would have questions about. (eg.Losing loved ones, Mental health and Poverty). This book is full of life lessons like not giving up and believing in your dreams. I am still surprised the library wasn't keeping it for their collection!

I had planned a craft to go with this book. However, after reading the book, Miss K  read some of the other fairy tales quoted in the book. Our project become a Lap book and Unit study. The Mini books I made for the Lap book focused on five topics. I have included the links do you can download them too.

1. Timeline: We used the picture book to create a Time line for many of the Major events in Hans Christian Andersen's life. Download time line 

2. Paper Art: To amuse his audience Han Christian Anderson made his 'Paper cuts'. We read about this on several websites (see below for links) and Miss K is practicing so she can add one to this mini book. Download Mini Book.

3. Reading Log: In side this flap Miss K listed the stories she read and the year they were first published. Download Mini Book

4. HCA's Legacy: Andersen's stories have been adapted into new versions and inspired Stage, Ballet and Movies productions. Miss K investigated this further and found examples. Download Tri fold book

5. Fairy tales: Miss K chose her six favorite HCA Fairy tales. For each of these I made a Mini Book which used to summarize the story or write about the Main Character (s). Download Mini books
  

To make our lap book we used some of beautiful vintage images from The Graphics Fairy.

All our online resources can be found on our Hans Christian Andersen Pinterest board

The Poppins Book Nook is hosted by The Enchanted Homeschooling Mom. 

Here are the participating bloggers: 

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - Royal Baloo - 3 Dinosaurs - Monsters Ed - Chestnut Grove Academy - Growing in God's Grace - Royal Little Lambs - Life with Moore Babies - Teach Beside Me - The Usual Mayhem - Mum Central - Fantastic Fun and Learning - Kathys Cluttered Mind - Play Create Explore - Toddler Approved - Growing Book by Book - Adventures in Mommydom - B-Inspired Mama - The Fairy and The Frog - Edventures with Kids - Learning & Growing the Piwi way - A Gluten Free Journey - Rainy Day Mum - Mom to Crazy Monkeys - No Doubt Learning

Geometry unit for Preschool and Elementary age

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We use Math in Focus as our main curriculum. This does include some hands on activites and extensions but I am always open to adding more! I have been waiting for Miss K's geometry unit so we could do this Shape lap book from Hands of a child.
 

To align it with the Math in Focus lessons we added some extra mini books into it for:
Properties of Trapazoids & Hexagons
Line segments and curves
Area & Perimeter
I printed extra so Mini Piwi could make her own shape poster. Unfortunately i dont have a photo of this because she later took to it with her safety scissor.
She also enjoyed a lot of the Shape printables from 3 Dinosaurs.com

Online resources we used for practice:

Sorting Plane shapes and Solid Shapes
Identify the 3D shape game
Shape Inlay -Tetris crossed with a Tangram type of game
Triangle sort
Shape Lab
Polygon Playground

We also made shape biscuits. I got distracted with spelling and overcooked them a bit but they were still popular.

Including Mini Piwi in the Shape activities:

I had printed extra copies of some of basic shape mini books so Mini Piwi could make her own shape poster. Unfortunately i dont have a photo of this because she later took to it with her safety scissor.

She also enjoyed a lot of the Shape printables from 3 Dinosaurs.com

Online Pre School resources we used:

Umi Zoomi Shape building game @Nick Jr
Shape puzzle
Purpy's shape search
ABC Mouse

She spent a little bit of time making pictures with the plastic shape but wasn't as enthusastic about it as I thought she might be.

Our Fun Math books

This week we read Which is round, Which is bigger by Mineko Mamada.
It was a great way to prompt Mini Piwi to make comparisons between shapes and objects. The cute and funny title is an English translation from the original Japanese book.  Toddlers and preschoolers will enjoy answering questions about objects, the answers at first seem obvious until the next page reveals a twist.

Another point and giggle book with a Math theme we read was 100 Animals on Parade by Masayuki Sebe. We all spent a long time with this book counting animals and spotting all the  objects the author asks you to find. The kids loved the busy illustrations and the I spy concept.

*Disclosure:  I received a free digital copy of these books through Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

A great Earth 'day' project: Save the Monarchs!

Source

We had been planning a unit on recycling to celebrate earth day this year. That, was until I recently I read an article about the decline in Monarch Butterfly numbers.

We love Butterflies and I couldn't imagine not seeing Monarch's in our gardens or at the park in the Summer!

Butterflies were also the reason we began this blog nearly two years ago. For Easter 2011 the Piwis received a butterfly garden. The blog was a way to show family how our painted lady caterpillars were growing. Each day Miss K would type a few words into the title of the post and I would add a picture. Eventually we released the butterflies in the Community gardens.

I showed Miss K the article about the Monarchs and she asked how we could help.

To get a better idea of the reasons for the decline we visited Monarch watch. MW is a group that  monitor the numbers of Monarch and their amazing Migration. They have also begun a program to help gardeners set up 'way stations' for the butterflies.

We have learnt so far that the Monarch Host plants (Milkweed) are less abundant. There are apparently multiple environmental and social reasons for this. Thankfully there is still hope: Chip Taylor (Monarch Watch Director) summarizes the situation:

"All in all, it was not a good year for monarchs. While some of the present decline can certainly be attributed to the seasonal conditions last summer, it is the decline of monarch habitats in the United States and Mexico that is the major concern. The good news is that we can do something about the habitats in the United States and Canada – we can plant milkweed. That said, in order to compensate for the continued loss of habitat we need to plant LOTS AND LOTS of milkweed. To assure a future for monarchs, conservation and restoration of milkweeds needs to become a national priority." (source).

With a bit of planning we came up with:

The Piwi Kids 'Save the Monarch Plan'

Research:

• Produce a Lap book that will outline everything we learn about:
• The Monarch lifecycle and Migration
• Native milkweed vs. Tropical Milkweed
• The causes of the decline in Monarch numbers
• The causes of decline in host plants.

Projects:

• Purchase fully grown Milkweed plants. These are on their way  have arrived from Educational Science.
• Look into the possibility of  hosting a way station and encourage people and public gardens in our community to also host them.
• Propagate Milkweed Plants from seeds to give to gardeners in our community. You can find these at Live monarch.com  for a small donation. We are waiting for ours to arrive.
• Make lots of Butterfly crafts!

Field trips: 

• Visit local community gardens to observe butterflies and identify host plants
• Visit a Butterfly sanctuary
• View 'Flight of the butterflies'

To date we have ordered our Milk weed plants and seeds. Next week we begin our research for the lap book. Should be a lot of fun and learning!

I will be pinning resources for this project on our Pinterest board:


What plans do you have for Earth day?

Sir Cumference Inspired Co-ordinate Mapping Skills Activity

Miss K (7) was a princess fan until last year when she gradually started moving away from all things pink and frilly and became animal crazy instead. Now that she is 'over Princesses' we set out to find something about Knights for this month's theme. Miss K chose:

Sir Cumference and the Viking's map is the latest, in a series of books, by Math Teacher Cindy Neuschwander.  When we first read this title, we hadn't read the earlier ones. This didn't seemed to matter though.

Without giving away any of the other adventures, Sir Cumference is a knight of Camelot, married to Lady Di of Ameter. They have a son named Radius. When the book starts Radius and his Cousin, Per have become lost during a horse ride in the forest. While trying to find their way home they
discover a treasure map created by a legendary Viking Xaxon Yellowbearyd. Can the map guide them home...and to treasure? It won't be easy:  the cousins don't understand how to read the map's strange numbered grids and they have bandits following them!

Miss K liked the adventure story a lot and was surprised to find out that co-ordinate mapping was Math!  This book introduces co-ordinate graphing in a way that Miss K had no trouble understanding. Other titles include topics such as Place value, decimals and area. I appreciate any effort made to make Math understandable and fun and Ms Neuschwander has thought of a topic that can be enjoyed by Girls and Boys. Athough it is a picture book our Librarian assures me that older kids still like the series because they 'get' more of the math puns.

In order to have our own graphing adventure Miss K and I made up a map.

All the locations on the map were Medieval themed.  At this point what Miss K didn't know was that they actually related to something near our home.

Without the kids knowing I set up a treasure hunt for them, leaving co-ordinate clues at each location. The neighbors were polite enough not to ask what I was up to.

On treasure hunt day we set off with the map and first clue. And a scooter. Mini Piwi had to take the scooter.

They found 'rabbit feild' which was actually neighbours' animal scultpures

and the 'creepy Tree'

There was a lot of map consulting

But eventually they found the treasure locked away in the ' Secret Message chest" also known as our Mailbox.  No pictures of the treasure because my hands were busy unwrapping gold chocolate coins!

Mini Piwi chose:

 

Dragons love Tacos, by Adam Rubin, turned out to be a great choice! From the title we know what you should serve at a Dragon part. However a little boy throwing a Dragon party discovers the hard way why you should stick with Mild salsa. The story is as funny as the illustrations.

Mini Piwi decided to make a blue egg carton dragon. She took a lot of care painting it and then we let it dry. The following day I suggest we go back to finish her dragon. Dhe told me that it was finished, it already had a tail. Oops.

We really enjoyed being a part of the Poppins Book Nook this month. Here are all the blogs taking part. Please go visit them to see what they are sharing for about all things Royal.

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - Royal Baloo - 3 Dinosaurs - Monsters Ed - Chestnut Grove Academy - Growing in God's Grace - Royal Little Lambs - Life with Moore Babies - Teach Beside Me - The Usual Mayhem - Mum Central - Fantastic Fun and Learning - Kathys Cluttered Mind - Play Create Explore - Toddler Approved - Growing Book by Book - Adventures in Mommydom - B-Inspired Mama - The Fairy and The Frog - Edventures with Kids - Learning & Growing the Piwi way - A Gluten Free Journey - Rainy Day Mum - Mom to Crazy Monkeys

Come back next month for:  Wizards!