Cassady Brief

Thursday, May 30, 2013

The Salamander Room

We are participating in Scholastic's Summer Reading Program, and they [nicely] put together a reading list for W's age group. Some of the books we have, but I put a large chunk on reserve at the public library. The books are hit or miss when competing for W's attention; one that he really had laser focus for was The Salamander Room by Anne Mazar. A boy finds a salamander in the woods and decides to bring it home. [Ugh. Please don't let life imitate art.] His mom asks him a ton of [very thoughtful] questions - like: where will it live, what will it eat...and the boy has all kinds of creative answers for his mom [none of them based in reality]. I think the wheels started turning in W's mind and he immediately thought we could lift the roof off of our house and create our very own salamander room [no can do].

Instead, we created a salamander habitat. We spray painted a shoe box to create our diorama type habitat. Then we found some rocks and some sticks while out on a nature walk that we used to make our forest floor [we had VERY lame tiny rocks around here, so I had to supplement with a river rock package from the store]. Rock placement was VERY important and had to be very precise. [Look at that sassy face!!]

Then we cut multi-colored green yarn and used that to create a mossy forest floor. Placement of that = not so important. We added in some sticks...and we were set.

Last step: add our salamander [from our piles of lizards, frogs, bugs, and dinosaurs that we have around the house - how did this happen???] and then admire.

Next up: make our own salamanders. We found a recipe for salt dough. We mixed, rolled, baked, and then let it cool. The mixing was very intense and I would like to go ahead and say that nap lasted THREE hours on the day that all of this salt dough salamander business went down...

We waited for them to bake. We talked about how lizard tails can be ripped off for protection and then regenerate...which led to a five fast facts sheet. We added some new words and revisited some classics [Nocturnal...Ev is nocturnal, etc...]

W sat down to tell Ev all about the time he accidentally ripped off the tail of a lizard at Pop Pops' house and how Pop Pops threw the tail into the bushes. Why are boys so gross? Clearly, Ev LOVED the story...

Since these ditties take an hour or so to cook up, we also gave Ev a mound of salt dough to play with. It was all fun and games until he tried to eat it. That stuff is SAL-TY.

Once cooled, we painted our lizards and added googly eyes. W was in charge of the glue since the eyes were so tiny. We made a few of these guys so that we could paint in many colors vs. only PINK.

We did a watercolor of some salamanders. I would like to say that W did a decent job of staying close to the lines this time. He told me that he can do lots of things now that he is three. Riiiiggghhht.

Finally, You Tube offers a couple of versions of this story. Apparently Reading Rainbow did a whole 28 minute presentation on it. We didn't watch that version, but we did watch THIS version. Not the best, but W was interested in it.

So - that is an overview of our salamander lesson plan. Thank goodness summer school starts next week. I can't maintain this level of "fun"...;) Thank goodness, too, for Pinterest. Lots of good ideas floating around out there so you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

Memorial Day!!

Gabby, Pop Pops, and W cleaned up the pool and got everything spiffy for our Memorial Day party on Sunday. We had Sue & Jim, The Levy crew, and our family poolside to celebrate. Gabby made some delicious homemade salsa and vodka lemonade that went down like water. Very dangerous water. Pop Pops grilled burgers and dogs. Katie made a Hummingbird cake AND wore a maternity swimsuit. Brad made homemade ice cream that was to die for! Sue made a delicious coconut cake.

It was very summer-y. I think Ev was kissed a million and a half times. W...you couldn't catch him to give him a kiss. He was into Popsicles, lizard hunting, eating hot dogs, and swimming. He loves that pool!

The pool was beautiful and FREEZING...which didn't stop W from getting right in...which then led to Jason and Pop Pops embracing the cold...then Aunt Katie and Ryan.

It was a nice kick off to the summer fun ahead! Happy Memorial Day!

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Swamp Unit

This is kind of an involved post, so I am sorry if you get this in your inbox and don't really care. :) But...I made a Swamp Unit to work on with W this week. Some of the ideas were from June/July 2013 Mailbox Magazine, some were from my head, some were probably from Pinterest. It all gelled, though, and we had success with every single project. Let me tell you how often that happens. Never.

So - to prime the pump, I put together a little slide show with some swamp photos. These included animals/reptiles/etc...that live in a swamp, pictures of what a swamp looks like, trees, etc.. Since W had never seen a real swamp, I wasn't sure he had a frame of reference. We started there. I played some Zydeco music while we viewed the presentation - a Pandora station, so it was free...which is good. You can only take so much of that noise before you feel like you're in a crazy house.

After we viewed the presentation, I took W outside where his swamp skill box was waiting. I had premixed mud and water, sticks, rocks, grass, lily pads that I cut from foam paper, plastic alligators, snakes, turtles, and frogs (all ordered from Amazon). W was a little reluctant to get involved with the skill box.
He asked me to put my hands in it - I reassured him that there was nothing in it that could harm him.
He asked if he could put his feet in it. He didn't get overly personal with the skill box.
I don't blame him. The look of this box is the main reason that I don't like swimming in lakes.

The next thing I presented was a lily pad letter recognition game. Using the foam paper, I cut out enough lily pads to spell out the word swamp. I had him identify each letter in the mixed up pile. We worked on the starting sound of sssssssssss-for swamp, then progressed through the rest of the word. We set out the lily pads in order. I had him pretend he was a frog and he jumped on to each letter that I called out. Then we switched spots and he called out the letters while I jumped. Either way you do it, it reinforces the letters; he liked the control of bossing me around.

Painting was our next event.

To begin, we taped a white sheet of paper into a roasting pan. I added the paint and the bouncy balls. I had W roll the balls through the paint to create a neat looking piece of art. We used some foam balls, but if I did the project again, I would use something heavier for easier rolling. From there, we got out tongue depressors and painted with those, even used them to push the balls around.

Take two - I taped down another piece of paper and brought out the magnetic fridge letters to spell out swamp. I gave W two paper plates with paint and had him dip the letters into the paint, then push them onto the paper. That worked surprisingly well. Again, this isn't about spelling because he cannot read yet.
This was just about recognizing letters - the order didn't matter.

Take three - I had W cover a canvas in green and brown paint. Then, I set out the leftover turtles and alligators from the skillbox. We separated them into piles and counted up how many there were of each group. After the paint dried, we added the alligators and turtles via craft glue to our canvas. We created some spooky 3-D swamp art!!

Now that alligators were a part of our vocabulary, we practiced snapping our hands together and got ready to "CHOMP!!" some fish. I used small paper plates and stickers to create the fish we would use for this greater than/less than game. I realize the stickers aren't super swampy, but it was what I had to work with. The game: hold up two plates. The alligator wants to eat the plate with the most fish....so can YOU figure out which one that might be? CHOMP towards the plate with the most fish. The goal was to get five in a row correct...before you could have a special swampy treat (a Swedish fish...).

I also introduced some books on swamps that I had borrowed from the public library. W loves reading.

They all had some sort of rhythm and featured alligators, so that measured up to some success! Trosclair and the Alligator - one of our favorites from the stack - even had a YouTube reading of the book, which can be found here. (Or if that doesn't work, I just went to You Tube and typed in Trosclair. It was the fifth or so option down - the only one that looked kiddy).

This was a pretty involved unit and we did it over the course of several days.

Up next, we are exploring the idea of camping - before it gets too hot and mosquito-y...Mainly because I want an excuse to have some s'mores, know what I'm saying?

Actual camping will not be involved. Just faux camping in our backyard. Stay tuned.

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Annotated bibliography of books used for our swamp unit:

Appelt, Kathi. Where Is Swamp Bear? .2002. 25pp. $15.95 hc. Harper Collins Publisher. 0688171028.
While fishing with his grandather, a boy asks about the legend of Swamp Bear. Clever illustrations have Swamp Bear hidden in each picture.

Huggins, Peter. Trosclair and the Alligator. .2006. 25pp. $15.95hc. Star Bright Books, Inc. 9671932065985.
Trosclair's father warns him about the rogue alligator, Gargantua, who is roaming the swamp. Trosclair and his dog soon find themselves in hot water with only their wits to help them escape.

Ketteman, Helen. Swamp Song. .2009. 32pp. $17.99hc. Marshall Cavendish Children. 9780761455639.
Each animal adds a little something to the music going on in the swamp. With a good, solid rhythm and cute pictures, this is a fun read aloud.

Weeks, Sarah. Catfish Kate and the Sweet Swamp Band. .2009. 29pp. $16.99hc. Atheneum Books for Young Readers. 9781416940265.
Catfish Kate and her friends strike up a song under the moon, but it isn't appreciated by the Skunktail Boys...who are there in the same spot to read. Will they be able to reach a compromise?
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