Journey to Excellence

I think that the other ladies have already concluded their units on Polar Animals, but we started a week late and had just a little more we wanted to accomplish before we finished. This week we wrapped up our study by learning about Sweden and the Minke Whale. Before starting, we tied up some loose ends by editing and revising our information paragraphs on the Snowy Owl as part of our WriteShop Primary Book A lesson. These paragraphs were written off of a story web created by the kids. The Snowy Owl by Brynne We saw snowy owls at the zoo. My owl has yellow eyes.  The owl looks at me. The male snowy owl is all white to  blend into the sky and snow. At the zoo, they make it  really cold so the snowy owl can live. I am so glad to have a  snowy owl at the zoo. The Snowy Owl by Eli Snowy owls are the snowiest creatures on Earth.  The male snowy owl is all white. Males need to blend  into the sky and snow. The owls have sharp...

We did not have as much time to work on our Polar Animals unit this week because I was out of town on Monday and Tuesday was a catch-up and educational computer game day (while mommy played catch-up). There were no projects or activities involved, but we did do lots of reading and had a great flow to what we learned. We started by reading facts about Norway , coloring our flag of Norway , and doing a Norway word search . The word search was a huge hit and helped us to learn some words we did not already know, like fjord . We actually backtracked a bit by reading a great book about Snowy Owls (that came in at the library yesterday, even though our unit on Snowy Owls concluded last week). It was called Owls: Owl Magic for Kids by Neal Niemuth. The focus of our reading, however, was on how Snowy Owls find their food. Then we went on to read Under the Snow by Melissa Stewart and illustrated by Constance R. Bergum. This book had wonderful illustrations of where lots ...

Welcome to the second week of our Polar Animals party! Last week we had a lot of fun learning about Denmark and Polar Bears . This week we moved across the big water to Northern Canada and learned about the Snowy Owl. Unfortunately, our library does not have the non-fiction book supply that I wish it had. In fact, there weren't even any fictional books about snowy owls (sigh). I don't like to do research with my kids on the internet. I like a colorful book loaded with facts. But, we do what we have to do. All of our facts came from Canadian Geographic . Due to some technical wireless difficulties, they did not get Canadian flags colored as of this posting. They will be working on them tomorrow. We decided to incorporate the Snowy Owls into our regular studies, as well as learn about them as a separate unit. It was an all-around Snowy Owl week. (We even discussed the Snowy Owl at the Tulsa Zoo whom we have visited several times.) Eli and Brynne watched a great PBS vi...

This month the kids and I are joining the gals at The Usual Mayhem , No Doubt Learning , Montessori Tidbits and Childhood Beckons in a collaborative effort to share our studies of the Polar regions and their animals. As my kids are obsessed with geographical studies, I was thrilled to be asked to participate. We will be focusing on the Arctic. For this first week we chose to study Denmark with our focus animal being the polar bear . Our first step in a geographical study is to pull up the country on Stack the States (iPad app) to learn it's capital, native language, and any other facts it provides. Then I print off a flag printable from Activity Village UK and the kids color it. These completed flags hang in our dining room while we are studying that country and then get moved to the clotheslines in Eli and Brynne's room. Like I said, they love geography. We found Denmark on the globe and then looked at some other maps online. Then we discussed where the arct...