Mega-fauna Sam's House Field Trip

Today we went on a field trip at Sam's House where we had Levi's 6th birthday party.  The theme was "Megafauna" and the kids learned all about the animals that used to live in the area many years ago. 


Tree climbing upon arrival:

Inside the log cabin, the kids learned about land in Florida.   At one point, Florida was just a few small dots of land, the rest was ocean.   During the ice age, Florida was much larger than it is now, so animals evolved to be much much larger.  Then, when the ice melted, Florida ended up around the size it is now, and animals reduced in size.    To demonstrate this, they used foam squares, having the kids stand on them to compare how much space they had when the land was different sizes.   

 Next they made fossils.   The kids pressed clay into plastic bowls, and then used plastic bugs and animals to make imprints.   They mixed plaster of paris and water in a bag and poured it over the top and left it to dry.  

Then, we went over and looked at the Megafauna.   The outline in the picture below is a mastodon.  There was also a giant sloth, and a turtle/armadillo type thing.  

The kids used paint brushes to find the bones buried in sand.  They colored the bones on a skeleton of a mastodon, using a sign to confirm the location of various pieces.    Miss T said this was her favorite part! 

 Then came the real fossils!  These were donated to Sam's House by someone who collects fossils found in the area.   They scooped up sand, sifted, and found fossils and then learned what they were.  

Here is the giant ground sloth - actual size! 

Last, the fossils they made were removed from the bowls by turning them upside down, pressing, and then removing the clay.  Levi painted his snake in a rainbow of colors with purple for the background.  

We really enjoyed our field trip, it was very hands on and interactive keeping the kids engaged, and I think Levi learned a lot!

Polar Bear Unit Study/lapbook

The final part of our Arctic unit study was polar bears:

Part 1: Inuits
Part 2: Penguins/Mr. Popper's Penguins
Part 3: Polar Bears/Magic School bus Polar Bear Patrol

Follow my Pintrest board with arctic ideas here

For the most part, we used the Magic School Bus Polar Bear Patrol Lapbook for this unit study


Levi did a polar bear water color painting that I thought came out wonderfully!   I found the tutorial here.

The homeschool/sewing room after a couple days for hard work and two messy kids!  They are in the middle of several projects, the main one here being "snow painting", where they drizzle slightly watered down elmer's glue onto dark paper, and then sprinkle with salt.   This one is more for the process than the results, but the salt does dry sparkly.   

Another variation is to paint the dried salt/glue with water colors, we did this here

And another fun "snow paint" is shaving cream/elmers glue mixed, which makes a fluffy white paint that dries puffy.  We did that one here. (scroll down to the bottom of the post)

(that is part of a yoga mat, makes a nice work surface!)

Levi learned how polar bears cross thin ice, here he is demonstrating how this is done:

And here is the finished lapbook, it also includes arctic animals. 

Christmas Around the World: Mexico

We learned all about Christmas time in Mexico!


We made some hot chocolate
(almond milk, a handful of dairy-free chocolate chips, and a sprinkle of cinnamon - heat it up and thats it!)  

We learned the story of poinsettias .  We also learned about poinsettias themselves, there was a great fact sheet about them on the free curriculum I downloaded from "teach with me" .  I used that to make a worksheet that he filled out.  One of the facts was about color prefrance, stating a persentage for people who liked red, pink, and white poinsettias .  With that information Levi colored in a hundreds chart giving a good visual of the comparison. 

We made a poinsettia craft too.   We put white paper in a tray, added some globs of paint and 3 marbles and then rolled them all over.   Rinse and repeat with green.  Then cut out the flower and leaf shapes, and a pot out of scrapbook paper.  Glued everything down and I had Levi "shadow cut" around the design.  

He also filled out a journal page with the country name, how they say "Merry Christmas", the dates they celebrate Christmas, and the flag and map.   We will do one of these for each country and put them together in a little book when we are done. 

And lastly some copywork, which I had to fix because there was a typo in it!  (whoops!).   The sentience is one Levi came up with as the moral of the poinsettia story. 

Sources and the cover for this project can be found here

Paint Your Own Pottery

I arranged for our homeschool group to go to one of our favorite places, Mimi's Crafts.   They have paint-your-own pottery, glass work, and other creative activities.   For the field trip, the kids each got to paint a 6" ceramic tile, and they got a tour of the back room.

Mimi's is kid friendly - booster seats and high chairs for the little's, and it was a lot of fun, because all ages could participate, including little 3month old E, who got her footprint on a tile!   Mimi will touch up the kids artwork with some additional outlining and their names and the date added, which will really bring the tiles to life. 

The kids drew their designs right on the tiles first using pencil which burns off in the kiln.  Then they collected their paints, and went to work!

Those who wanted hand or footprints got some help from Mimi.  

 Some cute little baby footprints!

Then, Mimi gave the tour.  We ended up having 2 groups go through, but some of the kids had so much fun checking out the back room, that they went through twice.  

Everything has to be sanded and smoothed off after coming out of the mold.  

Some molds: 

These came out of the molds recently.  

One of the kilns. 

These bits are used under the glazed pieces, to keep them from sticking to the kiln.  

Some finished pieces, these ones were hand carved by a local artist.  

Lots of color choices

Tiles on the wall show what the glazes look like after they are fired.  They look dull and dusty when they are painted on, but once they are fired, they become bright, colorful and shiny!   

And some of the finished tiles, ready to have some detail added and then put in the kiln!   I'm excited to see how they look once they are finished, but we will have to wait a few days for that.   

Levi's is at the bottom left, its a "bow and arrow and target".  

Thank you to Mimi's Crafts for a fun field trip!   Mimi made it easy for me to organize, and lots of fun for everyone.    And thanks to a Groupon offer, we will be painting again pretty soon.