Alina's Adventures

Best TPT Freebies Series: Art and art history.

 

Art Lesson: Value (Art Outside the Box)
Art Doodle: Warm Up (Art Chick)
Art Elements: Space and Shape (Art Outside the Box)
Rainbow color and color wheel lesson (White Tiger Renee)
Art Elements: Color and Pointallism (Art Outside the Box)
Rainbow Roosters Art Project (Purple Paintbrush)
Math and Art: Fraction Pizzas (Art Outside the Box)
America's Southwest landscape art lesson and video (Deep Space Sparkle)
Crayon pop art lesson (Art with Mrs. Smith)
Helen Frankenthaller and the Art of the Stain (Art Lady)
Art Lesson: Shading and shadow (White Tiger Renee)
Art Activity: Patchwork names (Tim Donnelly)
Egyptian faces art project (Deep Space Sparkle)
Principles of Design: Proportion and Review (Whitney Panetta)
Abstract monotype printmaking for youth (Jessica Barber)
Gabriel Moreno art nouveau style pencil portraits (J Thomas Uhl)
"Guess It" game (Little Thinkers) Use the word as an art prompt.
Art history timeline (Art Teacher Diaries)*
Franz Marc's "Fate of the Animals" (The Art Curator for Kids)
Van Gogh art history cut and paste (Joseph Lemien)
Toulouse-Latrec art history cut and paste (Joseph Lemien)
"Gallery of the Louvre" art history cut and paste (Joseph Lemien)
"Say NO to Nazism" pop neorealist drawing lesson (Art Lesson Plans)
MOMA virtual lesson and field trip (nearpod)

 Note: An asterisk (*) indicates a foldable which can be used with an interactive notebook or lapbook. Most of our science, math, nature study, creative writing, and global study work is composition notebook-based. A tilde (~) indicates a printable book, or emergent reader.

No one ever warned me about the enchantments of a sweet pea vine.

Sweet pea at dusk.

The sweet pea was the last flower I expected to see in our garden this year. Somehow, the delicate Lathyrus odoratus wears the mantle of the most unanticipated marvel- the beauty made all the brighter for being unharmed by expectation.

Add to this the fact that we did everything wrong (waiting until the weather was warm before planting the seeds directly in the soil) and I'm amazed that we get to see anything at all... But the tiny plants continue to flirt with their teepee... their tendrils beginning to curl and reach out.

"Treat it like a found poem," I urge the Eldest. He weighs the possibility of laying claim to treasures discovered by other pirates. 

"No," he replies, "I'm going to find my own found poem in another plant." Suit yourself, I think, remembering those days fondly, the ones where every secret worth saving needed to be entirely my own.

The surprise of the pea flowers enchants, keeps me from writing, the language of shoots and bulbs creeping into dialogue between characters. I need a technical distraction or some magical means of refocusing.

Sweet peas grow in full sun to partial shade and require rich, well-drained soil. A local green thumb I know warned me that sweet peas are heavy feeders, doing best with a few organic fertilizer treatments during the growing season.  

Word also has it that deadheading encourages a longer season of bloom.

Pea Shoots brochure, filled with delicious recipes
on how to cook those splendid pea shoots

3 FREE LAPBOOKING PAGES ON GARDEN PEAS

A SEASON IN THE LIFE OF A PEA (1 narrative bi-fold)

SWEET PEA FLOWER AND VINES (2 bi-folds with diagrams)

From Democritus to Dalton: A free booklet on atom theory for kids.

All the astronomical learnings lately have me burning the midnight candles to create materials for us to dig deeper and deeper and even deeper into the magic of the night sky. Of course, you can't get to the good stuff without a rudimentary understanding of quantum physics, so we are building the scaffolds as we go.

From Democritus to Dalton booklet (PDF)

Print your free copy by downloading the booklet from the link above. Happy exploring!

The magic of nocturnal life.

Image source: Mental Floss with "10 fun firefly facts"

This weekend, the King cut the backyard grass for the first time in the spring season. At my begging request, he left a small patch of grass and wildflowers uncut under the shade of the pink dogwood trees. "It's for the fireflies," I explained. He shook his head, perhaps amused.

We read a dusty old book over a shared lemonade as the dusk insinuated itself around us. The fireflies gathered in the tall grass near the dogwood, that patch he didn't mow. "They need the tall grass because the female fireflies don't have wings," I whispered, my voice lowered in reverence for the wonder of the falling night.

The females lie down low in the tall grass and wait for their lovers to come calling. The flicker, itself, is the mating call. And response. As soon as the daylight dims, a female firefly prepares to answer potential suitors who happen to come calling. It is she who responds to his signal- not by rising up to chase him or follow him but by flashing her own light in response. And waiting for him to descend into the grass for a rendezvous at the location of her choice. 

The King seemed enchanted; my seemingly irrational supplications concerning strange lawn-mowing patterns rewarded by the haunting presence of firefly love nearby.

As the day grows longer, the night gains all the magic and mystery associated with scarcity. The melody of the owl wafts towards our bedroom window, the one to which the King has trained a confederate jasmine vine to crawl. There is nothing in the world that compares to a spring night in Alabama. 

When Gnome began to mumble something about being "scared of the dark" last week, I devoted myself to preparing a lapbook that might leave night's mystery intact while reducing the fear we associate with things we cannot see. I arm my kids with knowledge for lack of a better alternative- and because knowledge is the best form of self-defense I know.

NOCTURNES OF NATURE LAPBOOK(4 pages PDF)

MORE RESOURCES WE'RE USING TO STUDY NIGHT

NOCTURNES, a Spotify playlist
Nature Day and Night, a stunning book by Richard Adams
"Day and Night" video (Museum Victoria)
Living in Darkness activity and lesson plan (TES)
"As The Earth Turns" student web lesson (Beacon Learning Center)
How to demonstrate day and night (Learn Play Imagine)
"New study shows effects of prehistoric nocturnal life on mammalian vision" (University of Texas)
Nocturnal Life (BBC Wildlife)
Nocturnal Animal Fact Pack (Communication 4 All)*
5 animals you didn't know were nocturnal (WebEcoist)
Different adaptations between nocturnal and diurnal animals (TES)
Nocturnal animal noises video (Tom Woodward)

Spittlebug crafting session degenerates into spitting contest.

After last week's spittlebug surprise, we found ourselves thinking, "Why note draw some spittlebugs- spittling- on a leaf?"

I provided a model and some watercolor pencils, along with a few leaves cut from used paper bags.

Prophet provided an inspiring variation, with lovely leaf veining.

The Eldest excelled in offering a blueprint.

Gnome and Little B. chose to explore their talents in a different fashion. They decided to hold a spitting content in honor of the "spitting bugs". Fortunately, there is only so much saliva one can spit across a room before insatiable thist kicks in and distracts you from the game. 

I never found who won the spitting bug contest. Perhaps it is just as well.

Learning all about worms, with special attention to our new friend, the millipede.

Earthworms abound in the moist front-yard soil. The other day, the kids spent hours watching an earthworm worm its way around a puddle before sinking into the soil.  So we decided to play with worms.

Prophet and Little B. practiced their scissor skills by cutting out some worms and watercoloring them.

Why not use their fancy worms for the cover of our small earthworm lapbook? Enter glue stick and worm selection process.

But our worm study really took off (and shifted gears a bit) when Gnome discovered a millipede..... To talk about millipedes, it was necessary for me to utter one of those strange words that sounds like a magic spell to many little folks- namely, myriapods. Unlike our insect friends, myriapods aren't really bugs at all. 

We used our plastic crawlers to compare the two myriapod millipedes to the insect caterpillar.

Nearly 13,000 species of arthropod are classified in the Myriapoda, which means "many-legged ones." Prophet demanded to know what on earth those "arthtroscods" might be.

Arthropods are a group of creatures classified as invertebrates, or animals without a backbone. The arthropod group includes all invertebrates which have a skeleton on the outside of their bodies. The exoskeleton is made of chitin and the legs are jointed. This group is so large that it has been divided again into four sub-groups - insects, crustaceans, spiders and myriapods.

Now for a closer look at the millipede. The millipede's body has a trunk composed of individual segments known as tergites.

It didn't take long for Prophet to notice that her fake plastic worms were not millipedes at all. Indeed, the plastic worms were actually replicas of the fearsome creatures known as centipedes. For lack of a live centipede, we made do with the plastic version.

Centipede Class mini book (PDF)

Explaining why centipedes and millipedes were not in the same class of creatures was difficult. Compared to a centipede, the millipede has shorter antennae on the top of its head. It also lacks the two hooked posterior legs that appear on the head-like anus at the rear of the trunk.

Trillium Montessori has a lovely sorting game for insects and non-insects that makes good use of plastic creatures.

On the crafting side, there are endless millipede and centipede crafts to excite little hands and imaginations. Here are a few I stumbled upon- those wooden spoon millipedes are fantastic.

Centipede friendship bracelets (Friendship Bracelets)
Millipede madness (Always Outside)
Wooden spoon millipedes (Handmade Charlotte)
Curling millipede bracelet (Fusion Knots)

Our wind lapbook.

Inspired by our drive through miswestern states pockmarked with wind turbines, the girls and I decided to create a lapbook all about wind this week.

W w handwriting and wind poem (Education.com)
Our introduction.

  Tale of Wendy Wizard (The NEED Project)
A tale about how the sun is related to wind.

Wind and Saltines (The NEED Project)
A fun experiment about how wind moves mills and turbines.

Wind turbine label diagram (Suzie's Home Education Ideas)
A simple introduction to wind turbines.

Windy_paperboat coloring page and how-to

DIY paper boat mobile (Ann Wood)
To make boats and sail them on a puddle or pond.

The North Wind and the Sun, a fable by Aesop (NFB One)

Will the Wind Blow It?: A Simple Science Experiment (PDF)
You will need a fan and a few household items for this fun activity.

The cover of our file folder lapbook.

All about moths: Our lapbook.

As usual, the topic for the lapbook began with an observation of the subject by one of the kids (Gnome spotted a "white night butterfly" in the window) followed by my meager attempt to narrate the subject in the form of a hand-drawn coloring page.

Our cover for the lapbook, just download and print.

First, we flipped through field guides and illustrated books to gaze at all the marvelous moths and admire their diversity. To download the Moths Acrostic Fanbook, just right click on the image below.

So many moths to explore and discuss. It was hard to know where to begin...

Moths Identification Booklet (PDF)

We began with the goal of identifying a few handsome moth friends. The free printable moth ID booklet above came in handy- it gave us a fixed place to start, an orientation.

Then we focused on one moth in particular- the gypsy moth- in order to study the life cycle of moths. The more we learned about the gypsy moth caterpillar, the more we wondered about those nests we see in our trees every year.

Gypsy moth caterpillar ID booklet (PDF)

How to identify this nefarious caterpillar pest? Turns out, it has something to do with the colors and number of the dots on it back. Five blue dots and six or more red ones. Fill in the number blank on the booklet pages.

"The Moths", a poem by Mary Oliver (PDF)

The narrative side of our exploration began with a poem by Mary Oliver. And the booklet above fit perfectly in the center of the lapbook.

The conversations and questions fluttered forth more rapidly as the girls colored various moths from this free moth coloring book. The Eldest tries his hand at the Encyclopedia of Life's online Moth Memory Game.

Butterflies vs. moths booklets (PDF)

Time to compare butterflies and moths. We looked for distinguishing features, and asking questions like "What makes the monarch butterfly a butterfly as opposed to a moth?". For assistance with the butterflies vs. moths portion of the lapbook, try this.

CRAFTS FOR ALL
Comet Moth Printable Craft (learn create love)
Woolly bear caterpillars craft (Turtle)
Make a moth from leaves (Martha Stewart)
Isabella tiger moths craft (Turtle)
Origami luna moth tutorial (deviant art)
Mending moth holes with moth applique (Nini Makes)

FOR THE ELDEST
"The Death of the Moth" by Virginia Woolf
A memorable essay with reading questions that follow.

Our butterflies and caterpillars lapbook.

I love the caterpillar-butterfly life cycle- it lends itself to such rich narrative metaphors and comparisons. So we began our study of butterflies with the butterfly life cycle.

We used Learn Create Love's butterfly life cycle freebie on the cover, but it was hard to pick from all the stunning butterfly life cycles available for free online. A few other options, depending on your tastes and intent:

Sage and Zoo's butterfly life cycle 
A cute coloring page version that you can cut and paste
Carry on Writing's colorful life cycle 
An Eric Carle version of the cycle

Then I folded over some origami paper and cut out a few butterfly shapes.

"Hmmmm... the butterfly looks incomplete. What is missing?"

Prophet observed that it didn't have a body or "ears".

After cutting a butterfly from watercolored paper, we added a body and labelled the thorax, the abdomen, the head, and the antennae. Prophet learned a new word for bug "ears" or sensors.

The girls colored their own butterflies- and gave them a name. Both names involved variations on the rainbow meme.

We talked about caterpillars- how they metamorph into such beautiful, colorful creatures. Then we discussed why butterflies were, in fact, so beautiful- what was the evolutionary purpose of this design?

Prophet and Gnome illustrated the caterpillar song and the butterfly creation story that I found on a website of Native American legends.

It is the story given by the Papago tribe to explain why butterflies have such beautiful colors, and it includes an interesting perspective on rivalry and jealousy among the animal friends.

Butterfly Song and Creation Myth Booklets (PDF)

We thanked the butterflies of the world for the color they bring to our lives.

And so we looked on our lapbook with pride and a sense of accomplishment and gratefulness for having the chance to make, do and learn together. 

Experiments in lapbooking: Whereupon the Eldest becomes an expert on Antarctica.

Since Bunica and Ratpaw just set off for a three week visit to the coldest continent in the world, it made sense to study what we will surely be regaled with upon their return. Of course, everything begins with a map. Using the brochure from Bunica's expedition (in the photo above), the Eldest traced her voyage around the edges of the Antarctic Peninsula. 

We played around with maps for a good part of the afternoon, exploring the edges of the known world, fiddling with the colors in which such things are "known".

The Fantastic Antarctica Map (They Draw and They Travel)

For the lapbooking inserts, I combined free things found with things we made on the spur of the moment, intrigued by a particular I scoured the web for lapbooking resources and pooled the freebies together into one file which you can download and print below.

Antartica Lapbook Components (PDF)

There was so much to explore and learn that our expedition turned into something between a unit study, a lapbook, and a reckless cavorting. Loads to learn and see at Time Magazine for Kids' special Antarctica Mini-site.

resources for free exploration of antarctic climate and geography
Land of Ice worksheet (Time Magazine for Kids)
The Ozone Hole Tour (Center for Atmospheric Studies)
Ice sheets (British Antarctic Survey)
Ice shelves (British Antarctic Survey)
Ice streams (British Antarctic Survey)
Explorapoles (International Polar Foundation)

Tip of the Iceberg Notebooking Page (PDF)
A creative writing exercise.

Gibbs Island Icefalls Coloring Exercise (PDF)
A description and topographic coloring activity of "icefalls".

Deception Island Foldable Booklet (PDF)
Printable booklet on the history of Deception Island.

free resources on antarctic explorations
Exploring Antarctica worksheet (Time Magazine for Kids)
Polar Exploration worksheet (Time Magazine for Kids)
The best resource page for every single expedition (Scott Polar Research Institute)

free resources on antarctic species and life
Emperor penguin adaptations worksheet (Time Magazine for Kids)
Go Penguins Go worksheet (Time Magazine for Kids)
Three kinds of penguins worksheet (Time Magazine for Kids)

As we continue our trip through the icefalls and ice streams of the Antarctic, I'll try to add what we learn from Bunica's voyage. On the slate for Friday: An investigation of expeditions and explorers who dared to go where no landlubbering mammals had gone before.

DIY beautiful birds lapbook.

The birds hover, chatter, and twitter all over the yard. Spring looks to be settling in early this year. And we've been working hard on our Beautiful Birds lapbook.

The Eldest's illustration of Emily's Dickinson's bird poem.

For the lapbook pages made by yours truly, just right-click to download in PDF format.

BEAUTIFUL BIRDS LAPBOOK COVER PAGE 
The girls colored the page and then we labelled the parts of the funky bird.

NEST BOOK 
The girls cut and colored the little book about nests. We used watercolor scraps to make a pocket.

BIRD SONGS BOOKLET 
Used to color and collage in lapbook where blank spaces arise.

TEACUP BIRD FEEDERS INSERTS

BIRD COLORING PAGE from Mr. Printables
Imagining different shapes as part of birds. 

I made a few booklets about feathers, beaks, and feet to contrast the different types found in varying species. We discussed how habitats and food requirements are related to body parts. Then we added them to the right edge of the lapbook with our trusty stapler.

I don't remember where I found this nest and egg printable, but we used it to observe the difference in egg coloring across bird species.