all about owls (FIAR, unit study, and nature study)

Our week about owls included rowing Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, some unit studies, and nature study so I'm just going to put it all here in one post rather than splitting it all up.  That's pretty much how the week went anyway, it all flowed together as if it was all meant to be.  Everything just went together and fit so well.  And, I was able to meet the needs of all the different levels of children through their respected "study."  We even did O is for owl for tot school!

Five in a row:  Owl Moon
Most days I started by reading Owl Moon to the littles.  I have to admit they didn't take to this book as much as I hoped they would.  They still liked it, but we definitely didn't read the 5th day.  They were done.  They sure did enjoy our cute little owl puppet while reading too.  We found him at IKEA.  It was such a lucky find because he was a whopping $5. 

I decided to read to them at the table during snack time one day, but we do usually do it on the couch.  This was pretty fun though because little Alex liked to get up onto the table and get right in front of the book.

On the page where it says: "For one minute, three minutes, maybe even a hundred minutes we stared at one another."  I held the book up to Aric's face so he could stare at the owl.  He didn't last long before he started giggling.  That was pretty fun.

The tot pointing to the owl and saying "owooo, owoo."  Yay, he added to his vocabulary this week!

Aric worked on this Owl Moon lapbook.  He was so proud.  I loved that through this lapbook we were able to talk about some of the things from the Five in a row lesson manual that were a little above his head like similies, metaphors, and hyperboles.  I'm sure he still wouldn't know what those things are if you asked him, but he enjoyed filling in all the elements of his lapbook so we touched on them a little. 

The cover

Non-Five in a row unit study, and nature study  (but still goes nicely with Owl Moon)

O is for owl by Alex (the tot).  He loved this little craft!

All the books we read all week long.  These are all great and filled with lots of interesting facts about owls.  Although, the top two are stories, not really fact filled.

April and Aaron worked together on one lapbook.  April colored the cover.  It looks pretty cute.  Oh, and do you notice what's on her eyes?  She now has glasses for school and reading!

 Aaron and Aric worked on owl vocabulary words.  We learned what asymmetrical means!  I never would have thought of that as an owl word, but now I know why.  Do you?

 Drawing Owls

We had an art lesson on drawing owls.  We used this how to draw an owl tutorial at art projects for kids.  It went pretty well.  Even Aric, who's 4, drew one.  He got a little discouraged after the first few steps, but I encouraged him a lot to keep trying.  It's amazing what encouragement will do for a young child!

Aric's owl:

 

April's owl.  She thought she was a "hoot" and made her owl upside down hanging from a branch.  Silly girl!

Aaron's owl.  This was his second try, although his first one was really good.  He didn't think it was so good, so he tore it up.  I was bummed, but I sat down with him by himself later in the week to give it another try.  He wasn't happy with this one either.  I've decided he is to start drawing lessons with me to get his confidence up.

Aric creatively came up with this owl shaped by rubber bands on a peg board.  He was working on it, and said "look Mommy, an owl!"  I almost didn't see it at first.  But, yes, there it is!

Owl Nature studies
April completed this Owl study notebooking page from Handbook of Nature study's Owl outdoor challenge last week.  She picked an owl from our area in our Birds of the Willamette Valley Region book to study.  She picked a Northern Saw-whet owl.

A little surprise to me when I opened our Christian Liberty Nature reader to read aloud was that the next section we were reading about was the owl section!  We are loving this book.  The boys have learned so much by reading these little engaging stories about different animals (I have too!).

We dissected some virtual owl pellets online at Kidwings.  The older kids enjoyed this.

That's our owl week!  Oh, and do you want to know the answer to the asymmetrical question?  This word applies to owls because their ears aren't the same on both sides.  One ear is sort of at the top of the head, and the other is more on the side.  So, their ears are asymmetrical, but you can't tell that from looking at them because their ears are not really visible.  Interesting huh?  I love learning right along with my kiddos! 

I'm sharing this at Handbook of Nature study, and Delightful learning's Five in a Row link-up.

Desiree