I've long been fascinated with the moon. It's something I can stare at for great lengths while thinking about anything, everything. It's the earth's only natural satellite, and it serves numerous important purposes. I do not wish my children to be so detached from the lunar cycle like the rest of our society is. I wanted them to understand its importance in marking true months, and I wanted them to know its effect on the tides, horticulture, animal behaviors, women's cycle, and more.
There is also so much to learn about the seas and the things in it. And during our learning of the seas, the role of the moon on the tides and on animal mating, feeding, egg-laying and -hatching came up numerous times.
These are the things that made our learning journey enjoyable:
My Fun With Words, Volume 2 (The Southwestern Company: 1974), s.v. "moon" and "sea"
Follow the Moon by Sarah Weeks is a great book about a sea turtle who is found by a little boy and is told to follow the moon rather than a disco ball so that it can get in the ocean. I like that we have this book and read it again for this study, because saw the real thing take place at least on two different episodes of our Blue Planet series (further below).
I Took the Moon for a Walk by Carolyn Curtis is a book that Elizabeth received in one of her Citrus Lane boxes for her birthday last year. The main idea of this story is that it seems like the moon follows us wherever we go.
We watched a few Youtube videos via our PS3 on tv on the moon and the lunar cycle, including the times in the moon's cycle that lunar and solar eclipses occur:
A year or longer ago I photocopied "My Moon Journal" from one of our issues of Ranger Rick. I knew I'd put it to use at some point, so I slid it into a protective sleeve (decision made after I'd already unnecessarily hole-punched it) and added it to my "Teacher's Resources" binder. The picture below is blurry, as it's a copy of a copy and was added to the protective sleeve, as my other is wrinkled. I made copies for each of the boys so that they could shade the circles as they saw the moon at various phases throughout the month. Halfway through the cycle, the sheets came up missing! I want to do it again, anyway, so they'll do it again another month, next time all the way through.
I also bought a box of Back to Nature chocolate creme sandwich cookies and arranged them in the different phases of the moon, as the kids had learned from the Youtube videos. I repeated the phases over and over (working from the new moon and going counter clockwise). Then I quizzed them each, having them name the phases as I pointed. Afterward they got to each cookies! I ate the four that were used for the project. ;-)
Starting at the black cookie on the right and going left: new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter, waning crescent, and new moon again.
We've watched one or two different episodes two or three different times over the past few years, but we've not watched the entire series, one episode after another, of The Blue Planet for five or six years, since we first bought it. Trusten was a baby then, and the girls have never seen them at all. Watching these made for great family time at night for two weeks. The first four discs total eight 45-minute episodes each, and the fifth disc contains four episodes.
It's amazing what all was captured for these videos, which are narrated by David Attenborough. These are very educational, and the beauty and revealed mysteries are nothing short of awesome. There is mention of the moon's role several times, but it's especially discussed in the "Tidal Seas" episode. Many small animals race to the beach from the ocean when the tide is low to feed. The birds also come and feed on the beach when the tide is out. I already mentioned the turtles and how they time things according to the moon's phase. There are so many creatures that do certain things during certain moon phases and during certain tidal phases. Also it's amazing that when certain fish, like sardines, are in abundance, bigger fish, dolphins, and birds come to feast during certain seasons. I believe that is brought out in "Seasonal Seas," as well as other episodes.
These discs cover all of the oceans, from warm waters to frozen ones and from coasts and coral seas to the open ocean and the deep. It covers penguins and walruses, corals and crabs, numerous fish, dolphins, whales, sea slugs and snails, and so much more. "The Deep" reveals terribly frightening-looking fish like the deep-sea angler and others, as well as amazing creatures with fantastic displays of bio-luminescence like never seen before.
The bonus disc has four different episodes, including at least one that covered creatures in the Amazon River, which is also very interesting. We loved watching these together, even Elizabeth. As many of my regular readers know she loves animals, and she would squeal and shriek with delight at times. We'd have to remind her to calm down. I was so happy that she loved it, though.
I also brought out the things Nathan and I brought back with us from our last trip to the USVI. We found and brought home the most stuff on that particular trip.
Sea urchins
Our shells and the sponge that we brought back were brought out with the sea urchins, but I'm not posting pictures of them, also some can be viewed on this past post.
We've also got several pieces of coral, including a few excellent pieces of brain coral that we keep displayed, and I let the kids handle my puffer fish that I keep on my dresser, which my parents got me from a souvenir store during a childhood trip to Mississippi and Florida. Olivia gets so excited when she gets to hold my stuff like that.
For the first time I brought out a well-received surprise of other ocean creatures that I'd ordered from Home Science Tools a year or more ago. Not only were these fun to see, but they were great to loupe!! So yes, I busted out the loupes, and it was so amazing! I thought the sand dollar and the bigger sea star were the most amazing to look at under the loupe. I just love louping things! The fine detail...well, it's just amazing. And these were a big hit.
I read our copy of Eric Carle's A House for Hermit Crab, which is a really fun story of how a hermit crab outgrew his home and wanted to decorate and protect his shell with other creatures, like the sea anemone, sea urchin, and others. At the end of the book there are facts about each of the creatures talked about in the book.
Also, I realized when I was getting ready to put together this post, I realized there is a great section in one of my old My Fun with Reading books on things in the sea, which talk more about sea anemones and such and have more pictures, so I may read that to the kids within the next few days.
On the week it was Nathan's week to pick Sabbath dessert, he picked ice cream cake, and I added organic sprinkles in the shape of sea turtles (with cookie cutter) on the top.
Coincidentally, Nathan took me and Elizabeth out to eat during a week when my parents took the oldest three (I so enjoyed the break!), and we sat right by a saltwater aquarium, which was enjoyable. Elizabeth was delighted. She did shriek with excitement, but thankfully that happened once, and then she settled down and just enjoyed it. She's such a funny baby.
After the kids got back we spent some fun time with Play-Doh making sea creatures.
My sea urchin
I went to adjust a couple "spines" and was going to take a better picture when Elizabeth grabbed at my urchin. Oh! Oh well...funny baby. I just took all the spines off and gave them to her. She put them in a shell (I took out my bowl of shells that my grandpa gave me when I was a child, so the kids could put imprints of the shells in the Play-Doh). I used the opportunity to count out the spines to her, too.
William's stingray, the tail falling apart by its weight as I was snapping the picture
Liv's "sea creature," as she told Nathan. I can't remember, but I think she'd told me at the time that it was a turtle.
Trusten really did make a turtle, one that looked like a turtle, but he shoved his dough back together before I could take a picture, and then he made a cool snake that had a hinged mouth that he moved up and down, but he quickly disassembled it, too. I don't know what else he made. William also made a sea star (not pictured here). Then the boys started making all kinds of unrelated creations.
This is my jellyfish, which when he saw the picture, Nathan thought was funny and laughed at me. Haha...well, anyway. As for those what-looks-like-nail marks, I don't know, as I'd made the body smooth. I bet I messed it up when trying to fix the spots.
Last night we saw the rising waning gibbous moon, the day after the full moon, and it was dark yellow and gorgeous. We all sat for several minutes and enjoyed the sight.
For now I'm trying to get William to finish up his current history book and get to the halfway point in his second of three science books for this year and finish his Daily 6-Trait Writing workbook, and trying to get Trusten finished with the last bit of Explode the Code. I didn't like how we were doing history and other stuff last summer. I like to keep book work like that down to only math and spelling through the summer, and I'd like to do that just two days a week and still have them write in their journals but only required for twice a week, not six days minimum (they don't have to on Sabbath but are free to write a journal entry if they want). I want our focus on outdoor activities like gardening and more plant identification.
We are also still watching frog metamorphosis. Our tadpole is five weeks old now. It should be an adult leopard frog at around twelve weeks.
Until next time...
