Monday, January 24, 2011

Owl Moon

Our Five in a Row book last week was Owl Moon by Jane Yolen. 


Some of the owl books we read

I think Owl Babies was the favorite book of the week for all the kids. We also read many books about the moon (I showed a picture of them in my weekly wrap-up), Crinkleroot's Book of Animal Tracking, and a section of Winnie the Pooh about tracks.


Owl Lunch:
Peanut butter sandwich with sides cut; banana slices and chocolate chips (or raisins) for eyes; almond for beak. Molly insisted she needed pretzels on the bottom for branches.

I ordered owl pellets for the kids to go through.



Bones from the pellet

Attempting to put the bones together to see what it was.

They also spent some time working with a virtual owl pellet.

Paper Plate Owls

Molly said hers is a snowy owl because she didn't want to color it




We made two kinds of owl cookies. When I shaped one of these to show the kids, Colin asked if it was a cat and Caleigh thought it was a bear. So I'm not sure they really look like owls, but the kids had fun decorating them anyway.


For these, I added cocoa powder to some of the cookie dough. I rolled the white dough into a log. Then I rolled out the chocolate. I put the log on top of that and rolled it all together. Then I sliced them and laid 2 of them side by side touching, added an almond nose, and baked. Once they were finished, we added chocolate chip eyes.



We also learned about the moon. Most of our time was spent talking about the phases of the moon. We used Oreo cookies to demonstrate them.



Telling time file folder game with owls.



These are the owls we got to see at a library program we attended on raptors.






Notebook pages:

Colin and Caleigh used all the same lapbook pieces so their pages are pretty much the same.

The other side of the extension I added is still blank. I'll print a picture or two from the week to put there.

These are Molly's pages. She didn't do the language arts stuff except for similes. She liked making sentences for that. One of hers was "The moon is large like Colin's head." Ahh... sibling love.

She did this extra book about owls, where she pasted pictures in for the answers.

For our notebooks, we used lapbook pieces from:
Homeschool Share Owl Moon
Homeschool Share Owl Babies
Homeschool Share Nocturnal Animals
Lapbook Lessons- Owls

They each drew two owls to include on their pages, one from directions in Draw Write Now and the other from Literature Pockets.

17 comments:

Mozer said...

What an awesome list of owl resources and activities! I love the owl sandwiches and cookies. Looks like you covered quite a bit! Visiting from the Hip Homeschool Hop.

Deb Chitwood said...

I LOVE this! What a great unit study! I absolutely love Owl Moon to begin with - and then your activities are just wonderful...owl lunch, dissecting owl pellets (cringe),virtual owl pellets, learning about phases of the moon with Oreo cookies...! Tomorrow, I'll be featuring your post at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/LivingMontessoriNow

I'm your newest follower from the Hip Homeschool Hop!

Jennifer said...

The sandwiches, the cookies, the oreo moons- my children would enjoy all of these ideas. I'm hopping over from the hip homeschool hop and I'm following your blog now.

Crisc said...

I'm coming from HH. LOVE the activities. I remember doing the pellet in school great ideas.

Erin said...

Wow! I love all the activiites centered around owls. What great ideas. I'll be using some for sure. Thanks!

esther said...

Order owl pellets... OR just scrape up what's on my back porch! Wow! That is something to find all the bones!

Stopping by on the Hip Homeschool Hop from Homeschool Science!

Tiff said...

What a great week! Loved all the owl activities!!! Stopping by from Homeschool Hop!

Unknown said...

Awesome! Such great activities!

Jessy (from Hip Homeschool Hop)
http://oursideofthemtn.blogspot.com

Tracy said...

Very cool! I'm visiting from HHH.

Fit2bMama said...

I really like how creative you got with the owls. I struggle with having to follow rules, stick with curriculum and then getting overwhelmed. In my head I see myself doing grand things with my children, I make lists, then I think "Ack! What was I thinking?" Or they get sick.

Jenilee said...

so many fun activities about owls! great job! visiting from the hop!

Jamie said...

hopping over from the HHH,I like the Owl unit,and how you organized it out,lots of resources to keep in mind.Please feel free to stopon by and visit.

Gina Kleinworth said...

Great lessons here- I bet they had a great time learning about owls. So interesting

Erika said...

WOW! What awesome fun!!!

Anonymous said...

Five in a row book is such a cute idea.

I would also like to know where you got the owl pellets. My daughter needs to learn about life cycles after spring break and those would be terrific!

Sarah said...

I ordered the pellets from Rainbow Resource.

Deb Chitwood said...

I gave you an award at http://livingmontessorinow.com/2011/01/27/your-blog-is-fabulous-award-to-happily-pass-on/