This book tells the story of a little boy who takes a walk on the beach. He stops to pick up some things that he has found such as sea glass and then something that he doesn't even recognize. He takes it to his grandmother to show her what he has in his bag. We follow the day through the work that happens at his family's restaurant. When the restaurant closes for they day, his grandmother takes him on an amazing adventure on the "Periwinkle"
After reading the book MY kids were amazed, and even more so when they saw the real things in action on the short video Moonjellies at Georgia Aquarium on YouTube
As usual, we followed up the reading with some work on a FoldNLearn project. These lapbooks are wonderful resources for FIAR and available free when you subscribe to the publisher's blog.
You can also find some free supplements here: Night of the Moonjellies lapbook.
We continued to learn about these amazing creatures through various library books. (See list at the end of this post.) Our craft project was making a jellyfish from styrofoam bowls and ribbons:
We finished the school day by eating "jellyfish" for lunch. In reality these were sausages that I precooked, then stuck raw spaghetti noodles through. After boiling they had "reaching arms" just like the moonjellies!
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| Moonjellies for lunch! |
Our story takes place near the Atlantic Ocean, so we talked about the New England states. Since my kids were obviously not taught American History in their Chinese orphanage, we talked very briefly about the Pilgrims and WHY these particular states are called "New England" states. When we finish this book we will be spending a couple of weeks on the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving, so today was just an introduction.
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| Isaac placed our story disc in the New England states on the USA map. |
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| Some work in our lapbooks. |
While lacing cards may not be an obvious choice to many with 9 - 10 year old kids, our kids weren't given a lot of fine motor opportunities when they were growing up, and this is actually a challenge for them. It is also really good occupational therapy for the two with Cerebral Palsy.
Our friend Beth brought us a box of shells, sand dollars, star fish, etc. that she and her children collected on the beach. I've had them put aside for hands on learning, and today was the day! They were so fascinated to be able to handle these things that we don't see in Ohio!
One thing mentioned as popular in the family's restaurant in Night of the Moonjellies is onion rings. We tried making some.
Our unit study for this day ended happily with eating onion rings and lobster bisque for lunch!
After reading the book today we discussed WHY the family would have a restaurant, and why in our house Baba goes to work every day. This introduced a money theme. None of them knows American money, of course, so we talked about the coins today. We looked at exactly what is on each one (search on the Internet for printables - there are many) talked briefly about the president on each coin, and watched a short video about how coins are made. A video about minting coins HERE on YouTube.
Pat chose walking dogs as his job (which is hilarious since he is afraid of any kind of animal) but everyone was surprised that if they walked dogs as a job, one of their responsibilities would be carrying a little plastic bag and cleaning up after the dogs! Ewwww!
We finished out the morning with a movie about Al Gidding, a pioneer in underwater photography. This gave a double whammy of further exploring jobs that people can do plus giving some amazing views of sea life. It was a little slow paced for the younger three kids.
Day 4 - We worked on coloring underwater life for a diorama. Isaac used reference books to make his realistic,
while the younger kids went more by their imagination.
We had shrimp for lunch
And dessert was ocean"water" (blue jellow) and gummy fish.
Right about now several of us came down with bad colds and ick! Regular school just wasn't going to work for us. That is the beauty of homeschooling though.... learning continued (along with the coughs and nose blowing!) as we spent a day watching educational movies about life under the sea.
I was feeling better the following day, but my voice was scratchy and hoarse. My sweet daughter-in-law read the book to them this time.
We finished up the dioramas.
We used watercolor paints to create jellyfish.
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| Abigail's and Isaac's painted jellyfish. |
Isaac is so very, very curious about life -- all of it! He is a great learner, and has lots of intelligent questions about the things we study.
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| A view inside Abigail's lapbook after her painting was added. |
We decided to attempt making "sea glass" candy. The kids all LOVE to work in the kitchen.
After boiling for a long time (seriously it took about 30 minutes to reach 310 degrees!) we poured it into a greased cake pan and placed it in the refrigerator to cool. This was the result once we smashed it into glass.
Do note that some of the pieces can be very sharp -- realistic glass right here! Be cautious in letting the kids help themselves before you check how the pieces turned out. Another note: my kids didn't like the feeling when this candy got stuck in their teeth. It was tasty, but hard to eat.
And then we ended our unit with clam chowder for dinner. They all loved it and took multiple helpings.
We all enjoyed studying Night of the Moonjellies. Hope you do too!
Supplemental Books used:
A Jellyfish is Not a Fish by John F. Waters
Jellyfish by David C. King
Sea Jellies, Rainbows in the Sea by Elizabeth Tayntor Gowell
Naturebooks - Jellyfish by Sharon Sharth
DVDs
IMAX Under the Sea
Under the Sea with Al Giddings (great for exploring unusual jobs too!)
Oceans - Exploring the Secrets of our Underwater World (BBC)
Jewels of the Caribbean Sea - National Geographic
The Blue Planet - BBC
The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That -- episode about the coral reef on Netflix
Finding Nemo - Disney -- ok not educational but the kids enjoyed seeing the creatures in a fun type setting that they had become familiar with during this unit.
