Our Literary Summer: Week 7 - Way Out in the Desert

It's our last week of desert fun at Seedlings!  We read Way Out in the Desert by TJ Marsh and Jennifer Ward.  This book is a modified version of the classic song Over in the Meadow.  We get a look at quite a few desert creatures and their little ones and there is even a hidden number on each page of the book just for some extra fun!

After a few weeks of desert adventures, there is one thing I learned - desert themes are HARD!  Unless you really know quite a lot about the flora and fauna of our arid landscape, you may run out of ideas by week three - I know I sure did!  But here is a quick look at our arts and crafts for the week:

Hummingbird Garden - 

stamped with scrubby sponges, poppy seed centers and a clip-art hummingbird.

Bubble Wrap Gila Monsters -

I LOVE these guys, how awesome are they? Seriously!  And so simple.  Just paint your bubble wrap, press onto your paper, lift and voila!

Hand Print Tarantulas - with lots of eyes. :)

I'm keeping this one short because I'm working night and day to prep the classroom for the upcoming school year.  I'm so excited about the changes in store, sneak peek coming soon!!

Our Literary Summer: Week 6 - Desert Night, Desert Day

This week, we read Desert Night Desert Day by Anthony Fredericks.  This story shows the activities of a few nocturnal and diurnal desert creatures through rhyming text and adorable illustrations.

Aside from learning the new vocabulary words 'nocturnal' and 'diurnal' we had fun with a few activities and games:

Sandy Slime

I originally saw this posted here, but set the idea aside because I didn't have any sand sitting around.  After remembering that I had some fine white craft sand in my garage, I decided to give it a try.  It turned out wonderfully sandy and very, very stretchy!  Maybe not exactly like the sandy desert, but still awesome!

Very, very, VERY stretchy!!!

Did you know that Elf Owls live in old woodpecker holes in Saguaro Cacti??  And you can make a tasty owl snack so you don't forget.  We just used bread, but you can also use bagel thins like they did over on Primary Learning Log when they made their owl snacks....they fed their owls grapes, I love that!!

We learned this week that javelina have very poor eyesight, but they use their ears to make up for that.  We used our 'javelina ears' all week and tried to hear lots of different sounds throughout our day.

Need a song that teaches something in a very fun way?  Billy Jonas probably has a song for you!  We LOVE his song Nocturnal to remind us of some of the sounds we might hear from animals who are awake at night.

Desert Tortoise Art

These guys can live over 100 years!!

More desert fun next week!

Our Literary Summer: Week 5 - Cactus Hotel

Week 5 of our literary summer started off our Desert Theme.  We read Cactus Hotel by Brenda Guiberson.  The story teaches us all about the Saguaro cactus, its growth cycle and the native desert wildlife that call the cactus home.

We had lots of fun delving into our desert theme.  Even though I've lived in Arizona for over 7 years, this is the first time I've done a unit on the desert and thus far, it has been quite educational!

Play dough snakes - and other desert creatures

Play dough cactus, ok, this one is mine, but I was so proud! :)

Saguaro cactus art - showing roots and fruit we learned about in our story

We even found a kind neighbor who let us visit her home and observe her cactus - not a Saguaro, but still super cool to see up close!

Absorption experiment to demonstrate how roots work...

And the really awesome finished product!

We even made some tasty Bread Snakes just for fun!

Yum!

I can't wait for more desert fun next week!!