four&twenty

The Yarn Bombed Pumpkin

^{Yarn-bombing is a thing.} 

^{Look it up.}

^{This pumpkin is a project that I worked on with my family during the month of October a few years back. Let me tell you, bringing shape to this silly little idea afforded our family with a fun collaborative activity in the busy weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. It was peaceful work. We discovered it was work that taught us about the organic lines of the pumpkin. But most surprisingly, well, this project was scientifically thought provoking. This white pumpkin mummified in orange yarn did not begin rotting until July of the following year. And when it did, it only molded a bit at the bottom. In fact, only when I set it back into the garden at the beginning of the following October did it move well on it's way to dirt.  We enjoyed our pumpkin art for an entire year. And I imagine the dirt it eventually contributed to is not only nutritious, but rich with creative fodder.}

 

Yarn bombing a pumpkin is super easy. Here's how:

^{1. Choose a pumpkin.} 

^{2. Choose a yarn color. I chose orange to cover a white pumpkin but any color will do.} 

^{3. Paint a small section with glue and cut lengths of yarn to cover the pumpkin from stem to base and begin covering the pumpkin.}

^{Continue in this manner until the pumpkin is mummified with yarn.}

 

^-Kim

How's the Weather?

Have you read Tornado by Betsy Byars? On this first day of winter, what a wonderful time to explore the mysteries of the weather! And "tornados" are a great place to begin. This story touches down at the cross section of pure fiction and science. Your 2nd and 3rd grade readers/writers will love the adventure.

When a tornado appears in the distance, Pete, the farmhand, gathers everyone into the storm cellar. How best to pass the time in this worried time? Tell a story! While they wait for the storm to pass, Pete tells the family about the dog dropped down by a tornado when he was a boy. Tornado, Pete's pet was no ordinary dog. Tornado played card tricks, saved a turtle's life, and had a rivalry with the family cat. By the time Pete tells all of Tornado's lively stories, the storm has passed, and a very special dog has entertained another family.

PS ... Don't forget to CREATE your idea after exploring the story!

-Kim

Butterflies of Winter

 

When the cold of winter nips at your toes, remember summer with its warm, sunny days. While you are remembering, think butterfly. Remember how they come fluttering aglow with complex design—longings and swallowtails, and of course monarchs flitting through our blossoming gardens. Of course there is butterfly activity in every season, but when the rush of flitting color slows in the cold of winter, make a butterfly garden of paper and chalk pastel. 

Here's how:

For this project we began with a goodly weighted bristol, with a bit of a tooth. Pastel paper is best, but costly. Drawing paper will do just fine too. Begin by looking closely at a real butterfly. Next, study the anatomy of a butterfly. Pay attention to the symmetry and the complexity of these wonderful creatures.

 

 

You will need to draw the shape of two forewings and two hindwings onto the paper you have selected. After drawing, you will need to cut out the wings and fold them horizontally in accordion folds. Unfold the wings. Using chalk pastel, decorate the shapes with butterfly details. Smudge some of the color, but leave some sketch marks. Be creative, but try to keep your creativity tied to the butterfly motif.

Next, cut a thin, very long triangle shape of paper and roll it up like a croissant. This will be the head, thorax, and abdomen of the butterfly. Use a hot glue gun to attach the forewings and hindwings to the body. Finish the butterfly by blending the wing colors to the body using similar colors of chalk pastel. Attach a bit of wire for the antenna. Cut a length of the wire depending on the size of the butterfly you created, bend to a V, add some beads to both ends, and attach to the head of the butterfly with a drop of hot glue. 

Continue this process to create a rabble of butterflies. You will be amazed how wonderful these creatures akin to the real thing will brighten a winter garden window.

 

-Kim

Forget the Flashcards: Bake a Cake

One of the best ways to learn to think is to learn about the tools available! empowering your students to learn about the parts and functions of their brain will inspire them to tap into the vast potential of this amazing frontier. We are not left-brained or right-brained; we are “whole-brained.” Get to know how this happens by doing some research and and you will be awestruck.

Your brain weighs about 3.3 lbs and is 73% water.

Your brain contains roughly 86 billion brain cells.

All the messages sent by all phones in the world taken together number less than those sent by your brain.

Your brain information travels up to 268 miles per hour.

Your brain works faster than the fastest computer in the world.

 So don't delay... learn about the parts and functions of your brain so you can tap into your potential!

And after you do, bake a cake to celebrate what you learned. You will be surprised what you learn in the process!

 

-Kim

 

Tiny Seed / Huge Plant

Our Earlybird Spring Literature and Writing Discovery Guide features The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. Follow along with the blowing seeds as they land in different environments on Earth in this classic story with its beautiful collage art illustrations. It would be fun to plant some tiny sunflower seeds because they grow into such huge plants!

Take this opportunity to sprout some seeds and research the different stages of development. We put damp paper towels in a see through glass and put seeds next to the glass and watched them sprout over a week. 

When you do this, you are helping your student engage in multi-disciplinary learning. So go with it... pull out the Observation journal and have your student draw each step of the way. 

Learning is so fun when it seamlessly WOWs the child!

 

-Sara

Ugly Vegetables

Use Blackbird & Company’s Earlybird Spring Literature and Writing Discovery Guide to plant a Chinese vegetable garden! The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin tells the tale of a little girl who helps her mother grow some very unusual vegetables while the neighbors are all growing flowers. Read how those ugly vegetables brought the neighbors together over a bowl of soup.

A little research will yield many inexpensive ways to use containers to grow vegetables.Check out our Pinterest page.

We'd love to hear your garden ideas too! Leave a comment...

 

-Sara

From Question to Quest

Rickettsia is a Monera that is transmitted by Arthropods such as fleas, lice, and tics and can cause harmful diseases such as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. This. This particular class of Monera was as named after pathologist Howard Taylor Ricketts. 

But what is Rickettsia? And why is it a Monera? 

If you are working through our 8-week unit Taxonomy of Living Things: The Five Kingdoms, the week #4 lesson is all about Monera. In fact, during the last 5 weeks of the unit, students will explore the characteristics of each kingdom and then be set free to do some independent research of a representative species. Included in each week's research is the opportunity to practice close observation. 

Close observation is not about developing art skills as much as it is about developing the concentrated skill of looking. The keys to close, scientific observations are to look purposefully, slow down, and keep going. Not everyone can draw like Leonardo, but everyone can draw. 

To begin, the more materials at hand the better. Use a variety of pencils and pens, and always use more than one color. The more details the better. Think line, texture, value, shape, color and always notice the relationship between the five.

And if getting started is difficult, look to someone else and ask, "What did they do?" Take a few minutes to look at Marlo's Rickettsia. What do you notice? What types of lines do you see? And what is the quality of those lines (thick to think straight, curved, jagged, dotted)? How does she make use of color? Texture? Value? Shape? And so on. Make a list and incorporate those qualities in your drawing. Be sure to label all parts and make notes as necessary. 

I hope, in the end, you are noticing all the questions involved in doing research. Science, after all, is an adventure that begins with a question and culminates in a quest. 

 

-Kim

Snow!

Our Earlybird Winter Discovery Guide finishes up during week #5 with a delightful story called, Snow by Uri Shulevitz that captures the magical effect of falling snow (something we long for on the central coast of California).

Why not write a snowy haiku?

Begin by learning about snow.

Find some quotes to inspire your writer, some haiku too. 

And check in here to learn how to haiku!

Happy winter!

 

-Sara

Liquid, Solid, or Gas?

For an interdisciplinary approach to literature, dive into our Winter Earlybird Literature Discovery Guide that features an eclectic mix of wonderfully told stories. It begins with Snowballs by Lois Ehlert, where your child will discover the wonders of the water cycle and how snow comes into being.

Did you know that you can watch the water cycle water cycle in a ziplock bag? For best results, make sure you hang it in a sunny window. We'd love to hear what you discover.

To extend the fun, read All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon

 

-Sara

Why Ask?

I say, "Dissection."

And they say, "Yuk."

 

There are many reasonable reasons to object. 

But there are also many reasonable reasons to overcome. 

 

We should first stop to consider that dissection of a frog, for example, provides a way for our students to experience the complexity of life, the ecology of biological systems, and organs that are similar to our own. Frogs are an important part of the food chain, being consumed on a regular basis by snakes, birds, and even human beings. We teach about it: Hawk eats the snake that ate the frog that ate the grasshopper that ate the grass. And so it goes, day after day in the wild. Still, I always begin dissection reminding students that we are considering something that once lived. This gravity helps to elevate the work at hand but also to exercise empathy. Ultimately dissection is not for the faint of heart. 

 

In my mind the overarching reason to dissect is to learn to ask a question. Simple questions like, "How does this work?" delightfully lead us to complexities.  

 

To make the most of dissection, have sketch paper on hand where students can take notes as they work through the process. Here is where the asking begins. Encourage students to jot down questions as they go.

 

Once the project is complete, they can re-create the details of dissection in their Observation Journal and they can begin looking for answers. This culminating activity will help them to commit the information to memory while simultaneously discovering the WOW inherent to the intricacies of life. 

 

And if you are simply unable to dissect, use the World Wide Web like Marlo did and conduct a virtual dissection. 

 

I'll leave you with this from Jonas Salk who developed one of the first successful polio vaccinations: "What people generally think of as the moment of discovery is really the discovery of the question." 

 

 

-Kim

Happy Birthday Antonie van Leeuwenhoek!

It began with a hefty dose of imagination, a glass pearl, and some strands of fabric.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the very first microbiologist never intended to be the world’s first microbiologist. He was actually a tradesman who had never studied science!

From the time he was 16, he apprenticed in a linen-draper’s shop. Soon he became a merchant because he worked diligently. He developed a fascination for the small world that our eyes alone cannot see while working with fabric, using pearls of glass to observe the fine weave of linen.

He developed more than 200 microscopes during his lifetime and made many important discoveries including the first observations of bacteria which he called “animalcules” in 1674, “animals so small, in my sight, that I judged that even if 100 of these very wee animals lay stretched out one against another, they could not reach the length of a grain of coarse sand”.

During his lifetime, he made many discoveries and observations that he carefully documented and illustrated. He died a very old man who accomplished his important work, a work that inspired generations to follow in his footsteps..

So what better way to celebrate the birthday of this man of science (October, 24, 1632) than to create a close observation of something from the micro-world? You can begin with a microscope or, because we live in the 21st century, a Google image!

This amazing drawing of cocci (bacteria that can lead to diseases such as strep throat) was done by former apprentice Marlo. What makes this observation incredible is the detail she included. So did she complete this in 15 minutes? No way! Do you think it took over an hour? One sitting? Two sittings? The answer is unknown. But I can say with certainty that Marlo dedicated sincere concentration to this accomplishment. The reward is, well, obvious!

Anyone can create an observational drawing, think Dory’s song: “Just keep swimming!”

Collecting Echinoderms

If you are adventuring through our brand new unit, Taxonomy of Living Things: The Five Kingdoms of Life, meander with me for a moment...

Echinoderm? Whoever said, "It's all in a name," sure got it right. Echinoderms got their name because they are spiny-skinned marine animals. They possess radial symmetry, and many possess 5 arms (or multiples of 5). Sounds oh so scientific, but we've all seen these animals- sea stars, urchins, and sand dollars. 

 

Why not begin an echinoderm collection like we did to get a closer look?  

 

It's easy to collect real echinoderms if you live near the ocean. But if not, you can purchase the skeletons of these familiar creatures easily enough online. 

 

With a collection you can observe intricate details and similarities between species. You can also observe dissimilarity. You can record your observations with drawings and notes in an observation journal. So have a look see, you'll be glad you did. And after you do, explore the poetic possibilities here. 

 

 

-Kim

Discover Research: Elemental Journal

Get to know the elements!

Chemistry is much more than complicated theories and experiments in the lab. Chemistry is the foundation of literally everything we know. But for our children, chemistry is at best a daunting subject, at worst downright boring. Mention the word chemistry and they will run! 

Honestly, chemistry is no more daunting than any other subject to be mastered. And chemistry is certainly NOT boring! Developing an imaginative view of chemistry is the key to unlocking its wonders.

This discovery journal will guide students on a wonderful voyage through the mysteries of the periodic table. Over the course of a year students curiosity will be piqued as they will research and catalog their findings of 42 of the 144 known elements. Elemental Journal is an interesting and broad introduction into the fascinating realm of chemistry.

Purchase now through October 1 for back-to-school and use the code FALL RESEARCH for a 10% discount! 

 

-Kim

Dive into Research and Discover Diversity

There are two types of things in the world: Living and Non-living!

Everything you can imagine is either...

 

We are pleased to announce a brand new addition to our selection of Research Discovery Guides: Taxonomy of Living Things: The Five Kingdoms.

All living things can be ordered according to their common biology. Classification allows scientists to explore levels of similarity, dissimilarity, and interconnectedness of cells, systems, and structures. The first level of classification is the Kingdoms. There are five: Protista, Monera, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia. Over the course of 7 weeks, as students explore the diversity of the animal kingdom, they will gather knowledge that will connect to many corners of the field of biology.

During weeks 1 - 3 of this 8-week unit, our scaffolding will guide students independently through reading, gathering information, and thinking activities. Then, during weeks 4 through 8, students will engage in the deeper research of delving into the specifics of each kingdom. They research specific species, making an independent and observational entry as they acquire vital research writing skills.    

Purchase now through October 1 for back-to-school and use the code FALL RESEARCH for a 10% discount! 

 

-Kim

Ideas of the Original Variety

I've had the privilege of exploring his architectural scaffolding—Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species—with my apprentices during Science Discovery. 

There are four types of sentences: Statement, Question, Exclamation, and Command. Teachers are famous for jotting that last type—command—in swarms on their chalkboards.

But imagine your science teacher marching into class and scribbling this on the chalkboard:

Devise a system for naming and classifying ALL living things. 

Imagine the buggy eyes, the tilted heads, the groans, the tears.

Never happen.

Now imagine a time way before the technological advances that our computer age has to offer. Way, way back before our Declaration of Independence was conceived in the minds of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin there was a young man named Carolus Linnaeus. Born on May 23, 1707, in Råshult, Sweden, his father, a lover of all things botanical, introduced him to the joy of observational science. Young Carolus was encouraged to imagine possibility as he tended his very own garden over time. He looked back fondly on that garden as a place that "inflamed my soul with an unquenchable love of plants."

As Linnaeus continued to observe nature, he developed a passion for order.  Over the course of his life, Linnaeus accomplished a great many things—research, publication of scientific papers, a medical practice. Greatest of all, he devised a binomial system for naming and classifying all living things... without the prompting of a teacher's command!

Way before computers, Linnaeus was an information architect.

It's taken the better part of the year to appropriate the great lessons we chip away at on a daily basis—value silence, process is a slow and steady pacing, your-ideas-matter, work works—but now, like a spring bloom, I marvel at the fragrance of their progress. In a few short weeks, you too will be able to flip through the Science Discovery Journals to experience the wonder of this important work.

So much of education is couched in the promise that technology will ensure success. But so much of what we really desire for our children cannot develop without the passion to care about an academic work at hand and the longitude to explore. Challenging children to engage in the work of idea-making and providing the time to Discover just what it takes to bring shape to that idea, time and time again, leads to Critical Creative Thinking. Truth is, technology is a tremendous asset of our age, but the art of learning is a low-tech endeavor.

Ideas of the original variety begin with a spark of curiosity, not a command, and rarely a click.