Week 16 Day 1

Book choices for today:

Pond Animals   Francine Galko
Pond Plants   Ernestine Giesecke
Do Lions Live on Lily Pads?   Melanie Walsh
At the Frog Pond   Tilde Michels
In the Small Small Pond   Denise Fleming
Life in a Pond   Allan Fowler
Peek at a Pond   Neecy Twinem

Zoology: (first circle)

Need for lesson – A picture of a pond, picture of cattails (or real ones), and Three-part matching pond cards.

Zoology 27
This is a picture of a pond. This is a habitat to many animals. Ponds have freshwater. Can we remember what that means? It has water that is still, not moving like a river or ocean. Plants are an important part of a pond habitat. They provide food, oxygen, and shelter for the animals. Water lilies, or lily pads are often seen in growing in ponds. we grew a lily pad in our classroom. If the lily pads float on top of the water, where are the roots growing? Cattails are another plant that is common in ponds. They are tall stiff plants with a brown flower and yellow spike. Some of the animals that live in pond habitats are frogs, turtles, ducks, fish, newts, snails, worms, and many insects like dragonflies. Tadpoles can also be found in a pond. What can you tell me about tadpoles? Some people make a backyard pond. They add the plants and animals they would like to have as a part of their pond habitat. if we were to make a pond, which animals would you like to have living in it?

Pond Three-part Matching (homeschoolcreations.com)

Additional Works:

Fish Size Sorting – These are from homeschoolcreations.com.

Tracing – Children can paperclip or close pin a piece of tracing paper to the cards and trace the lines with their pencil to make a booklet (from homeschoolcreations.com).

Practical Life:

Frog Finding – In a bowl or other container put some colored sand (from craft store). Inside of the sand hide 10 small frogs. Children have to feel around to find the ten frogs.You can provide a scooping tool, one with a mesh end for the sand to sieve through, or they can use fingers.

Art:

Pond Animals -These are just pictures of pond animals that children can color and paste onto a piece of paper or make into a booklet.

Cattails – I used a rolled up piece of shelf grip roll to give the cattails a textured look.

Pond Animals - Coloring — Pond Animals – Coloring

Songs/Poems:

Four Little Frogs (Jean Warren)

One little frog, balancing on a lily pad of green.
He thought it was, so much fun, he called for another frog to come.

Two little frogs, balancing on a lily pad of green.
They thought it was, so much fun, they called for another frog to come.

Three little frogs, balancing on a lily pad of green.
They thought it was, so much fun, they called for another frog to come.

Four little frogs, balancing on a lily pad of green.
They thought it was so much fun, until they sank into the mud!

Glub, glub, glub!

To a Baby Frog (Poems to Grow On)

Little tadpole in my pond,
Wiggle, flip, and swim.
See that big frog by the pond?
Some day you’ll look like him.

Some day you will grow some legs
And, later on, I hear,
You’ll grow two lungs and lose your gills;
Your tail will disappear.

Like other tadpoles, you will be
A grown-up frog someday.
You cannot be a baby long,
For that is natures way.

Five Ducks Song by Frank Leto

If you can, provide a pond drawing with five ducks and the numbers 1-5. (One of the children made the props for the song). As we sing the song I point to the numbers and remove ducks one at a time during the song. We also made duck visors for the children to wear for this song. The children took turns acting out the ducks while we sing the song.

Science: (second circle)

Need for lesson – Paper, candles, watered down paints, or watercolors and paintbrushes

This is another example of how wax repels water. Ask the children what they think candles are made out of. Remind them of how the water droplets didn’t absorb into the wax paper, but it repelled it. Children draw a picture on their paper with the candles. The drawings will be invisible. “If I paint over this picture, what do you think you will see?” The wax from the candles repels the water in the paint, and the wax pictures are seen after the paper is painted over.