Week 12 Day 5

Book choices for today:

Owls   Gail Gibbons
Owls   Adele Richardson
Owls   Helen Hoke
Owls   Michael George
What Am I?   Moira Butterfield
Owl Babies   Martin Waddell
Good-Night Owl   Pat Hutchins
Little Owl’s Night   Divya Srinivasan
Eating the Alphabet   Lois Ehlert
Growing Colors   Bruce McMillan
Plants Feed Me Lizzy Rockwell

Zoology: (first circle)

Need for lesson – Pictures of owls and owl pellets, one per child. I order them from pelletlab.com. There are other sites that sell them as well.

Zoology 19

We want to talk about owls today. There are many different kinds of owls. Some of them are the barn owl, screech owl, great gray owl, snowy owl, and the great-horned owl.

Owls are birds that have large forward-facing eyes and ear-holes.They have to turn their entire head to look at something different. Owls have the best hearing of all the birds. The beak of the owl is short, curved, and down-facing. What did we learn about bird beaks, their shape is a certain way, why again? Most of them are nocturnal, hunting for food at night. The snowy owl is one that is not nocturnal. They hunt for food at any time of the day. Remember when we talked about the Arctic Circle? Snowy owls are one of the animals that live in that area.

Owls are birds of prey. What do you think that means, birds of prey. They eat small rodents such as mice. Owls swallow the prey whole or their beaks help to tear the prey into pieces. An owls digestive system is unique. Their digestive system takes the nutrients it needs from the prey and whatever parts it doesn’t digest like the bones, it regurgitates, or spits out, those parts in the form of a pellet. They are called owl pellets. They look like this (show pellet). This is a real owl pellet. Sometimes, if you are walking in the woods, you may see owl pellets under trees laying on the ground!

Demonstrate owl pellet. Each child can break one open to find bones, feathers, or fur inside. Toothpicks work well to break up the pellet gently. (When children are finished, I put the pieces they found inside of the pellet in a zip-lock bag along with a copy of the bone-sorting guide sheet to take home). If you only have one or two pellets break it up and show the children its contents and then put them onto a tray with the bone-sorting guide sheet for the Zoology shelf. Be sure children wash hands.

Additional Work:

Need for Lesson – Birds of Prey Matching, A Bird of Prey of Focus of your choice

Art:

Owl Puppets – These are made with brown paper bags.

Pine Cone Owl

Owl Babies – Read the book, ‘Owl Babies’ and children can make baby owls with cotton balls for art.

Practical Life:

Transfer Beads
Owl Clothespins
Pouring

Songs/Poems:

The Owl (by Zane Good) I made this into a work. Children make the owl as they say the poem.

Owls have big eyes,
So they can see in the dark.
They have long claws,
That holds onto the bark.
Owls wings are silent,
As they glide through the air.
Their eyes are big,
As they sit and stare.
They have big ears,
That hear movement far away.
They move fast,
So they can capture their prey.

"The Owl" Poem Activity — “The Owl” Poem Activity

Science: (second circle)

Need for lesson – A tray containing fruits and vegetables to sort and Parts of a Plant That We Eat sorting worksheet. Can also use pictures cut from grocery store ads. A great book for this review is, Plants Feed Me by Lizzy Rockwell.

Science 28

Let’s review the things we learned about the Vegetable-Fruit group.

We know a food is a fruit if it has_______?
When we eat vegetables, we are actually eating what?
When I eat lettuce I am eating which part of the plant?
A potato is a a tricky vegetable, can you remember what part of the plant it is called?
What about an onion, it is a _______?
If I am eating asparagus, which part of the plant am I eating?
Is it okay to only eat fruits? Why?
Can you tell me a vegetable that is a root?

Looking at our tray we have a variety of fruits and vegetables. Let’s organize or sort them into two piles, one of fruits and one of vegetables.

Additional Work:

Vegetable / Fruit Sorting Worksheet

Games:

What am I – Using your vegetable and fruit vocabulary cards, call one child at a time, and tape one of the picture cards on their back. Two or three children can pair up. One child describes the picture on their back, trying hard not to say what it is. They continue to try and get their friend to guess what fruit or vegetable is on their back.