Birds: Part 3

Today was a day for bird crafts. We were feeling creative.


Books

• Beaks! by Sneed B. Collard III
• Amazing Life Cycles: Birds by Brenda Williams
• The Beak Book by Pamela Chanko
• Just a Baby Bird by Mercer Mayer
• Wild About Michigan Birds by Adele Porter

Activities

• Activity: Bird sounds. While looking through Wild About Michigan Birds, we looked up the sounds that the birds made. Evie tried to mimic the sounds. The site we used: https://www.bird-sounds.net/  While we were outside, we tried to identify the bird calls around us. 

• Craft: Paint a birdhouse. Purchased a wooden birdhouse from a craft store. Let Evie choose the paint colors that she wanted to use, and sat with her to decorate the birdhouse. Once it dried, she played with it, putting "eggs" (beads and rocks) inside. 

• Craft: bird mobile. Materials: clear beading twine, craft feathers, stick, fake birds (from Dollar Tree), yarn. We found a stick, then took one long piece of yarn and tied one end to each end of the stick (to hang the mobile by). Then, Evie picked out some feathers that she wanted to hang from the stick, and we tied them with the clear twine at different lengths along the stick. The last step was to clip on the birds. Then, we hung our mobile in a window. 

• Outdoor play: build nests out of sticks. This is the same concept as our earlier building of the eagle's nest. This time, though, we built several small nests in different places around the yard. You don't realize how difficult it must be to build a nest until you try to do it yourself. And we have hands! Somehow birds do a much better job with just their beaks. Then we talked about what dangers a bird has to consider when building a nest, such as predators and the weather. We also put together a "natural play area" while we were outside, using stumps, logs, and large branches that had been knocked out of the trees from a wind storm. 

Birds: Part 2

Owls

Of all bird species, I find owls the most fascinating. This segment of the unit is the one that I was looking forward to the most. I remember dissecting owl pellets in grade school. The few times that I have seen an owl at night in the wild have been very exciting and mysterious. They are silent and powerful predators, and I knew Evie would enjoy learning about them, as well. The highlight of the day was, of course, the dissection, and that took up the most time.

Books

• Owl Babies by Martin Waddell
• National Geographic Reader: Hoot, Owl! by Shelby Alinsky
• Owls: Birds of the Night (Penguin Young Readers) by Emily Sollinger
• Little Owl's Night by Divya Srinivasan 
• Little Owl's Day by Divya Srinivasan
• Owl Sees Owl by Laura Godwin
• Goodnight, Owl! by Pat Hutchins
• Madame Nightingale Will Sing Tonight by James Mayhew

Activities

• Craft: Toilet paper roll owls. Supplies: toilet paper rolls, construction paper, glue stick, tape, fabric scraps. Wrap the roll in construction paper of any color. Fold in the top of the roll to create the pointed tufts on the head. Glue on eyes from paper (we also found some shiny gold confetti pieces to use). Cut paper beak and glue on. Cut tummy and wing shapes from fabric scraps and glue on. 

• Experiment: Owl pellet dissection! I remembered doing this in elementary school, and thinking that it was very interesting. I thought Evie might enjoy it, as well, and I was correct. We dissected a barn owl pellet, and found two rodent skulls in it! One seems to be from a vole, and the other a rat. The tiny vertebrae and ribs are extremely delicate and fascinating. I explained to Evie how owls (since they don't have teeth) swallow their prey whole. Then, the bits that they cannot digest, such as bones and hair, are regurgitated in pellet form. By dissecting an owl pellet, you can learn about the diet of that particular bird. We ordered ours online, so it had been heated and sanitized, but we still obviously took precautions to keep everything as neat and clean as possible. 

Birds: Part 1
Penguins, Bald Eagles, and Nests

Birds: what a broad topic! We have so many specimens, books, and activity ideas, that this subject will have to be broken into many parts. Evie requested to learn about penguins and bald eagles first, so that is where we started. We finally have some nice, warm, sunny weather to go outside and play in. Early this morning, we went out into the yard and constructed a people-sized eagle nest. This set the stage for some really great pretend play.


Books

• Soaring Bald Eagles by Kathleen Martin-James
• Penguin Puzzle (Magic School Bus Chapter Book) by Judith Bauer Stamper
• National Geographic Readers: Penguins! by Anne Schreiber
• Antarctica by Helen Cowcher
• Hey, Al by Arthur Yorinks
• Are You My Mother? by P. D. Eastman
• Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester
• Baby Penguins Everywhere by Melissa Guion

Activities

• Pretend play: Build a nest out of branches and sticks that is large enough for a couple of people to sit in. Toddlers enjoy the repetitive nature of fetching objects for a task like this. Gather as many sticks as your toddler has patience for. Pretend you are bald eagle parents constructing a nest for your eggs. When we had completed our nest, Evie told me to sit in it with her baby brother, and we were her "eaglets." She flapped her wings and went around the yard "fishing." Once she had caught a fish (a leaf, usually) in her talons, she would bring it back to shred it with her sharp beak and feed it to the eaglets. We took turns being the eaglet or the mama bird. This killed at least an hour. 

• Pretend Play: Emperor penguins. Balance a soccer ball, a large plastic egg, or something similar on top of your feet. Waddle around and try to keep it on your feet. See who can shuffle the fastest. Explain how male Emperor penguins keep the eggs warm while the females go to sea to find food. Then, when the eggs hatch, they switch and the males go to sea. 

• Craft: Penguin sticker scene. We took a piece of white paper and tore it (as opposed to cutting, so we could have softer lines) into several pieces. Next, we glued these pieces to a sheet of blue construction paper. There's the water and ice. Then we used penguin stickers to complete the scene. 

Rainforests

Once again, we decided to start off a unit with a chapter book. We spent the morning reading a Magic Tree House book. In fact, that was how the subject of rainforests was chosen in the first place. I asked Evie what Magic Tree House book she wanted to read next, and she chose the one about the Amazon. This time, I found a sound track of jungle sounds on YouTube to play in the background while we read. It created a nice sense of ambiance. We also looked up pictures of the animals that appeared in the story.
Next, we sat on the floor and read Life Cycles: Rainforest and Nightwatch: Nightlife in the Tropical Rain Forest. 
Since I had several ideas for this subject, we spent the better part of the week on it. And it has very appropriately wrapped up just in time for Earth Day!


Books

• Magic Tree House: Afternoon on the Amazon by Mary Pope Osborne
• Life Cycles: Rainforest by Sean Callery
• Poison Dart Frogs by Jennifer Dewey
• Nightwatch: Nightlife in the Tropical Rain Forest by Peter Riley and Sherry Gerstein from Reader's Digest Children's Books
• El Gran Capoquero/ The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry
• The Sea Serpent's Daughter: A Brazilian Legend by Margaret H. Lippert
• The Shaman's Apprentice by Mark J. Plotkin and Lynne Cherry
• Colores del Bosque Tropical por Susan Canizares y Betsey Chessen
• Colorful Chameleons! by Michelle Knudsen
• The Jungle Book (Little Golden Books) from Walt Disney Company 

Videos

• Reading Rainbow S1 E8: The Shaman's Apprentice (on Amazon Prime Video)
• Kratt's Creatures S1 E8: Rain Forests: Under the Canopy (Amazon Prime)
• Planet Earth 2 S1 E3: Jungles (on Netflix)

Activities

• Craft: Toilet paper roll parrot. Wrap a toilet paper roll in colored construction paper. Punch hole in the bottom to put feathers through for the tail. Glue small feathers on the sides for wings. Tape feathers on the inside top for some plumes on the head. Fold and glue or tape a piece of paper for the beak. Glue buttons for eyes. If you are Evie, name it Pepe.

• Pretend play: Monkeys. When studying the rainforest, how can you not act like monkeys? Eat bananas, scratch your armpits, groom each other...ooh ooh ahh ahh.

• Jungle sunset "stained glass" window. Cut a piece of contact paper in any size you want, and use painter's tape to secure to the window with sticky side out. Cut out vine and leaf shapes from black paper and stick on for jungle silhouette. Then use bits of colored tissue paper to fill in the rest. Evie also put up some darker dots to symbolize the rain. Here is a picture of the window when we were just getting started. We added it it throughout the week. 

• Craft: Rainstick. Here's the tutorial we used: https://www.giftofcuriosity.com/diy-rain-stick-craft/  We added glittery stickers of rainforest animals. 

• Craft: Green paper chain vine. We used tape and green construction paper to make a long chain. I did the cutting, Evie did the taping (for the most part). We made it long enough to drape across a set of double windows in the playroom. 

Eggs

One of our favorite nonfiction paperback books is Chickens Aren't the Only Ones. "Oviparous" is such a fun word to say. So, I decided to base a day's worth of activities off of that theme. We started out reading that book and some others. Then, since it is a Reading Rainbow book, we watched the corresponding episode (and I got some serious flashbacks to my childhood). We also read Animals Born Alive and Well, from the same author, to get information on the opposite of oviparous: viviparous. We talked about monotremes, those strange mammals that straddle both worlds. 

Books

• The Golden Egg Book by Margaret Wise Brown
• Big Egg by Molly Coxe
• The Egg (A First Discovery Book) by Gallimard Jeunesse and Pascale de Bourgoing
• Olli/Ollie by Olivier Dunrea
• Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
• Chickens Aren't the Only Ones by Ruth Heller
• Animals Born Alive and Well by Ruth Heller

Activities

• Experiment: Shell-less Egg. Put an egg in a glass of vinegar, and let sit for a few hours. The shell will be eaten away by the vinegar, leaving the innards of the egg encased in the membrane. You can see right through it, and you can even bounce it gently. 

• Specimen examination: Ray egg sac (mermaid's purse), dinosaur eggshell fossil, empty praying mantis egg cases (including one that was cut in half and put in a test tube, to see what the inside looks like). 

• Craft: Paper and Sticker nest. We shredded some colorful construction paper and used a glue stick to make nests. Then we used sticker eggs in the center. Evie went a bit further and added some chicks. And flowers. And stars. 

• Activity: egg hunt. Who says you can only do this on Easter? I rounded up some plastic eggs, put one M&M in each, and hid them around her playroom. Then I unleashed her with a basket. The last one that she found was hidden in the dollhouse. 

• Pretend play: build nest out of stuffed animals, take care of plastic eggs. We gathered as many stuffed animals as we could, and formed them in a circle on the play mat. Then we took the plastic eggs from the egg hunt and put them in the center. Evie "laid" them, sat on them, rotated them, and hatched them, then fed her chicks. 

• Experiment: Crack an egg in a bag. Put an egg in a Ziplock bag, and then let your kid drop it on the floor! The mess is contained in the bag, and the toddler can squish it around all they want. PS: the photo to the right also shows the egg in vinegar, as bits of the shell float to the surface. 

• Activity: Oviparous vs Viviparous sorting sheet. Draw a line down the center of a piece of paper. Write an "O" on one half, and a "V" on the other. Then get a sticker sheet of animals, and have toddler sort them out. 

Book Focus:  

Chicken Soup with Rice

and

Caps for Sale

Today, we chose two books, and built all of our activities around them. In the morning, we did Chicken Soup with Rice, by Maurice Sendak, finishing up by making soup. In the afternoon, we read Caps for Sale, by Esphyr Slobodkina. Crafts, pretend play, and cooking made this a very fun day. 

Chicken Soup with Rice

• Craft: Decorate soup bowls. Materials: paper bowls, markers, glitter glue...whatever else your toddler hauls out of the craft supply box...

• Pretend play: Pour some dry rice into a bowl, then place inside a box to minimize mess (but not eliminate it- we're still playing with a toddler, here). Add other bowls, spoons, etc. The toddler can then "cook" chicken soup with rice. Evie cooked for a while, then started serving up the soup to myself, and several stuffed animals. She also went to her play kitchen to get some toy veggies, and added these to her soup. 

• Dramatic reading: As we read the book again, Evie acted out each page, using whatever props she could find around the playroom. For example, for the page about paddling down the nile, a large stuffed horse served for a crocodile for her to ride, and a toy umbrella became her paddle. She also started to recite a few of the lines with me. I told her which month was her birth month, and also her brother's and daddy's. 

• Cooking: Evie made chicken noodle soup with daddy, and they added some rice to it. Evie loves to watch daddy cook, and she chewed on a few of the vegetables as he was chopping them up. It was very yummy, and Evie loved it. 

Caps for Sale

• Craft: Peddler art. Cut out paper hats, and a face and mustache. Draw eyes and eyebrows on the face. Paste the face onto a piece of paper, then paste all of the caps on top of the head in a tall tower. 
• Activity: Find as many hats in your house as you can. Stack them on toddler's head, then see how far they can walk while balancing them. 
• Dramatic reading: Toddler is the peddler, you are the tree. Baby brother was a monkey in the tree. Toddler acted out everything the peddler did, and repeated all of his lines. I read the story as though there was a female peddler named Evie. We used the hats from the balancing activity as props. Evie had fun stomping her feet, shouting out her lines, and throwing the hat on the ground. 

Ancient Egypt

We spend a lot of time on science, so I wanted to start branching out to other subjects, such as history. For our first historical topic, we decided to go with ancient Egypt. It is a subject that has always fascinated me, ever since I was a little kid. Evie is intrigued by mummies, so she was totally on board with this decision (though really, she's on board with every topic we try). She had encountered mummies in Scooby Doo cartoons and in books around Halloween time. Also, a favorite book of ours, Skippyjon Jones In Mummy Trouble, features ancient Egypt. We've read this book more times than I can count, and Evie will randomly quote it from time to time. I had a lot of ideas for activities for this topic. Evie is really enjoying sitting on the couch while I read to her from chapter books, so I knew that would take up a good chunk of time. 

The chapter book that we chose was The Magic Tree House: Mummies in the Morning. We also read the nonfiction companion, Magic Tree House Fact Tracker: Mummies and Pyramids. Evie loves the Magic Tree House books almost as much as she loves the Magic School Bus. There were only a few parts that I skimmed over while reading, due to her age, such as the removal of a mummy's brain through its nose. This is an interesting fact, but it can wait until she is older!

Books

• Skippyjon Jones in Mummy Trouble by Judy Schachner 
• The Magic Tree House: Mummies in the morning by Mary Pope Osborne
• Magic Tree House Fact Tracker: Mummies and Pyramids by Will Osborne and Mary Pope Osborne
• Ms Frizzle's Adventures in Ancient Egypt by Joanna Cole
• National Geographic Readers: Pyramids by Laura Marsh
• The Great Wonder by Annabelle Howard
• Make History: Ancient Egypt by Nancy Fister and Charlene Olexiewicz
• DK Eyewitness: Ancient Egypt by George Hart
• Hieroglyphs from A to Z by Peter Manuelian

Activities

• Craft: Egyptian Paddle Doll. While flipping through Make History: Ancient Egypt, which is a craft book, we found a page about Egyptian paddle dolls. We had seen one of these in the Eyewitness book, and decided to make one. Traditionally, a paddle doll would have been made of wood, and had mud beads for hair. Also, I'm fairly certain that they did not have googly eyes. We took some artistic license. We didn't have the materials called for in the craft book, so we improvised. Materials: empty cereal box, black yarn, googly eye stickers, plastic beads, scissors, markers. I eyeballed the basic shape of the paddle doll on the cereal box, then cut it out. I punched a few holes in the top of the head, and strung the black yarn through and tied it for hair. Evie chose beads to put in the hair, and I helped her tie them in. Then we used some markers to decorate the doll. Iv drew a few patterns on for her. She insisted that her doll have a blue face. I gave her googly eye stickers to stick on. We also found a rhinestone that was flat on one side, and glued it onto the doll's drawn necklace. 

• Pretend Play: Be a mummy! Materials: toilet paper or roll of burlap. I was going to use toilet paper, but at the last minute, I found a roll of burlap in my craft room, and decided to use that instead. I wrapped Evie up like a mummy, and helped her to lay down. Then I described how mummies were often buried with a few prize possessions. I laid her paddle doll and a strand of beads over her. Then I mentioned how sometimes they mummified their pets as well, and put a toy cat on her. Afterwards, I loosened her wrappings so that she could walk around as a mummy. 

• Craft: Egyptian necklace. I used more cardboard from the cereal box to cut out a collar-shaped necklace like in the pictures of the pharaohs. I punched a hole in each end, and threaded some leather string through. Then we glued popsicle sticks in a striped pattern, and used sparkly strip stickers in between. We glued on some stones, then let it set out to dry. Later, Evie put it on and pretended to be Queen Hutepi from the Magic Tree House book. 
• Art: We used the stencils in the Hieroglyphs from A to Z book to figure out how to write Evie and Mom. Then we used the same method you would for leaf rubbings to make cartouches. There is no "V" in hieroglyphics, so it was suggested that we substitute in the letter "F." While this was a fun book, my only problem was that you could only spell out English words with the symbols. It doesn't say anything about what the words were in Egyptian. So while it was good for writing out our names, it wouldn't be much use beyond that, except perhaps to provide a really good code for secret mail.  

Magnet Monday!

To start off this week, learned about magnetism. I only have a few books on the subject, but we have plenty of magnetic toys to experiment with. In the morning, we read The Magic School Bus: Amazing Magnetism. In the afternoon, I set up a metal tray with several activities to try. We had lots of magnets, paper clips, bobby pins, and some magnetic putty. Then we played with magnetic tiles. It was a very fun day.

Books

• The Magic School Bus: Amazing Magnetism by Rebecca Carmi
• What Magnets Can Do (Rookie Read About Science) by Allan Fowler
• Science With Magnets by Helen Edom

Activities

• Play with Magnets. We tried several little tricks that we read about in our books. I had a pack of magnets for kids (which turned out to not be very strong), plus some magnetic hematite stones from my collection (which were much stronger to use for our little experiments). I let Evie just play with the magnets for a while, to experiment with how it felt when they repelled and attracted each other. We also magnetized a bobby pin and used it to pick up a paper clip. We played with magnetic putty, as well. We then tried: making magnets repel each other across the surface of the table, experimenting with distances and magnetic force, demonstrating magnetic attraction through other materials (such as cardboard and one of her books), and using a magnet to make a paper clip chain. I used other metal objects to show Evie that not all types of metal are magnetic. 
• Experiment: Pipe cleaner bottle. I rinsed out the pop bottle that I had finished at lunch, peeled off the label, and brought it out for us to use in an experiment. I cut up some pipe cleaners into little pieces, and Evie put them into the bottle. Then we used a magnet on the outside of the bottle to move the bits around. 
• Play: We played with some of Evie's magnetic toys, including some magnetic tiles. These were much more stable and fun to play with on a metal sheet. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. From now on, when we play with the magnetic tiles, we will use the cookie sheet! I taught Evie how to build a house, and then built some other forms (which she admired, and then promptly knocked down). 

Rocks, Minerals, and Fossils: Part 2

Rock Show!!!

The rock show was amazing this year. I went twice: once with the kids, and once without, to be able to look around more. They had a lot of kid-friendly activities set up, and so many of the people were really interested in teaching kids. There were a few stations where an egg carton was provided, and a kid could fill it with rocks, minerals, and fossils, and then label them, all for 50 cents. We went to both stations that provided this activity. There were some great ladies and gentlemen running these booths, and they helped the kids each step of the way. I overheard one man explaining the Moh's hardness scale to a middle-school boy (he was talking about how your fingernail, which is rated at 2.5 hardness on the scale, can scratch gypsum, which is lower). The specimens were even sorted by category: igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary. Evie loved standing up on her tippy-toes to choose a specimen from each of the trays. She's been carrying her egg cartons around all over the place ever since we got home, and showing them off to people. 

They had another 50 cent activity: fossil shark tooth excavation. It was a kiddie pool filled with sand, and they had put the fossils in there for kids to dig up. Once you had collected some, you got to choose your favorite one to keep, and the young ladies running the booth would help you identify which shark species it came from (This activity would be pretty easy to replicate this summer for some outdoor fun, perhaps when we study dinosaurs, which will be a big unit). Evie had so much fun with this! I think she would have happily excavated shark teeth for an hour if it had been possible. In the end, she chose a long sand shark tooth. The ladies handed us a sheet with information on identifying the fossils, and about the sharks they came from. 

So, for 75 cents, Evie got to do all of that! It took up a fair chunk of time. This is why I went back the next day, to actually look for some new additions to our cabinet of natural curiosities. 

There was also a small crowd gathered around a man who was using professional equipment to crack open large geodes. We've cracked small geodes on our own in the driveway before, so it was really interesting to watch the larger ones being opened.
This is all aside from looking at all of the rocks, minerals, gems, fossils, insect specimens, and more that were on display. We saw mastodon teeth, gigantic crystal formations, dinosaur teeth, huge taxidermy walking stick insects, framed butterflies, skulls...basically there was a fascinating teaching opportunity around every corner. By far the best part, as far as Evie was concerned, were her own rock collections. As soon as she had those, she didn't pay attention to much else. I keep finding the egg cartons in random rooms of the house, because she carries them all over the place.
When I returned the next day, I obtained a fossilized fish, a fern fossil, a framed metallic green beetle, and some beautiful minerals. When I got home, I looked at all of them with Evie, then we put them in the display cabinet.
This was a wonderful experience, and we will certainly be doing this again next year!

Rocks, Minerals and Fossils: Part 1

This week, we will be learning about one of my favorite subjects, which will culminate in a trip to our local rock show. We have a modestly-sized rock collection, and we add to it whenever possible. Hopefully, we find some interesting pieces! Evie loves when I get out the toolbox and just let her look through all of the rocks, minerals, and fossils. She will line them up, sort them, and put them in glass vials. At some point in the near future, I'm going to have to figure out a new storage solution, as the toolbox is quite full and not very well organized. Almost none of the pieces are labeled: I just have to remember what is what. I'd much prefer it all to be neatly squared away and easily accessible, so this will have to be a project sometime soon. Evie also has her own little nature collection, which includes some little rocks and minerals that she has found/purchased at gift shops. It's always such fun for a kid to fill up one of those little velvety pouches with as many shiny stones as they can from a giant bin. There are some fun activities for kids at the rock show, and Evie is really excited about it.

Books

• Let's Go Rock Collecting by Roma Gans
• The Extinct Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta
• Pebbles, Sand, and Silt by Bonnie A Piotrowski
• Gemstones by Ann O. Squire
• The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth by Joanna Cole
• Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
• Eyewonder: Rocks and Minerals from DK Publishing
• Milo and the Magical Stones by Marcus Pfister
• The Dog that Dug for Dinosaurs by Shirley Raye Redmond

• Experiment: Crystal growing. We bought two different kits for kids. One of them came with two rocks and you put in a tray of solution and then let sit for a few hours. This one didn't turn out too well. I suspect I did something wrong to mess it up. The second one was just some colored sodium polyacrylate: the same absorbent substance found in diapers. This worked well, but wasn't too representative of actual rock crystals, apart from perhaps their shape. It was a fun sensory experience though. The cubes were very squishy, and my daughter quickly set about pulverizing them. 
• Hands-on: Collection. I brought out my toolbox full of rocks, minerals and fossils, opened it up, and let Evie rummage through it. I would point out a few and tell her the names, and she sat by herself and looked at them for a while. Then, I opened up my glass cabinet and pulled out my special pieces, such as large slabs of petrified wood, a dinosaur eggshell, a fossilized bison tooth, agatized coral, a meteorite, orthoceras fossils, ammonites and trilobites, and more. We set them all out on the table, and I let Evie touch and examine each of them, one at a time, as I told her what they were. 
• Activity: Gemstone excavation kit. We've done one of these before, and it was a lot of fun. It's also good toddler busy-work, if you have other things to get done. This time, though, I did it with her, and we took turns chipping away at the sandy brick, pretending to be gemologists. We didn't actually find anything remarkable; it's more about the activity, anyway. We got a few clear quartz and one piece of amethyst. They were all small and polished, and Evie added them to her own small rock collection. 

Earthworms

We've been waiting for a while for the weather to warm up enough to go out and look for worms. It's still quite chilly out, but it's quick and easy to flip over a log. Earthworms are a very easy study with a toddler, mainly because they are all over the place. They are also an animal that a little kid can hold and handle. It's always much more engaging for a kid to learn about something if there's a live example right in front of them that they can touch and examine. When I was little, I was constantly out digging for worms and trying to find the biggest nightcrawler I could. So it is fun and nostalgic to do this with my daughter. 

Here are the main points that I will teach my toddler today:

1. Worms are invertebrates. 
2. Worms have no ears, teeth or eyes. They have spots on their segments that are sensitive to light. They breathe through their skin. They have four hearts. They are hermaphrodites. Overall, worms have very interesting anatomy. 
3. Worms are very sensitive to light. They can't be in the sunlight for more than an hour, or they will dry out. They are covered in slime, and need to be in dark, moist environments. 
4. Worms help the Earth. They aerate the soil, making it better for plants to grow. They decompose decaying matter and create more dirt. They are a source of food for many, many species, some of which we ourselves eat. 

Books

• 
  
  • Wiggling Worms at Work by Wendy Pfeffer
  • Worm Weather by Jean Taft
  • Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin

Activities

• Experiment/ Outdoors: Worm farm. We went outside and flipped over a log to find some earthworms. We also got some soil and dead leaves and brought it all inside to put on a tray. We sorted through the dirt to count out the earthworms (eight), and took note of other tiny animals. We poured all of the dirt into a tall glass cylinder, then piled the leaves on top. Evie also put a bite of her pbj sandwich in there, saying she was sharing with her friends. We took a few moments to observe the worms on white paper, talking about how they move and feel. Evie held one of the worms and just stared at it for a while. Then I said that they are very sensitive to the light, so if we wanted to be good friends to them, we had to let them dig down into the moist soil so that they could feel safe and comfortable. We set the worm farm in the bathroom, and will check on them periodically throughout the week. At the end of the week, we will put them back in the garden where they belong. Evie was very gentle with the worms, and I enjoy any opportunity to have her handle something small and living. I want her to learn to think of other beings and what they need, even if they are nearly at the bottom of the food chain. 

• Observation: The robins are back, so we spent some time watching them out the window as they hunted for worms in the yard. We counted the birds, and watched them tap the ground and then pull up a worm to eat. Worms are food for a lot of animals, and they are part of many food webs. 
• Pretend play: Wiggle on the floor like a worm! See who can wriggle the farthest. Pretend to burrow under pillows as though digging a hole into the dirt. 
• Experiment: Growing gooey worms. We found this little test tube kit at our local Dollar Tree. They're just little plastic worms that grow when you put them in water (and they get pretty slimy, too!). We will monitor their growth over the next couple of days. It also came with a sheet with some pretty interesting facts. For instance, there can be upwards of one million worms in one acre of land. Also, the largest worm ever found was in South Africa, and it was 22 FEET long!!!
• Demonstration: Use a flexible straw to explain worm segments and how they move. Contract and expand the straw as though it were crawling. Have toddler twist the straw in every direction. Describe how worms are invertebrates, which is why they can twist any way they want and fit through small places.
• Activity: Worm coloring pages. 
• Video: Wild Kratts: Mystery of the Squirmy Wormy. On Amazon Prime. This was a great episode. I even learned something new from it: worms cannot drown! There is a myth perpetuated that worms come up when it rains because otherwise they would drown in their burrows. This is, in fact, false!

Water

When I learned that our local museum would have an exhibit on the water cycle, I pulled out all of the material I had on the subject (which turned out to not be as much as I'd like, but oh, well). We wanted to study up before we went to see the exhibit! I also decided to teach Evie about floating vs. sinking. Water is always fascinating for toddlers, and they also love dropping objects into water. So there's a set-up for one experiment already.


Books

• Follow the Water from Brook to Ocean by Arthur Dorros
• Floating and Sinking by Amy S. Hansen
• The Magic School Bus at the Waterworks by Joanna Cole
• A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder by Walter Wick
• El Tiempo/ Weather by Lee Aucoin

 Activities

• 
  Pretend Play: Brook. This activity was inspired by the book Follow the Water from Brook to Ocean. Also, I had a lot of recycling that I hadn't rounded up yet, and decided to have some fun with it. For some reason, Amazon uses gigantic rolls of brown paper as packing material. When smoothed out, it is quite wide and long and great to throw on the floor for coloring projects. In this case, we grabbed some crayons and drew on squiggly water lines. Then I fashioned a "cave" out of a large box, and decided that our brook would come from a spring flowing out of the cave. We went inside the cave together and drew "cave paintings" on the ceiling. Experiment: Float or Sink? We actually did this experiment twice, because it is so easy to set up anywhere. For the first time, I grabbed a large bowl and filled it with water. Then I set out a piece of paper with a line drawn down the middle, and a big F on one side (for float) and an S on the other (for sink). I brought out a tray of random objects, and then let Evie drop them in the water, and sort them on the paper. We read the book Floating and Sinking a few times. We talked about density, and how air is lighter than water. This experiment was repeated in the bathtub. I had her guess whether an object would float or sink before she dropped it into the water. 
• Experiment: Water Cycle Bag. I remember doing this experiment in school. Use a permanent marker to draw the water cycle on the Ziploc bag, with arrows for condensation, precipitation, and evaporation. Then add some water to the bag (we also added a drop of blue food coloring), and seal shut. Tape to a window and wait. 
• Trip: Public Museum. Field trip!