Owl Moon {FIAR}

The kids acted like owls, they stood on branches way up high in the tree  ( the couch ) and jumped down onto the floor catching mice and other small rodents ( pom poms) with their talons (feet) then dropped their prey in their nest (shoe box)

Falcon has 2  in each of his feet

Robin and Duck showing me what they caught

It was quite funny to see them scramble around and walk with prey in their feet.

Survival of the fittest  ( a game we played with added incentive to get the most cookies for snack)
 After they had all practiced a few times I explained how only the fittest survive in the wild then when I said "go" they were instructed to jump from the trees ( couch) and catch rodents ( pom poms) however many they were able to catch would  equal to the amount of cookies I would give them for snack. Some might say this was mean but it really got the point across on how important it is to stay fit and to practice often in anything you do so you can perfect your technique  and become a master in whatever they choose.

We went owling as well. Not outside at night though, Falcon has a stuffed Snowy owl and Owl has a stuffed Great Horned owl. At night I would hide the owls somewhere in the house ( always up high because that's where owls would be) and the kids would go owling every morning. We did this all week long, they loved it.

Owl lunch- all the kids enjoyed creating their owl personal edible owls.I put out all sorts of foods and let them decide how to do their owl. This is Robin's she even chose coconut flakes at the bottom for snow (kinda hard to see in the picture).

Falcon who is 12 is to old to do most of the projects along with the FIAR books but he does participate sometimes and do some of the go along art and science projects.He usually reads the book at least once to my littles at circle time.

 He  looked through the book picking out similes and metaphors

Moon Talk 

We discussed the many powers of the moon and how it affects gravitational pull and the tides. Since our body is made up of mostly water we discussed how full moons may effect our bodies. Their grandmother is always saying how crazy people are out during full moons and that the hospitals are usually the busiest on  nights of the year when there are full moons ( she is an RN at hospital).

We discussed the similarities of a woman's menstrual cycle along with the moon cycle, that can't just be a coincidence!

Oreo moon phase snack
I don't know if you have ever noticed but I have a moon phase widget on my blog page at the very bottom. You can get your own here.

We are now going to track moon phases for the rest of the year today today is a waxing crescent if I would have started a few days earlier it would have been a new moon and the start on a new cycle,

Art
We painted a winter scene using a monchome color scheme and made sure we added shadows that the moon cast onto the snow from the trees.

Falcon's art piece, notice the shadow the paint bottle is casting on the painting? I thought this was great, just as he finished painting  his tree shadow the sun projected a shadow on his art piece. Do you see the little owls in the tree? I love the 2 looking at each other on the right.

Robin's winter owl scene. I LOVE how these turned out.

Duck and Owl didn't really want to follow directions so this is what they came up with. The glue was still drying, it was the first time I allowed them to use Elmer's  glue instead of glue sticks so they got a little crazy!

A walk in the woods and nature studies
We listened to the sounds of bird calls at our local park

We watched woodland animals at the feeding station at the window on wildlife at our local metropark. ( I love our park system)

We went for a walk looking closely for any signs of animals.

Deer print?

Horse print?

Neat picture of frozen water rings.

Picture Robin colored and taped to her bedroom window we used this coloring book. It's such a neat book we bought it from a nature center over the summer I found it last week when de-cluttering.

We watched Snowflake Bentley and lots of other books on snow and winter.

This DVD actually contains the visual story on Snowflake Bentley, I highly advise watching  the DVD,it held my kids attention much better than the book, although we do have both. This DVD also contain another Five In A Row story as well.

We made paper snowflakes

We also made  these. I didn't  get a picture of ours so you can see the blog I got the idea from. We used a mix of pink, blue, and purple paint. We traced the snowflake with Elmer's glue after it was all dry and sprinkled it with  glitter for extra pizzazz. I will add a picture later in the week.

A few of our  additional books we read this week sticking with the Owl, moon, winter, snow theme.( although there are no snow or winter books pictured here)

Draw Write Now Book 2 has this owl drawing and writing project that we will do this weekend.
Here are some great links to other owl  projects
Drawing on owl
Owl Babies, A favorite book of my children check out this go along
Night Owl  this would b e great done in chalk or oil pastels
Winter wood, hidden owls  scroll all the way down it's second to last. I wish we would have done this one. The kids could have gathered sticks on a nature walk. There never is enough time in the week.