After
the success of our hedgehog unit it was Sweet Pea's chance to choose a
topic.. and her latest obsession?
Owls.. anything owly will count....
and luckily there is no shortage of that!!
It
started innocently enough with a request from Sweet Pea asking if we
could see owlets.. which led us to this fantastic live feed of a Great Horned Owl
nest.... we were able to watch a pair of owls, lay eggs and incubate
them. We watched two owlets hatch, get fed, grow and fly away... it was
just fantastic! Even now that they are gone, we have found a
Barred Owl to watch... the three eggs are being incubated..right now!
Next
step was to find a great read aloud book about owls...
Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat was a perfect fit. The kidlets both enjoyed the
laugh out loud funny adventures of a couple of pet owls and thought it
was great that it is based in Canada.
I
had a harder time finding a good lapbook to go with this unit but was
able to put one together from multiple sources and use what we wanted
from each... There were a couple that we wanted to add, so we made our
own from the homeschoolshare website templates.
A
friend of mine showed us some great owl rocks we could make! So we
made a trip down to the river where we searched for the perfect sized
and shaped rocks, washed them off and got out our sharpies....
Sweet Pea drew some great owls...
Goober, on the other hand, made some hedgehog rocks!
We have had a great
owl pellet dissection app
for awhile now.. the kidlets love it... they have to find an owl,
gather the pellets, take them apart and identify the prey and how it
fits into a food chain. It is well worth the cost of the app..
But
of course I need the real thing sometimes!
I found a place in Calgary
that
sells owl pellets.......... and made an
order.....
They
were fantastic.... the kidlets used their booklet from the lapbook to
record their observations through the dissection and the bone
identification chart that came with the kit was awesome!
They both found multiple skulls in their pellets and were able to identify them on their own!
Here are the finished lapbooks... Sweet Pea opted for an owl drawing on the front of hers...
Goober found a picture in an old magazine to cut out...
And finally to finish up our Owl unit we did some
yoga to an owlet story... I just recently discovered Cosmic Kids Yoga and we are loving it!!
This was a fantastic unit... so much fun and I'm sure we could have spent a lot more time on owls!!
Which happened when Sweet Pea decided on an owl theme for her birthday.. check out these great snacks, cupcakes and craft!
