What Does the Fox Say? Unit Study

By now, most people are familiar with the hit song "The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)" by Norwegian artist Ylvis, who went viral when his video debuted in 2013.

And if not, have a listen.

Aidyn loved it at first listen and has since played the song a gajillion times and even recorded his own lip-syncing video of "What Does the Fox Say?". And like any good homeschooling parent, when my child is obsessed with something, I turn it into a unit study. Ha, ha.

I scoured the internet for a pre-made WDtFS unit study and only found cutesy ones for younger children, so I scraped some ideas together and created a fun, age-appropriate study for Aidyn.

Language Arts: Introduction to Satire

In case you weren't aware, Ylvis released a children's book based on his YouTube viral video, but recreating all the silly fox sounds rests all on your shoulders.

So I asked Aidyn to read it to me.

We talked about how goofy the song and the lyrics are...

...and that the song is a satire of pop songs with insanely stupid lyrics somehow topping the charts. I gave Aidyn a very simple definition of satire: something that makes fun of something else to make a point. In this case, it's a song that makes fun of other popular songs to prove that society gravitates toward silly songs based on how catchy they are.

For fun, we read other children's satires like:

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs is a fractured fairy tale of "The Three Little Pigs." Author Jon Scieszka could be satirizing victim mentality, as the wolf blames his harmless cold and the pigs' rudeness for their own demise. Aidyn loved hearing the other side of this familiar story.

We also read another of Scieszka's books, The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales.

Now this is a FUN read. Familiar fairy tales are not only distorted but laugh-out-loud funny to read. 

 

We also watched Spaceballs because it's hilarious and why not?  to learn more about satire and parody.

Language Arts: Read-Alouds:

We read more serious fox stories like Red Fox Running by Eve Bunting.

Wendell Minor's paintings in the book are truly beautiful. 

We also read a chapter book called Ereth's Birthday (by Avi), a poignant story of a grumpy porcupine who cares for three fox kits when their mother dies.

Language Arts/Vocabulary: Morse

"But if you meet a friendly horse, will you communicate by Morse?"

Aidyn wasn't sure what "morse" meant, so we read Radio Rescue by Lynne Barasch. The story follows a young boy who, at the age of 10, became the youngest licensed amateur wireless radio operator in 1923. 

In a world of tablets, smart phones, and computers, we don't usually hear about Morse code and "ham" radios, but Aidyn found it fascinating.

He even practiced "tapping" his name in Morse code with a guide at the back of the book.

Social Studies/Geography: Norway

Because Ylvis is Norwegian, we learned a bit about Norway with this book:

We talked about the geography of Norway, its mountains and fjords, the weather, its rich history and royal family, the Sami ethic group that lives there, the food, and their languages. Aidyn was especially interested in the Sami people and did some copywork about them.

Science: Fox study and What Do Foxes Really Say?

We used Foxes  by Sandra Markle to learn about foxes.

Aidyn picked his favorite fox fact for copywork.

He worked on handwriting with fox facts.

And then, we answered the question: what do foxes really say?

We learned that foxes actually make a lot of different sounds from barks to purrs, mating calls, and gekkering. Aidyn busted a gut when we heard a fox "scream" in the video.

Art: Drawing foxes

We spent an afternoon learning to draw foxes with the help of a couple YouTube videos:

Makin' Memories: Baking fox food (aka Blueberry Muffins)

In our studies, we learned that foxes love eating berries, so we made some yummy blueberry muffins. 

Even Jack got in on the fox fun--even if all he did was dress up!

We had a blast turning Ylvis's song into a fun and foxy unit study! We're guaranteed to remember all we did whenever we hear that silly song (which I'm sure will be at least 547 times a week until Aidyn finds something else to annoy me with  share with me!) 

Steppin' into Summer

Summer has officially begun and, oh, have we celebrated!

On the last day of first grade, I sneaked off to the store and purchased a bag of water balloons, which I filled up while Aidyn and his pals were playing outside. I launched one from our patio, and the kids went wild.

I opened the door and asked, "Is it raining water balloons or something?" and laughed, bringing out two laundry baskets full of colorful water bombs.

The kids separated into teams of three and battled 'til they were drenched.

On the whole, they had a blast, but Aidyn got a bit upset when he was struck on the back with a water balloon. That's the point of the game, dude! : )

I randomly put paint into a Ziplock bag and taped it to the table, waiting for Aidyn to discover it. When he did, he had fun moving, squishing, and mixing the paint without his hands (or my table!) getting messy.

I took Aidyn and his upstairs neighbor-friend to a local library program where Ravioli the Clown was doing magic tricks.

Fire coming out one of his books about dragons...

Ravioli handing out candy to each child individually.

We have also spent many days swimming (though I'm usually in the water and, therefore, not taking pictures). Aidyn has relearned to swim at the level he was at last summer, and so far this summer has ditched the swimming vest for two arm floaties, learned to hold his breath underwater, and learned to "dive" with his goggles and see underwater. Most days his friends are at the pool, too, and they all play and splash together.

On another day, Aidyn and two of his friends came in to paint. We just got a book from the library about how to paint animals using your hands. 

Photo credit

We made peacocks, like the one in the center, but alas, no pictures because my hands were a blue and green mess.

We're having fun this summer, and this is just the start! 

What are you doing this summer?

Prehistory and The First Dog

This week, we traveled back in time. Way back in time.

We spent a week learning about prehistoric man (and woman, and child, and even dog!) through books, videos, projects, and play-acting.

Throughout the week, we rowed The First Dog by Jan Brett. Brett is an amazing writer and illustrator so, despite this book not being available on homeschoolshare.com, it was super easy to row it.

The story is about a cave boy named Kip who finds Paleowolf following him around, sniffing and whining for his leftover Wooly Rhino Rib and  getting him out of trouble with the other dangerous animals. It's not until Paleowolf saves Kip from the Saber-Tooth Cat that he realizes that he and Paleowolf would make excellent companions.

Day #1: Art

On early Monday morning, I made a cave behind our living room couch. I cut apart paper bags, crinkled them, smoothed them out and makeshift-wallpapered them. When Aidyn woke up, he climbed around in his cave, and that is where we read our book for the first time.

 

Afterward, we cracked open Cave Paintings to Picasso,  a children's book about art. I read about the cave art discovered in Lascaux, France by four boys and their dog. As I read, Aidyn colored a picture of cave art for our timeline.

On Monday, we also watched Walking with Cavemen, a spectacular show about early man, starting with Australopithecus afarensis.

Of course, the episodes garnered many questions.
Why did they live in trees?
Why did they have so much hair?
How did they change?
How long did it take us to change like that?

He was particularly irritated that it did not show a clear metamorphosis, that it just jumped from one species to another. We consulted The Best Book of Early People to see a clearer progression of our march through time.

Day #2: Math and Science

While reading The First Dog on the second day, we counted the different illustrations of wolves, mammoths, and sabor-tooth cats. Afterward, we counted the bone beads and arrowheads we had picked up at The Bone Room In Berkeley and made patterns and letter shapes.

Aidyn also watched an episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy on evolution. Here's part one of the episode we watched:

We kept up the dialogue about cave people and read Mammoth by Patrick O'Brien.

We learned all about mammoths and that they were one of the last prehistoric creatures to die off!

We also read a chapter or two from The Magic Tree House: Sunset of the Sabretooth  each day.

Day #3: Language Arts/Poetry

On Day 3 of reading The First Dog, I asked Aidyn to keep an ear out for descriptive words. I gave him some examples, and he was able to locate others pretty quickly. We discussed the power of description, how it can help us visualize sights, scents, sounds, tastes, and feelings. We compared the two sentences:

I have some food.
I have a big bowl of steaming, hot, buttery popcorn.

He was eating a bowl of celebratory ice cream at the time so he went into a full-on description of its yummy goodness. Then we read two poems about color, "What is Pink?" by Christina Rosetti and "What is Orange?" by Mary O'Neill. After discussing them, we talked about the color brown and what it looks and feels like. The result was this dictated poem:

Brown looks like beans, a roof, worm food, and caramel.
Brown sounds like dust.
Brown feels like dirt and mud.
Brown smells like mud and poop.
Brown tastes like dirt and the "worms in mud" that my Mama makes.

Inspired by Bill Nye, we also conducted a light science experiment. In his episode, Bill Nye explained that some plants have adapted to survive practically any condition. Moss is one of those die-hard plants. We found some moss growing near our home. As instructed, we tossed some clumps of moss in the blender with some milk and liquified the poor thing.

Aidyn, adding the milk.

Apparently it is hilarious to disintegrate moss and taunt it to survive.

 

After, we poured it outside. And now we play the waiting game to see if moss has, in fact, evolved to survive any kind of harsh treatment.

 

Day #4: light animal study

On the fourth day of reading The First Dog, Aidyn made a wolf mask and colored a wolf picture for a mini-book. He roamed in his cave and play-acted as a hungry paleowolf.

 

 

Later in the day, we played History Bingo, with cave people-related words and phrases in the boxes and pulled questions from a hat. Types of questions included: What did scientists name the Australopithecus afarensis skeleton they found? Early people used this type of plant as a wick for stone lamps. Homo habilis was the first to use stones as what?

 

 

In our freetime, we also watched a couple episodes of the Walking with Beasts series, particularly the one on Australopithecus and sabretooth cat. We also watched Clan of the Cave Bear twice, though I kept alert to fast-forward through certain scenes.

 

We also ate "cave food." I made roasted mini-mammoth legs (chicken drumsticks) and wild turkey soup (a mix of celery, carrots, onion, turkey, broth and wild rice).

 

We had such a blast learning about early people and prehistoric beasts! I could have probably stayed with the subject for another week, but he's bugging to move on to Egypt.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Unit Study

For the first week of homeschool, we started with a gentle unit study of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault (same duo who wrote one of our favorites, The Ghost Eye Tree) and illustrated by Lois Ehlert who has illustrated and written many beautiful children's stories.

 

 

We rowed the book for five days. At the start of each day, I would read it and we would focus on a specific aspect of the book.

 

 

Day 1: Rhyme and Palm Tree Art

 

 

On Day One, we found the rhymes in the story and made up new ones. Then Aidyn painted a "forearm and palm" tree.

 

 

 





Day Two: Math

On the second day, we counted the letters in our names to see who had the most letters and who had the least letters.

Day Three: Patterns and Kitchen Fun

On the third day, we made an ABC pattern on the board and created ABC Kabobs. Prior to the lesson, I chopped up apples, bananas, and cantaloupes. Aidyn strung the fruit pieces in ABC order and devoured them happily.

Stringing away.

Speaking of food, we also snacked on these beauties:

Pudding cup base, smashed graham cracker sand, Pirouette mint wafer trunk, and Fruit Roll-Up leaves.

Cashew butter graham cracker sandwiches and Granny Smith apple leaves.


Day Four: Music and Collage Art

On the fourth day, we listened to a musical version of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

We also watched some videos about Lois Ehlert's art. It garnered many "oooo"s and "awww"s from Aidyn.

We then set out on a nature walk to gather supplies for our own collages. When we got back, we made these:

 

Aidyn's Yellow Man.

 

 

Mama's Ocean Scene.

 



Day Five: The Science of Coconut-Smashing

To the beat of Hawaiian music, we whacked open a coconut.

After the nail failed to do much, we switched to the chisel.

 

 Pouring out a little bit of coconut water.
In order to completely crack open the hard shell, we had to wrap the coconut in a towel and demolish it with a hammer. Aidyn proudly assumed that task.

 

This has to be the winning shot.

Afterward, we scraped our teeth on coconut meat and shredded some up for later.

We had a blast with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and while Aidyn was a little sad during our "last" reading of it, I'm sure we'll come back and read it again.

Many of these ideas came from Homeschool Share.