There's water at the bottom of the ocean

Please forgive my very long absence! Talk about a long Christmas break! It was lovely but I'm very glad to be back to some semblance of routine.

Last week we started back to regular "school" with an ocean study. I like doing unit studies in January because it's a kind of nice transition between the holidays and our regular routine.

So here's what we've done so far and what we're planning for the next few weeks:

Of course, we had to start with one of our favorite FIAR books, Night of the Moonjellies.

followed by these two gems:

The Mysterious Undersea World which shows kids exploring tide pools and coral reefs and even deep-sea submersibles. An older book but very cool.

This book, Incredible Ocean, is just gorgeous, with two-page spreads and close-ups of all kinds of sea creatures. After we picked it up at the library, the boys were so engrossed that when we got to the grocery store, it was a major disappointment that it couldn't come in with us.

We also loved Ultimate Field Trip 3: Wading into Marine Biology, where a group of middle school students explore marine biology at the Maine coast and The sometimes island, a story that helps explain tides as it tells of a boy who sneaks off to explore a peninsula that turns into an island when he isn't looking.

Little Man is really into dot-to-dots lately and has enjoyed Ocean Dot-to-Dot which has helped him with counting and alphabetizing. And we all loved Over in the Ocean, In a Coral Reef:

the illustrations are done completely with polymer clay and are just amazing! At the end of the book, the artist tells how she achieved some of the effects. Watch out if you read this one - you may want to run right out and invest a fortune in FIMO clay.

This is getting long so I think I'll have to do the ocean unit in a series of posts, but let me just leave you with this one project: a pop-up barnacle!

I tried to take a picture that would show that it actually worked - it pops up! How cool is that? I found this and some other great, free printables at Ellen McHenry's Basement Workshop - wonderful stuff there!

I'll continue our ocean adventure in another post - hopefully very soon!