Florida: Oranges

Florida's state flower is the orange blossom flower and their state beverage is orange juice.  So we worked on oranges for the state of Florida.  We were spoiled when living in Florida because we had a wonderful navel orange tree.  We miss it.  A couple of days ago, Arin said, "Mommy, our grapes are all gone, are we going to plant oranges now?"  Looks like she also misses the convenience of fruit growing in our yard.

We bought a bag of oranges from the grocery store - I never recommend doing this, but we had no other options.   We had planned to juice some of the oranges, but most of them were dried out, more like end of the season oranges than beginning of the season oranges.  Very disappointing!

We read:
An orange in January by Dianna Hutts Aston
Oranges to Orange Juice by Inez Snyder
From Oranges to Orange Juice by Kristin Thonnes Keller
A Star in My Orange by Dana Meachen Rau
 
We made orange cream cheese cut out cookies.  To go along with fall, we made them in leaf shapes.  The recipe tells how to make frosting for them, but we prefer them without the icing.

 

We also did a couple of experiments with oranges and orange juice.  First, we cut the ends off of an orange to see if one end is sweeter than the other.  The blossom end is sweeter. 

 

After tasting the orange ends, we cut the oranges up and had them for a snack.

Next, I poured water in one glass and an equal amount of orange juice in another glass.  I told Arin that we were going to put 1 teaspoon of baking soda in each glass.  I asked her which one she thought would bubble when the baking soda was added.  She guessed the water.  It was actually the orange juice.  This is because orange juice is an acid, which when mixed with the baking soda, it releases the carbon dioxide from the baking soda.  We also tasted the new "orange soda".  It was terrible!

 

For our last experiment, we filled two glasses halfway with orange juice.  I told Arin that we would be adding half a teaspoon of baking soda to one glass and half a teaspoon of baking powder to the other.  I asked her which she though would bubble more.  She said the baking soda.  This time she was right.  This is because when you add baking soda to the acid (orange juice) you are upsetting the balance of acid and alkalai, actually adding more acid to the mixture.  We learned our lesson and did not taste these mixtures!

Florida: Strawberries

Florida is famous for their Plant City Strawberries.  Plant City, FL is also known as the winter strawberry capital of the world.

Today, we read:

Sweet as a Strawberry by Sally Smallwood
Sweet Strawberries by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Saving Strawberry Farm by Deborah Hopkinson

We also read more of our chapter book, Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski.

We made our favorite strawberry smoothies for breakfast. I usually measure the ingredients and then Arin does the rest.
1 cup frozen strawberries
1 banana
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. vanilla yogurt
drizzle of honey
Blend together.  This makes about 2 cups of smoothie, which is enough for the girls and I to share.

Next we made strawberry bread.  The recipe can be found here.  It was the first time any of us had strawberry bread.  It was a huge hit!

Lastly, Arin had a fun time with a strawberry craft, which was inspired by No Time for Flashcards.  Arin put the seeds, one by one, on a strawberry.

Florida: Dolphins

Florida's state salt water mammal is the dolphin. 

Today we read:
Baby Dolphin by Julie D. Shively
A Whale of a Tale! by Bonnie Worth
If Dolphin were a Fish by Loran Wlodarski

We have other dolphin books on order at the library, but they are not in yet and I would like to finish up Florida and move on to another state, so we read what we had and did a few activities to go along with our books.

I started out by asking Arin what letter the word dolphin started with.  She quickly responded with a "d".  I printed out this letter Dd and Arin practiced writing it.

Next, I printed these dolphin number cards.  I mixed them up and gave them to Arin to put in order.  She had them finished almost before I could grab the camera.  (also noticed that my pictures are blurry because my camera was on the wrong setting and I didn't realize it.  grrr!)

Next, Arin used the dolphin number cards for a different counting game.  I gave her a bowl of goldfish crackers and told her to feed each dolphin one fish.  She would count out the number of goldfish needed for each card before placing them on the dolphins.

Arin also completed a dolphin dot-to-dot (this one has numbers 1-18).

Finally, I found a dolphin coloring page online (cannot remember where I found this).  I shrunk it to fit four dolphins per page.  Then, I drew small circles on half of the dolphins (1-12) and the corresponding numeral on the other half of the dolphins (1-12).  I laid the numeral dolphins, in order, in front of Arin.  The dotted dolphins we handed to her, in random order, to count and place on top of the correct numeral dolphin.

Florida: Beach

It's been a while since we have worked on our "Reading Our Way Around the USA" project.  Last month, we spent a week and a half away enjoying the Florida beaches.  So, today, when we resumed our project, we chose to start back by learning about beaches.  Florida has 663 miles of beaches.  Florida has the second largest shoreline in the USA (first is Alaska).

Today we read several beach books:
Let's Take a Walk on the Beach by Karen O'Connor
Beach Play by Marsha Hayles
Beach Day by Patricia Lakin
My Beach Book (Smithsonian Book)
The Florida Water Story: From Raindrops to the Sea by Peggy Sias Lantz
To the Beach! by Linda Ashman
Beach is to Fun: a book of relationships by Pat Brisson
Beach by Elisha Cooper
Warm Sun, Soft Sand by Lenzi West
Beaches by Joann Macken
The Sand, The Sea and Me by M. Jean Craig
 
We also did several activities to go along with the beach theme.
 
I put some sand in a casserole dish and Arin practiced making some of her letters.  I had planned on working on the concept of vowels, but Arin was most interested in making Q's, so we just went with that instead.

 

Next we talked about beach erosion.  We packed some wet sand on one side of a casserole dish.  Then we poured some water into the dish.  Arin rocked the dish back and forth to make waves and to wash away the sand.

Next, Arin colored some sand.

 

With the colored sand, Arin made a layered sand bottle.

Ella loves to do school also, so she colored a picture of Florida.

Next, we printed out a coloring book picture of a sailboat.  We put the picture under a piece of glass (from a picture frame).  Arin traced the picture onto the glass.  Then, she painted the sections of the glass with glue.  Once she finished a section, she sprinkled colored sand onto that section. She repeated with the remaining sections until her picture was finished.

Next, we threw in a little science.  I filled a glass to the top with warm water.  Then, Arin, slowly poured in a half cup of salt.  The cup of water did not overflow because the salt took up the spaces between the water molecules.

Next, Arin made a wave in a bottle.  She filled a clear plastic bottle halfway with water, added a few drops of blue food coloring, and filled the rest of the bottle with oil.  Ella really liked these wave bottles and she carried her bottle with her for a long time.

The last project, seemed to be the most difficult for Arin.  A few nights ago, I was looking at the Montessori Moments blog.  On there, she had her children write stories using pages of magazines as writing prompts.  I tried this with Arin, but she wasn't grasping the concept too well.  I asked her to tell me a story about the picture that I cut out of the magazine.  She said she couldn't because she couldn't read.  So I told her an example of what I was looking for.  She still wasn't too interested in making up a story.  So I asked her several questions and got her talking that way.   We will be doing more of this type of activity in the future to get more creativity flowing.

Arin's much prompted story.

Mommy: What's happening in this picture.

Arin: There was a little girl and she blewed in a shell and she splashed in the water and then made a sand castle and then she went back home.

Mommy: What did she do when she got home?

Arin: She made a sandcastle.

Mommy: So she made a sandcastle at home and at the beach?

Arin: Yes

Mommy: What's the little girl's name?

Arin: Shelly

Mommy: How old's Shelly?

Arin: Three

Florida: Panther

The state mammal of Florida is the panther. This is an endangered (said to be less than 100 left) type of cougar.

Today we read:

S is for Sunshine: A Florida Alphabet by Carol Crane

Have You Seen My Cat? by Eric Carle

Panther: Shadow of the Swamp by Jonathan London

Florida Panther: Struggle for Survival by William Caper

Lisa in the Jungle by Anne Gutman (this book has nothing to do with FL, other than it talks about panthers, but they happen to be black panthers. We incorporated it anyway).

I really wanted Arin to make a diorama, but we didn't have a shoe box, so we settled for a picture instead. First, I had her paint a piece of cardstock blue. She loves to paint, so this was great fun for her.

Next, we looked through magazines and gathered pictures of foliage. Arin cut these pictures into small pieces.

She used the pieces to glue to the bottom of the painted page as grass (mosiac). We let the picture finish drying overnight.

Today, we went outside together and gathered pine needles and small branches from trees. I also printed two panther pictures from enchantedlearning.com . Arin colored the panthers brown and I cut them out for her. She glued them onto her picture, along with the tree branches. For the sun, I painted her finger and helped her press it onto paper in a circular pattern. I cut that out and Arin glued it where she wanted it.

To find out more about the Florida Panther, you can visit:

http://www.floridapanthernet.org/

http://www.floridapanther.org/

http://www.fl-panther.com/

http://www.bigcatrescue.org/florida_panther.htm