Nim's Island Activities, Chapters 15&16

~ Learning about the author, Wendy Orr ~

As a final wrap up to our summer book group, the kids were asked to write a letter to the author of Nim's Island, Wendy Orr.  Kids are so creative.  One wrote it in e-mail format (@TheGreatestKid.net), another told of our adventures in opening her own coconut, and several drew pictures.  We found a great Nim's themed education guide showing the parts of a letter, and discussed the difference between written mail and e-mail.    I will be sending off their messages this week.  Perhaps they will get a letter back!

Together we read through Mrs. Orr's correspondence with other kids, and they were delighted to hear that she began thinking of the story of Nim's Island as a child.   We brainstormed some ideas that we thought might become great stories.  I enjoy their originality confidence.

The highlight of our party was getting to eat lunch on a picnic blanket (huge thrills, I know!) in front of the TV while watching the movie based on the book.  

Later we made mixed media ocean scenes, Really mixed media.  They were sticker/chalk/paint/collage masterpieces.  

This afternoon we are going to look at Mrs. Orr's comments on the movie and  flip through the photos on the Nim's Island flicker account one last time, and then we will be done.  It is always a little bit sad to finish a great book.   

Nim's Island Activities - Chapters 13&14

~ Preparing for Emergencies ~

"The birds say there's a storm coming. GO TO THE EMERGENCY CAVE."

It is vital that children know how to respond to emergancy situations. Sometimes we get specific instructions, like Jack's warning to Nim above, and sometimes we don't. 

One of the simplest tasks children should learn is calling for help by dialing 911. We practiced this with the removable cell phone that we made for our Nim poster (A simple piece of foam with a few numbers drawn on it, velcroed to Nim's hand).  Each child took a turn borrowing it from Nim and dialing 911. I pretended to be the emergency operator, asking them to state the problem and their address. You would think that the answers would be fairly routine - not with this age group. When asking them to tell their address we got everything from blank stares, to "the United States of America," to "No, I don't wear a dress." Kids crack me up! :o)

We also talked quite a bit about WHEN to call 911 - and when not to. You can see a short sonic clip here that reinforces the idea that 911 is only for emergencies.

Our next safety topic was fire safety.  Isaac's Fire drill was a huge hit.  My kids love seeing other children in videos.  We acted out all of the steps, including touching the doorknob with the BACK of our hands, crawling quickly to safety, and going to our meeting spot.  The kids giggled as they raced from one of the house to the other on their knees.  

We also discussed using the fastest route to get out of the building after the kids watched the cartoon "Exit Strategy."   I printed these fire safety maps and they drew routes for each of the family members to take.    We talked through all of the options - including the silliest ones like "break through the wall to the kitchen" and "jump out the window just for fun."  

Although I didn't use it with the group, there are lots of fun online games and activities at Sparky the Fire Dog and WebTeach.    Hopefully we will have a chance to explore these sites more.  

Our craft for this week was sand candles.  It could kinda' tie in to the topic of fire safety, or preparing emergency supplies, but in reality, the main reason I chose it is simply because it looked like a lot of fun.  Gail at That Artist Woman has posted easy instructions.  

Lapbook elements:

911 shutter-fold book

Preparing for an emergency clip board

The tornado that hit Mic's house & Nim's Island-Ch 11 & 12

~ Understanding Fear ~

Fear can either protect or paralyze us.  In these two chapters of Nim's Island, and in real life this week, we learned about the difference.  

Nim is kid, on an island . . . alone.  She has to weather storms, falls, and encounters with the Troppo Tourist "bad-guys."  We simulated Nim's situation by playing with balloons.  We intentionally popped one, causing some of us (okay, it was mostly me) to jump. I asked the kids "what did you feel?" and we discussed how surprising things can signal that something is wrong, causing us to feel afraid.

The kids created a chart listing things that they are afraid of, and categorized them as good or bad.  Good fear being things that keep you safe - fear of standing in the middle of the road, or fear of falling off an unsupported ladder.  Bad fear being fears that are emotionally real but unnecessary, and prevent us from enjoying life - fear of the dark, or monsters. 

We talked about how the body's first reaction to the stressful situations we experience is physical.  We often call this the "fight or flight" reaction.  Muscles tighten, respiration increases, heart rate increases, and palms sweat when we are afraid.   After the initial physical reaction, is the emotional fallout which varies greatly from person to person.

After we discussed the physiology and psychology of fear, I allowed the kids to brainstorm how fear can be measured.  Then we conducted simple study using the materials from Homeschool Share to measure fear levels, compare groups, and create an average.  

Just for fun the kids watched classic cartoons of David and Goliath and Daniel.  I paused it several times to discuss the character's emotions.  

The kids studied only one bible verse and we added our bible verse and fear mini-book to our notebooks, but because of the tornado (which I keep alluding to and promise to share the story of soon) I'll post all of the verses that I studied while preparing for this lesson. 

1st occurance of fear - after the fall

Genesis 3:10  He (Adam) answered "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

Fear Not

Isaiah 41:14 Do not be afraid ... for I myself will help you," declares the Lord "Your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel."

Matthew 10:31  -  So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."

Fear God = Respect

Proverbs 1:7  -  The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

Psalm 112:1  -  Praise the Lord.  Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in his commands.

Psalm 112:7  -  He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast trusting in the Lord.

Should we be afraid of God?

Hebrews 10:22  Let us draw near to God with a sincere heard in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

Hebrews 10:19  -  Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the most high place by the blood of Jesus.

What should we do?

Phillipians 4:6  -  Do not be anxious for anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

When we can't, He can

Psalm 56:3  -  When I am afraid I will trust in you.

Phillipians 4:13  -  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Hebrews 4:16  -  Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive your mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Joshua 1:9  Have I not commended you? Be strong and courageous.  Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

And just for the record, the opposite of fear is courage - taking the right action even though the emotion of fear still exists.  It is okay to feel afraid, but let God dictate your actions.  

As a final activity we allowed the kids to watch Professor H and do his parachute craft.  This one was a HUGE  hit and the kids were thrilled to be allowed to interrupt their uncle's work and drop their parachutes from the highest point in the house (aka. his office).

Unfortunately we got a real life application just a two days later.  (yup - here is that story I keep promising)  My sister sent me this series of text messages.

we are in the basement.  a tornado is headed for our town.  i love you

Aug 19, 3:49 pm

we have no power and are sitting in the dark listening to the sirens...thanks for the prayers! i love you.

Aug 19 3:57 pm

its hitting us.  please pray.  i lovce youa!

Aug 19 4:03 pm

glass is breaking.  we are so scared.  i love you.

Aug 19 4:08 pm

I didn't hear from her again until 4:16 pm - The longest 8 minutes of my life - and when she did call she was speaking so fast that I could barely understand her - that fight or flight response kicking in.   I'm not kidding, I really have no idea what she said for the first few sentences.  I wanted so bad just to reach through the phone and hug her until she felt better.  

I can honestly say that it was one of the most fearful experiences of my life - and I wasn't even the one in the tornado.  Thankfully my sister and her family are all safe, although they lost a large chunk of their home to the storm.  You can see the sad photos on her blog.  

Nim's Island Activities - Chapters 9&10

~Bioluminescent Plankton~

Well, it has been a hard week here in our house.  I have had some pretty severe hip problems that we still haven't completely figured out (not a pinched nerve, not a broken bone, not a hernia), but thankfully with medication the pain is tolerable now.  On top of that, our family has come down with a doozy of a stomach virus.  Don't even ask how far behind I am with the housework.  

Despite our physical struggles, the kids were begging to do our Nim's projects today even thought their friends couldn't join us, so we charged ahead.  

In our family the Five in a Row book "Night of the Moonjellies" is always a favorite, so the topic of bioluminescence (literally translated living-light) has come up before.  It is amazing what big concepts kids can pick up from simple books.  We began our day by re-reading "Moonjellies" and then chapters 9 & 10 of Nim's Island.  The kids caught on quickly and pointed out the connection in chapter 10 when Jack says in his letter that the plankton "put on a great show last night."  (I just love it when they lead the lessons that I had already planned)  

I asked if they knew what plankton are.  They made a few cute guesses including "little teeny tiny animals, smaller than my fingernail, even half of it, even smaller than that!"  I showed them the photos that I found (several pages down) in this lesson plan from UCLA, and we discussed the many different types of plankton.

I explained to the kids that some, not all, plankton are bioluminescent.  We watched an intelligent design presentation by David Gallo, as well as What You Ought To Know (this one is geared toward a 3 year old).  

Just by chance, I found a package of 15 glow sticks at the craft store last week in the dollar section.  The kids had fun guessing how they work, and then breaking the inside compartment to allow the chemicals to mix.  They entertained me by running around in the dark pretending to be plankton.  Afterward we watched Seth's Super Science Show, which is quite long, but hilarious, and he explained the correlation.  

Inspired by Seth's great rendition of the bioluminescent version of the Beachboys "Surfin' USA" we searched for more songs.  We found this cute one with a video, and also a radio show by Earthwatch.  

Our craft was to draw our own personified plankton with google eyes.  Any craft with google eyes is a hit here.  My oldest tried to copy the illustration in the book, but decided that Protozoan Nim wasn't swirly enough so she "fixed it."  I wonder how Kerry Millard would feel about that.

If everyone had been feeling well, we may have played this fun bioluminescent tag game, or made plankton nets like the ones shown here, but I think we will save it for another time.  Time for a nap in our house.

Want to share our Nim's Island adventure? Join our Flickr pool to allow your kids to join in the discussion, and share their own photos and videos.

Nim's Island Unit - Chapters 7&8

~ Galileo the frigate bird & Galileo the scientist~

Nim's friend Galileo is a unique bird.  Although he is a tropical sea bird and feeds primarily on fish, frigates are uniquely designed to be lousy swimmers.  Their legs are short, preventing them from walking well, their feet are only partially webbed, limiting their mobility in the water, and their feathers actually soak in water rather than repel it like most sea birds.  This causes them to become far too heavy to move well.  But frigates are excellent at flying.  Their forked tail and large wingspan allow them to have great accuracy.  We saw some great footage of frigates in flight from BBC (warning to sensitive parents: video contains a brief mating scene - you can easily avoid this by watching only the first 60 seconds) After discussing basic frigate biology and feeding patterns I had the kids watch this video of tropical birds in a feeding frenzy and try to guess which birds were frigates.  They also enjoyed looking at the cartoon below.  You can click on it to read the captions.  

Frigate birds are called Pirate birds because of their penchant for stealing from other birds.  When one animal steals food from another scientist call it "Kleptoparasitism."  Klepto from the Greek which means to steal, and parsites are those who live off others, giving nothing in return.  We see this in the book when Galileo and his friends attempt to steal the fish from the tourists hats and in the way that Nim and Jack can call Galileo with fish.  The kids giggled  as we watched a home video of someone feeding wild frigates by hand - it looks nerve wracking!

In order to snatch falling or jumping fish so accurately, frigates like Galileo, must have a very accurate sense of how quickly objects fall.  I explained to the kids that there was a man named Galileo who spent quite a lot of time focusing on the same thing.

The famous scientist Galileo Galilei studied our earth and solar system with great detail.  In his famous experiment (said to have been conducted at the leaning tower of Pisa), Galileo discovered that two objects of differing weights will fall at the same speed.  I showed the kids this short cartoon of Galileo as a VERY simple introduction to the concept.  

We conducted our own experiment to test this principle.  The kids taped together various amounts of pennies, from 1 to 6.  We lined them up in various combinations on our stairs and pushed them all off at the same time.  The kids listened to hear if they landed at once (bang) or at different times (click, click, click).  We repeated it for as long as they were interested.  Some got it and some still insisted that the heavier ones landed first.  I guess it is a bit much to ask of the 4 year olds.

I tore a ligament in my hip recently, so I decided to keep our crafting time to a minimum today and chose a simple embossing project.  I printed off a frigate bird coloring page and had each of the kids cut out one or two details of their own choosing.  We wrapped 8 inch squares of cardboard with tinfoil (shiny side down) and then taped the coloring page on top.  With a slightly dull pencil the kids firmly traced their birds.  When they finished we GENTLY pulled off the tape and then flipped over the foil and re-wrapped the cardboard.  We used markers to add color and q-tips to remove and smear any excess ink.  I think that they came out adorable!

After all this Galileo, Galileo talk, I now have the Bohemian Rhapsody hopelessly stuck in my head.  It isn't even one of my favorites . . . and it is a long song too  . . .  I'll be singing this one for days.   

Want to share our Nim's Island adventure? Join our Flickr pool to allow your kids to join in the discussion, and share their own photos and videos.

Nim's Island Activities - Chapters 5&6

~ Endangered Green Sea Turtles ~

Animals are irresistible, and the fantasy of becoming close friends with a sea turtle has captivated my daughter.  She has been on her belly in the middle of my living room playing with her tiny turtle figurines all week.  

She started this game after we first read this week's chapters of Nim's Island.  It begins with Chica the green sea turtle returning to lay her eggs.  

"Nim squatted beside her, watching quietly in the darkness and wiping away sand from the turtle's watery eyes, until the hole was just as deep and wide as it needed to be."

 Wouldn't you love to live like Nim too? 

No, those aren't the tiny turtles on my living room floor (obviously).  This photo was taken at the Boston Museum of Science's "Crittercam" exhibit during our vacation last week.  It was fascinating!  It is a traveling display, so if you have any chance to see it in your area, go.  

Our primary video link for this lesson came from PBS Kids (we also saw a Britannica clip and this one showing a turtle hatch).  It energetically shows two young boys assisting researchers studying baby sea turtle survival rates in Florida.  The boys dig up the nests from which most of the turtles have already hatched, collect the live turtles remaining, and count the remaining deceased turtles and shells.  

We took the idea from the video and created our own turtle research experiment.  I put a few turtle toys inside old plastic easter eggs along with many empty shells and then hid the entire nest.  Some turtles were labeled as "dead" by putting black x's over the eyes with tape.   The kids were sent off to search for the hidden turtle clutch and they happily bounced  throughout the house exploring possible locations for the eggs.  After it was found they documented the location that they found the nest and then worked together to discover how many babies had survived.  

We created sweet turtle clutches for our notebooks by stapling a sanding disk to our page.  On top we glued "Chica" and below the flap they pasted the turtle eggs.  Later we will add a few elements that we found in HSS' sea turtle unit  and in this fun activity book.

The salt dough islands that we made last week were finally completed today.  We made small boats out of folded tin foil, and used quilting pins and a small triangle of paper to make the sail.  We then added Jack by coloring a toothpick with markers.  Around the boat the kids placed dots of glow-in-the-dark paint for the bioluminescent plankton that Jack was studying.  

We also made a tiny Nim out of a toothpick.  We drew on a small face, colored her clothing, and then dipped the top in rubber cement and pressed a tiny amount of cotton on the top for her "wild hair."   Our maps were originally mounted on foam board, so we attached the figures by simply pressing the pins and picks into the foam.

I was going to have them add a small compass rose to their maps, but I forgot - there is always next week.

 

Oh, and remember that painting that I was worried about last week?  Well I decided to skip it.  The group used markers to add the most important elements, like the volcano and garden, but I waited until later in the day to let my own kid paint.  As it was, I somehow ended up with 12 paintbrushes to wash.   That's enough for me.

Want to share our Nim's Island adventure? Join our Flickr pool to allow your kids to join in the discussion, and share their own photos and videos.

Nim's Island Activities - Chapters 3&4

~ How Do Islands Form? ~

Today we started our day in a very Nim-like fashion.  The kids woke their dad with squeals of "can you open our coconut!"  Poor guy, and on his vacation no less.  They drank some of the coconut milk, and didn't seem too impressed, but they were thrilled to watch as he smashed the husk on our stone step to reveal the meat inside.  They happily ate "banana-and-coconut mush" (oatmeal with bananas and coconut) for breakfast and then brushed their teeth Nim style -  outdoors with much giggling and searching for a plant "that needs the spit."

Our focus this week is Island Formation.  We started with a very simple demonstration of the concept of plate-tectonics (using chocolate covered marshmallows YUM!)
When force is applied the crust (chocolate) cracks and moves, sometimes revealing the deeper layers of the earth - told you it was simple.  We talked about the movement of these plates along fault lines, and how these weaknesses in the earth's crust give magma a chance to reach the surface, thus creating volcanoes.  Those volcanoes in turn can create oceanic islands.  

We watched a few videos depicting the formation of volcanic islands.  One about Hawaii, and another about the formation of Surtsey which is good, but the audio quality is lousy, so turn your speakers WAY up.  We also enjoyed flipping through the photos taken by the crew of the Maiken when they accidentally stumbled upon the birth of a brand new island.  These pictures are impressive!  The kids had all sorts of questions about this - was the boat okay, can the volcano kill people, how long did it take, and on and on.  All good questions! 

Our activity today was to make Salt-dough maps as suggested by Professor H.  We had a good time laughing at his antics as he tried to deal with dough that was far too wet.  The kids were all feeling very sure of themselves and proud of their own sculpting abilities after seeing his ridiculous attempts to work with that dough. 

This is the recipe for Salt-dough that we used (for 6 kids):

4 cups flour

2 cups table salt

2 Tablespoons cream of tartar (to keep the finished product from cracking)

+/-   2 cups of water 

- Mix the dry ingredients together.  Add approx 3/4 of the water then slowly add more until the dough just barely starts to form a ball and pull away from the sides of the bowl.  

- Knead the dough for a few min (I let my kitchenaid do the work) to make the dough softer and create a better consistency.

Professor H did a good job demonstrating the different landforms with the dough, and we will be adding these pieces to our notebooks.  

Land forms triangle fold

Land forms cards

For our final craft we borrowed an idea from Tracey and added pipe-cleaner palm trees to the scenery after our islands were finished.   Our plan is to paint them next week.  We'll see if I actually follow through with it.  The idea of all those kids wielding paintbrushes in my dining room has me nervous.  

Want to share our Nim's Island adventure? Join our Flickr pool to allow your kids to join in the discussion, and share their own photos and videos.

Nim's Island Lessons - Chapter 2

~ Wind ~

We started our second week of Island School today by listening to a fun  live island radio station (where, btw, they have help wanted advertisements for the United States CIA clandestine services  - anyone else thinking YIKES).  The kids all enjoyed the fun sounds of the islands while the tiny babies were fed.

This week our focus has been the wind.  "It howled at the door and screamed through the windows; it laughed at Nim because Jack wasn't there, and she didn't know if it was just teasing her or was going to grow into a tree-throwing, hut-smashing storm."   

After reviewing the location of the tropics and it's warm climate,  I explained to the kids how wind forms

1. The sun warms the areas near the equator more than the areas closer to the poles, therefore the tropics are much warmer than we are at home.
2. As the Earth warms up, it heats the air above it.
3. Warm air rises, and as it does so air from elsewhere moves in to take it's place.  This motion is called WIND

The kids were asked to think of some of the jobs of the wind.  Eventually reaching the conclusion that the wind is a source of ENERGY.  

We set up this simple wind & wave experiment.  We discussed how the wind's energy creates WAVES and how waves differ in deep vs shallow water.  The experiment was fun, but we would have needed a much bigger pan to really demonstrate the principle well.  To better illustrate it we showed the kids this great animation of the same principle  (it is the 3rd illustration on the page - make sure to poke around on this site.  There are lots of great activities & games).    

We watched the dramatic effect that waves and wind can have by viewing two videos at the hurricanes site of How Stuff Works.  The kids enjoyed comparing the difference between this hurricane footage and the video shot by Sarah that we looked at last week.  

Professor H's activity video explained that our craft for the day was to make some of Nim's weather measurement equipment.  Specifically, wind-vanes to "measure" wind direction.  Our only addition was a large compass at the base.  This not only made our windvanes more useful, but it also gave us another review of compass directions.  We used a printable compass that we found on Homeschool share.  Afterward we built our own pinwheels and discussed in the very briefest way that that anemometers measure wind speed.  

The printables from the Currclick class have been fabulous if you have the kind of kid who enjoys making lapbooks (and mine love them).   If you haven't registered yet, I highly suggest that you do.  You won't be disappointed.   

Here are a few additional printables:

What is a hurricane matchbook

Hurricane Names trifold

Water Cycle coloring page

Who Has Seen The Wind copy work page

Tropic Imaginary Lines cut & paste

Want to share our Nim's Island adventure?  Join our Flickr pool to allow your kids to join in the discussion, and share their own photos and videos.