Antarctica felt set

For every unit-like study we tackle Calvin requests a new felt set and Antarctica was no exception. Like I did with the volcano felt set request, when he asked for penguins and the like I told him to draw what he wanted and make me a list of items to include.

I've made all of Calvin's felt sets using standard craft felt, sharp scissors, hot glue, and the occassional marker or pencil. Some of the shapes I cut free-form, some I mark directly on the felt and cut, and others I draw first on paper before sticking paper and felt together to cut along the lines. I was excited this time to find textured craft felt that made good mountains, and sparkly craft felt that made good snow.

We have two small travel felt boards now that Cavlin has now decided make up Antarctica in the summer and Antarctica in the winter, so I guess it's a goot thing I made two mountains. And there are three penguins here: the Emperors, the Adélies, and the Chin Straps. The red things are sea stars, the white in the sky is intended to be swirling wind and snow, and if you're wondering why the explorer seems to be sans pants, that's because he is actually from a different set I'd made and his pants got left behind in his haste to visit that cute penguin baby. Really.

Weekly book shelf, 8/24

What Calvin read to himself this week...

Goodnight, Owl! made our favorites list when Calvin was a toddler. All the owl wants to do is sleep, but his tree is filled with diurnal birds who are keeping him awake with their litany of calls. No worries, he gets revenge at night! The large, clean font is easy to see and follow, the illustrations are textured and warm, and the story has an enjoyable rhythm, and it's fun for both reader and listener to make all those bird sounds.

Sam the Sea Cow is a great mixture of story and factual writing. You meet Sam shortly after his birth, then follow him as he learns to live life as a manatee. When he gets caught in a pipe he has to be rescued by the nearby aquarium, rehabilitated, then released. Sam is endearing, the illustrations are very sweet, and the writing is structured for younger children, but there is a lot of great information shared here, too, and the manatees are made loveable without the intrusion of personification. Calvin absolutely loves Sam and his story.

Creatures of the Desert World is a National Geographic Society pop-up action book. Each page of this book presents different flora and fauna from Sonoran Desert in Arizona. Like most pop-up books the focus is not on the text, which is mainly used to describe and label the animals and plants that are depicted in the beautiful, realistic illustrations. The pop-up actions are well made and Calvin really enjoys them.

Eve of the Emperor Penguin is part of the Magic Tree House series, but it's one of the Merln Missions so it mixes in a bit of fantasy (more so than the time travel, that is). Jack and Annie are whisked away to Antarctica, presumably in the current era, to find a secret needed to save Merlin's life. They travel part way up Mt. Erebus, fall through the glacial ice, and meet a group of Emperor Penguins before traveling home. Calvin loved this one so much he read it twice, once to himself and once to me. I continue to be pleased with the series because it doesn't hide the factual information inside the story but presents it as information as Jack and Annie look it up during their travels. You can read Calvin's review here.

What we read out loud...

We finished reading The Tale of Despereaux this week and you can find our review here. I was disappointed, but Calvin enjoyed it well enough. Our next book is going to be The Secret Zoo, by Brian Chick.

And on my shelf this week...nothing has changed. I've spent so much of my time this past week on looking into curriculum and preparing projects for Calvin that I'm only half way through The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, only about 50 pages further in Proust, and haven't made any progress in Raising our Children, Raising Ourselves.

Ice experiments

The scientific side of our Antarctic exploration?

First I have to admit that I got the idea for these two extremely basic experiments from the book 365 Simple Science Experiments. Embarking on a journey through Antarctica I just did a quick search through the index and found a handful of experiments pertaining to ice, two of which seemed fun. Lucky for the authors I'm passing judgement on over the whole book based on these two experiments. Doing any hands-on experiment is fun, but as far as I can tell the premise behind each of these experiments is based on faulty logic.

Glacier Melt (p.151)

• We gathered small pebbles and sand from our garden in plastic cups, then filled the cups the rest of the way with water, jiggling the cups to make sure all the air was released.
• Set cups in freezer until completely frozen
• Meanwhile, create a shallow incline by propping a board up on a small object. Drive a nail into the board in the middle at the top.
• Remove cups from freezer and use a knife (or application of warm hands for a short time) to loosen and remove the "glacier" from the cup without damaging it.
• Place "glacier" on inclined board. To keep it from sliding down the board use a rubberband to attach it to the nail.
• Observe melt and runoff.

From the book: "Glaciers are large masses of ice that move down mountainsides and valleys cutting gouges out of the rock and soil. Deposits from glacier movements can be found in such places as the arctic, Antarctica, Finland, and Greenland. These giant masses of ice would not move at all if it weren't for the great pressures they also exert....As glaciers move, they break off and pick up tons of rock and soil and deposit it someplace else...Like the real thing, our miniature-glacier experiment shows how and why those rock and sand deposits are so unusual and often unevenly placed." (p.151)

Which is all fine and good, and some moraines are left behind by glacial melt waters, but I find it misleading to imply that a stationary mini-glacier is the same as a moving glacier that not only expells moraine in melt-water, but also leaves it along the side as it slowly moves on, or gouges it into the ground, or drops it as glacial ice breaks off into the water.

Tip of the Iceberg (p.278)

• we filled a cup with ice and cold water, and marked the level of the water on the side of the glass
• when the ice had melted we observed the water level to see if it had changed.

From the book: "When the ice cubes melt, the water does not overflow. The ice cubes simply displaced the water in the glass, or the amount of ice that melted was exactly equal to the mass of the ice cubes below the water. Like the ice cubes in teh glass, the main part of an iceberg is under water. If all teh icebergs were to melt, as did the ice cubes in our experiment, the sea level would remain the same." (p.278)

This is fundamentally true, but is completely useless as a means of teaching about environmental change and the hazards of a warming planet, and as stated in the above manner could be misconstrued. Sure if all the icebergs melt the water level will remain the same, but Antarctica holds 90% of the world's ice and 70% of the world's fresh water (source). If that melts, you can bet your bottom dollar that the sea level is going to rise.

Homemade Iceberg (our own concoction)

• Fill a plastic cup with cold water, add a few drops of food coloring, and set in freezer until frozen solid
• Fill a bowl with warm water (preferably a clear bowl)
• Add "iceberg" and observe

We had two objects here. First we wanted to observe the currents in the water, which the food coloring allowed us to do. Second, we wanted to observe the melting of the ice—how it does not stay in one place, how it crakcs, and how it does not necessarily melt evenly but instead takes on a shape that becomes more and more obvious as it melts further.

We used red dye, so unfortunately our berg looks a little like frozen meat of some kind. We had fun anyhow.

The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo (our reviews)

A mouse and a rat both fall in love with a princess and a story of chivalry, revenge, and heartbreak ensues. Despereaux is a misfit in his own mouse world and is banished to the dungeon where he expects to meet his death. Roscuro is a misfit in his own rat world, but finds only rejection in the world of light above, and returns to the dungeon thinking only of revenge. Mig, the unloved peasant who is too simple to either love or seek revenge, wishes only to trade places with the princess. We hear their stories separately first, then they all come together to finish the tale. The story is generally charming, but while the beginning seems promising DiCamillo continually interrupts the flow of the story either by jumping without warning to another time, place, and character, or by playing the interrupting narrator. With so many disruptions it can be hard to stay interested, but the underlying messages, such as "have courage" and "dare to be different", are obvious enough and the rich language makes the book a pleasant read.

As a parent I think this is a fine book to read to a young child, but I was disappointed by the quality of the story and writing. At age five Calvin was completely capable of understanding the the story as read to him, but would not have been able to read it fluently enough to make it worth while.

Interview review with Calvin
I didn't ask Calvin to journal a response to this book because he is reading and journaling books like it on his own now and I didn't want it to become a chore. Instead I interviewed him on his feelings about the story:

Can you tell me what the book is about?
Despereaux is a small mouse who never grows big. He likes light and he can read and he loves Princess Pea. The mouse council sends him to the dungeon because he doesn't act like a mouse, but he escapes. A girl named Mig works in the castle. She is fat and not happy because she is without her parents. Roscuro is a rat who causes the queen to die of fright, so Pea is angry with him. But Roscuro does not want to be in the dungeon with the other rats, he wants to be in the light upstairs. He wants revenge because eh people won't allow him upstairs. Mig and Roscuro steal Pea and take her to the dungeon and Roscuro wants to keep her there forever, and Mig wants to be the princess. But Despereaux saves them.

What did you like or not like about the book?
I like that there were different parts in the book because they were like little stories about each character.

Eve of the Emperor Penguin (review by Calvin)

To go with our exploration of Antarctica we picked up Eve of the Emperor Penguin from the library. He loved it so much it took him just a couple of days to read, and then he read it again out loud so that I could enjoy it.