What's Special About February 2nd?

We're all watching for that cute little groundhog to come out and tell us what kind of weather to expect, but why is Groundhog's Day on February 2nd anyway?  Well, the 2nd of February is  a cross-quarter day celestially speaking, a midway point between winter solstice and vernal equinox.  It was celebrated by many cultures as the midpoint of winter long before the furry, little groundhog ever had any attachment to the day.  It's also about the time groundhogs naturally come out of hibernation, so it just makes sense all around.

Groundhogs are pretty cute little animals.  They are closely related to squirrels and are not only good at burrowing, but also great climbers and swimmers.  They eat plants and grasses like crazy all spring and summer, and then begin hibernating in October.  By the end of their hibernation in February they will have lost about half of their body weight.

Groundhogs often live alone, but have sometimes been seen living together in burrows.  They use their burrows for protection from predators.  Snakes, coyotes, wolves, foxes, bobcats, and hawks would all eat a groundhog, so they certainly need the protection.  Their burrows are also useful for rearing their young in, who aren't yet ready to face all the dangers of the world.  Their burrows usually have quite a few entrances so they can escape out another route if a predator is on the prowl.

Tradition says that if the groundhog sees its shadow today we'll have 6 more weeks of winter.  Either way, start today and make a weather graph of what really happens.  Was the groundhog right?  Traditionally Phil has only been right about 39% of the time, so your graph could go either way.

More Activities:

• You can also celebrate by using a desk lamp and having someone trace your own shadow on a piece of paper.  Write your own weather prediction inside your shadow.  
• Make your own groundhog paper bag puppet.
• Have fun with these groundhog's day printables.
• Make a felt portrait of Phil.

Additional Layers:

• A groundhog and a woodchuck are the same thing.  You may want to brush up on your tongue twister mad skills today:  How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood??Then if you're REALLY smart you can tell your friends the answer to the tongue twister.  It's about 700 pounds!  A wildlife biologist examined the volume of the burrow of woodchuck and determined that if it were filled with wood instead of dirt, the woodchuck would've chucked about 700 pounds worth.  In truth though, groundhogs aren't avid wood chewers like beavers.  
• So often we hear about endangered or extinct animals.  Groundhogs are NOT endangered by any definition.  They are not hunted for their coats (because, well, frankly, their grizzled coats are not all that attractive, though Native Americans sometimes did use them for the BOTTOMS of their moccasins.)  There are approximately 5500 species of mammals that we know of, and of those about 16 species are endangered (though the lists are always changing!).  Can you figure out that percentage?
• Learn more about Punxsutawny, Pennsylvania, one of the traditional groundhog viewing cities where we all watch Phil come out and see his shadow...or not.
• Imagine you are Phil and write about what it's like to come out of your winter burrow to be surrounded by people, lights, and cameras galore!  What is it like?  Do you see your shadow?  What else do you see?

Cityscape Art

As part of our art studies I like to teach the kids about the different kinds of pieces that artists  make - still life, portraits, landscapes - you get the idea. One that seems to be often overlooked is the cityscape.  We looked at several cityscape pictures and noticed that while more natural landscapes tend to have organic, irregular shapes, cityscapes tend to be with very simple, geometric ones.

We began with a horizon line, in this case, the street.  All the structures must be tied into the horizon line in a cityscape (unless you want the buildings to look like they're floating in the air!)  We cut out a street from black construction paper and glued it to our blue construction paper background.  That created the horizon line.

Next, the kids used any colors they wanted to to cut out tall buildings using simple geometric shapes of different sizes.  The one I pictured was done by my 4 year-old with very little help from me.  That's the beauty of cityscapes - their straight lines make things very simple!

Finally, we added details.  A black marker was used to add windows and doors to the buildings, yellow chalk made perfect dashes on the street, and white clouds were created with white chalk.

Older kids could add cut-outs of people, cars, fire hydrants, or anything else they'd like to.

Additional layers:

• Discuss the idea of organic versus geometric shapes.  
• Imagine back to the time before your city (or a nearby city) was there.  If it were all just the natural land and you were creating a landscape picture, what colors would you use?  Now compare that with the colors you would use if you made a picture of the city as it looks today.
• Make a replica of your cityscape art on another day or another time.  Create the same scene, except in the wintertime or make a picture of what it looks like at night.

DNA Extractions

Nathan extracted DNA from peas this past week. 

The stringy, white, snot-like stuff is the DNA. 

The DNA looks remarkably like . . . snot.  That would be because both DNA and snot are made of similar proteins.  It's a little weird though that the whole control center of your body's cells resembles the nasty stuff on your tissue.

We'll explain how to extract DNA from peas in Year 2, unit 6 where we learn about cells.


Additional Layers:

• You know how when you have a cold, you think, "If I blow my nose really well than all this nastiness in my nose will go away"  but then it doesn't, the snot just keeps coming and coming.  How does your body do this?  Find out how cells make the stuff they make.
•  DNA is both simple and complex.  It's only made with four different protein compounds.  The compounds are just arranged in different patterns and orders to make the whole code.  Tim observed that this is kind of like the binary code with which computers are programmed, only in the body it's a quaternary code.  Pretty cool stuff.
• Each strand of DNA is a single molecule; it's one of the very few molecules you can see with the naked eye.
• DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid . . . you will probably never need to know this in your real life.  But still, probably the only word you know that's longer is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, and that's just nonsense.

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A Trip To The Ocean

This week we're heading out on a family camping trip to the Pacific Ocean. We've been doing all sorts of things to get ready. We've mapped out a plan of our trip and where we want to go, made lists of fun things to do, and learned about the area's geography, wildlife, weather, and even a little history. We've also planned games, menus, and gathered our equipment.

It would be a whole lot easier for Mom and Dad to just do the planning and bring the kiddos along, but then no real learning would happen. Instead, we've let our kids really take ownership of our trip. They each get to choose some of our excursions and be "the leader" those days. They are each in charge of planning out the food and cooking on certain days. They have also each made a list of goals for the trip. My son, who is just starting Cub Scouts, has decided that on this trip he wants to start a seashell collection to help him earn a badge. He is also really excited about learning photography and will be bringing his new camera to document our trip. My daughter wants to find a starfish in the tide pools. She also wants to try to find some of the places that she's seen in pictures in our family scrapbook. We traveled to this area before she was born, but she has only seen pictures of the space needle, ferry boats, and the Pacific Ocean. They both want to learn to cook in the dutch oven and over the campfire.

Here I am in front of the Space Needle.

The last time we traveled here none of our kids were born yet!

Because we are taking the time not only to learn about things we will see ahead of time, but also to let them take some ownership in our trip, they are bundles of enthusiasm. Studying the ocean, tide pools, sea life, Seattle and the Puget Sound, transportation, volcanoes, explorers, and rain forests has all been 100% joy because it feels so real to them. School feels like play when it's part of their own adventures.