After watching videos about the movie Dolphin Tale, we couldn't help but want to see the movie as a family. We are a big supporter of family friendly entertainment options. When I found out there was a unit study, being a homeschool mom, I was super excited. I love to turn anything that could be school into a fun time as well as learning new things. I see life as a big school room that we can learn and have fun at the same time. The study has five lessons but I am breaking it into three parts because we meet every other Thursday. We take from an hour to an hour and a half to complete some of the experiments and crafts while learning some neat marine biology.
We did a science experiment called Sink or Swim. We made our own water column. Water columns are used or observed to better understand aquatic phenomena. We tested different items, such as a cork, grape, rock and dab of solid shortening. We learned that the difference in density of an object is called buoyancy or the ability to float. We had a pitcher of water and added syrup and oil. The syrup sunk below the water and the oil rose above the water. Then we tested each object and recorded where they fell in the water column. We also learned what sea creatures lived where in the oceans water column and made charts for our notebooks.
Our craft for that day was a Jellyfish. Jellyfish are amazing creatures. They have no complex body organs, but they are able to survive quite well in the ocean. They are not able to swim against the currents of the ocean. They are called planktonic creatures. They have muscle-like fibers in their two layers of skin. They use those to pulse their bodies and move their long tentacles to help them stay afloat in the water. They use their tentacles to capture prey.
After we learned some things about the jellyfish we made one out of the end of a plastic bottle and yarn. You cut the end off about 2 1/2 inches from the end. They picked yarn from a variety of colors. You need to have 10 long strands of thick yarn and 20 strands of thin yarn a couple of inches shorter than the long ones. Cut card stock the size of your plastic container. Staple the think strands to the middle and the thin strands in twos all the way around the outside. Then tape the card stock circle to the container. Attach fishing line to the top to hang the jellyfish with.
Not all the kids could stay for the group pictures because we did take a bit of time, due to the fact that I didn't bring more than one stapler so we had to share. That was a process that took the longest. I plan on being more prepared with supplies next time. We had a great time and as you can see, they turned out pretty neat! Stay tuned to see the neat things we do the next two weeks of our study during the month of October.
That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.
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