Barracuda!

SOMETHING'S FISHY: Straight out of the gate (we're talking pre-7 a.m.) CJ was hot to play Shark Tales video game he and his dad had played last night before bed. I fired it up for him in the bedroom and soon heard him talking about the importance of avoiding barracudas. BINGO! Barracudas would be the topic du jour today.

So, while CJ played his game, I poked around the Internet and found some resources. I was happy to discover the Discovery Channel has a terrific education resource Web site - including a barracuda lesson! Some of the interesting things we learned about barracuda are that they have no eyelids and that they've been around 50 million years. Like other fish, they have a spine (they are vertebrates), they have scales, they lay eggs, they are cold blooded, and they use their gills to breathe. They have a swim bladder that they inflate and deflate (hey, there are those words again!) to go up and down in the water. I had the kids each do a worksheet listing two facts about barracudas. While they worked, we had inspirational music, of course.

GONE FISHIN': The kids learned about the importance of being adaptive to one's environment by playing a couple of great online games. One was Build a Fish, where they selected the type of head, body and pattern and then found out how your fish fared in a given environment. In Squish the Fish, the kids had to choose Squish's color/pattern in order to blend in with the environs and escape the predator, Big Tooth Blob. Annabelle was frightened at the prospect of being eaten, so CJ did the driving in this game, so to speak.

ONE FISH, TWO FISH: The kids enjoyed a late morning snack (of Goldfish, of course) while watching the Dr. Seuss classic One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. It bored CJ, but Annabelle was entertained.

FISHY FIELD TRIP: I thought it would be a good day to go to Petco. We needed Kirby supplies, but I also thought it would be good for the kids to see all the different kinds of fish there so they could put some of what they learned this a.m. to use. They observed body and mouth types and markings and we talked about why the fish might appear the way they do. I, of course, also pointed out to them that a tank at Petco with florescent colored gravel was not the natural habitat of the fish. ...

OUTDOOR READING: After lunch, we went outside and read from The Ocean World of Jacques Cousteau (a classic, from 1973). I showed the kids the book's index, and explained what an index is and how it works. We found 'barracuda' in the index, and then flipped to all 6 pages they were featured on throughout the book.


CJ was hot to play the fish-themed games again, so I let him have a few more rounds.

SPELLING BEE: In working with the kids on their writing, it occurs to me it would be ever-so-much-easier if there were a passel of words they could spell with next-to-no thought. They sight read hundreds of words, but spelling them when faced with a blank paper is another matter. So, we staged a very small, low key and often downright silly spelling bee. They had a blast, and probably even learned something, too.



AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: Tomorrow is library day and we have some DVDs to return the kids haven't watched, one being a collection of the wonderful James Marshall's fairy tale adaptations. So, before heading out to the Befriended class, the kids watched Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. I turned the close captioning on, so they likely even read a little - bonus! Rick and Ken always loved James Marshall books. ...

BESTING THE BARRACUDA: Right before bed, CJ (with a little help from his dad) beat the Shark Tales game, including the pesky battery of barracuda. (That's right, today we learned a bunch of barracuda is called a battery.)