"The Little Girl Who Wanted to Be Dirty"

First draft narration:

A girl had a dream. She hated baths but she had a dream she was in a pig pen. She played with the pigs all day but then when it was time for supper she just got pig food and she didn't like that so she ran home and took a bath and put on clean pajamas. She told her mom all about it and her mom said, "You just had a dream!" The end.

Final (edited) narration:

A girl hated baths but she had a dream she was in a pig pen. She played with the pigs all day but then when it was time for supper she just got pig food. She didn't like that so she ran home to take a bath and put on clean pajamas. The end.

"The Lion and the Mouse"

"The Lion and the Mouse" narration 10/16/07

Once upon a time there was a mouse and a lion. The mouse stepped on the lion's tail. The lion wanted to eat the mouse but the mouse promised to help the lion someday if he let him go. The lion thought that was so funny that he let him go. One day he stepped in a hunter's net and the little mouse came to the resue by chewing through the net.

"The Rabbit and the Turtle"

"The Rabbit and the Turtle" narrations 10/8/07

First (long & detailed) draft:

The rabbit thought the turtle couldn't beat him in a race. So then they had a race to see who would win but they had no coach so they asked the fox to coach and he said, "Yes." Then the fox said, "On your marks; get set; go!" and the rabbit went speeding ahead like a galloping horse. The turtle was walking slow behind. The rabbit got tired of hopping so he took a nap beside the road. And when the rabbit was still sleeping, the turtle walked right past him. When the rabbit woke up the turtle was way far ahead so the rabbit hopped just as fast as he could but the turtle was so far ahead that by the time the rabbit caught up he was already past the finish line. The rabbit said "Wait, wait, I'm faster!" but the fox said, "But the turtle already won. You may be fast but being fast and lazy is no good. Being slow and paying attention is better." The End.

Final (summarized) draft:

Once upon a time there was a rabbit and a turtle who were going to run a race. The rabbit thought he would win because he was so fast. But he got tired and took a nap beside the road. While he was sleeping the turtle passed by him. The turtle won the race."

The Old Kingdom of Egypt

Spine:

• Story of the World, Volume I (The Ancients), Chapter 4
  
  • *Making Mummies
    
  • *Egyptian Pyramids
  
  

Narrations:

Egypt's Pyramids - 10/1/07

Egypt has pyramids. The pyramids are used to hold people who are packed in sarcophoguses, called mummies. The mummies are wrapped in cloth. They thought the mummies would let them live forever.

Egypt is along the Nile river. They made mummies four thousand years ago.

Favorite Library Books

• Mummies Made in Egypt by Aliki
  
• Cat Mummies by Kelly Trumble
  

Field Trips:

• Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum and Planetarium
  
  • *Tour the museum online here.
    
  • *Read about our field trip on September 19, 2007 here.
  
  

Prehistoric Man

Narrations:

Prehistoric Man 8/13/07

Prehistoric men are the early humans. They lived after the dinosaurs. They were men who didn't wear clothes. They had fur! Some walked upright. Some walked on four legs. Homo hablis was one who walked upright. He also used tools. The tools were made of stones, bones, and hard things.

Some prehistoric men hunted mammoths. Mammoth hunters used spears to hit the mammoth. Some mammoth hunters hunted woolly mammoths. They lived where it was really cold.

Most Useful Library Books:

• Stones and Bones! How Archaeologists Trace Human Origins by the Lerner Geography Department
  
• Eyewitness: Preshistoric Life by William Lindsay
  

Read-Alouds:

• One Small Blue Bead by Byrd Baylor
  
• Dar and the Spear-Thrower by Marjorie Cowley
  

Most Enjoyed Videos:

1. The History Channel's Ape to Man
   

Games and Activities:

• BBC's Prehistoric Life Caveman Evolution Game
  
• virtual tour of the Cave of Lascaux
  
• Cave Drawings on crumpled brown construction paper with earth-tone pastels
  

Dinosaurs & Fossils

Narrations:

The Magic School Bus In the Time of the Dinosaurs (7/24/07)

They went back in time to see Maiasaura eggs but went too far. They came back a little, but not far enough. They saw different dinosaurs than before. And then they came back more but it still wasn't far enough. They saw more different dinosaurs than before. They went back again and they saw an ocean with different animals. They went back again and saw different dinosaurs. One last time back and they saw some more dinosaurs and then walked a little and finally saw the ones they were looking for. But before that they saw Tyranosaurus Rex! And when they found the dinosaurs they were looking for, a big sand storm came and buried all the animals. Then they went in the bus and went back home.

Dinosaurs (8/6/07)



I love dinosaurs! Dinosaurs have been extinct for 150 million years. Some were meat-eaters and some ate plants. Meat-eaters are carnivores. Plant-eaters are herbivores. If you eat both meat and plants, you are an omnivore.

My favorite dinosaur is T-Rex. He is a meat-eater. He is a carnivore. He would kill other dinosaurs for food. He is really cool. He used his sharp teeth to kill other dinosaurs. T-Rex killed other smaller meat-eaters and plant-eaters.

Most Useful Library Books:

• Fossils Tell of Long Ago by Aliki
  
• Dinosaur Bones by Aliki
  
• Dinosaurs Are Different by Aliki (heavy on classification)
  
• The Magic School Bus In the Time of the Dinosaurs by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen
  
• Eyewitness: Prehistoric Life by William Lindsay
  

Most Enjoyed Videos:

1. Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Special
   
2. Bill Nye the Science Guy: Fossils
   
3. Walking with Dinosaurs
   
4. Eyewitness: Dinosaurs
   
5. Walking with Prehistoric Beasts
   

Great Websites (games):

• BBC Prehistoric Games & Puzzles
  
• Dinosphere
  

Field Trips:

• LaBrea Tar Pits
  

Activities:

• Mud Dinosaur Fossil inspired by the Stir-In Fossils experiment in More Mudpies to Magnets: Science for Young Children by Sherwood, Williams, and Rockwell
  
  
• lots of plastic dinosaur play
  

Archaeology

Spine:

• Story of the World, Volume 1 (The Ancients), Introduction
  
  • *What is History?
    
  • *What is Archaeology?
  
  

Narrations:

Archaeology (7/16/07)

Scientists collect things underground. They find arrowheads, spear points, skeletons, and human skeletons. They try to figure out what it is and then put it into a museum.

They wear hats so they don't burn in the sun because they work in the hot sun all day long. At the museum they try to figure out what goes where because some of it is broken.

Archaeologists also find buildings and wood pieces that burned in a fire. And that's it.

Illustrations:
copied from photo, page 32, in Art and Archaeology by Shirley Glubok.

"This archaeologist is using a periscope to look for artifacts in an unopened tomb."

Most useful library books:

• The Magic School Bus Shows and Tells: A Book About Archaeology by Scholastic
  
• Archaeologists Dig for Clues by Kate Duke
  
• Archaeology for Kids: Uncovering the Mysteries of Our Past, 25 Activities by Richard Panchyk (good book with activities that would be interesting to many varying ages - but we didn't do any of them)
  
• Art and Archaeology by Shirley Glubok (the reading isn't exactly age-appropriate, but the pictures are great)
  

Activities:

• archaeological dig in playground
  
• finding and documenting pottery artifact in our backyard