The Iroquois Native Americans were masters of disguise. The craft for today was to make our best disguise we could… and then test them out!
“Is my makeup scary enough?”
Ready for action!
Get ready, get set….
Testing our camo with a game of hide and seek!
“ONE! Two! Three!”
“Hey! I got you!!”
Home free!!
Rest after the game.
Online Games
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How to Draw
How to draw Chewbaka (not so easy)
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Printables
A whole slew of Star Wars coloring pages
A printable Darth Vader paper box craft
Make Luke and Leia paper dolls
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Books
Wookiee Cookies: A Star Wars Cookbook
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Food Crafts
More snap circuits, with friends this time!
Star Wars cookies:
Making chocolate lightsabers!
Even ones for the bad guys:
After our friends left we had a last bit of Star Wars fun (for today):
Then we watched Return of the Jedi and had a wonderful dinner.
A week long Star Wars tribute may become a yearly tradition the first week in May (starting with “May the 4th be with you”)!
Happy Star Wars week everyone!
Between National Star Wars day (‘May the 4th be with you’) and today (National Astronomy Day) we have found some really wonderful resources for Star Wars week. Today was ‘droid day’ and we got to study robotics. There was a robotics class at the library this afternoon from 1 – 3 and the older kids got to make a robot and try to get it to follow the program that was intended.
The library lady told me about the class when I went to pick up all the Star Wars books I had on hold. Perfect timing huh?
It was supposed to go across the floor, pick something up, and then bring it back by remote control. They got as far as getting it to pick stuff up by the time their hour was up! I was impressed! (and they had a blast!)
After getting back home I had them do a little Star Wars Trivia, and then some of their other school work (math, and reading). After they were done with that, they each got to listen to more of Star Wars radio. This time, I had Cyan color a droid coloring page and Alex color an X-wing while taking notes (because the radio story is different than the movies) on the radio version of Episode 4.
Then I had each of them do an online Star Wars puzzle on StarWars.com.
After this, we had a bit more robotic fun with the Snap Circuits. This time it was Cyan’s turn to choose a set and do it:
It works!
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Day 3 is Monday because tomorrow instead of Star Wars day we are celebrating Mother’s Day! ;) Happy Learning!
We started our school day out with a lunch fit for any Star Wars fan!
Top row: moon of Endor pesto pizza, blue Bantha milk, "That's not a moon!" pizza
Bottom row: carrots (yeah. They're just carrots), white chocolate snowflake from the planet Hoth, "Banana The Hut"
Then we moved on to school work. This is set up as a workbox system unit study. 6 to 10 boxes per day are dedicated to our Star Wars study. The other boxes have their regular school stuff in them. These are the Star Wars bits. :)
Day 1 for Cyan (grades 2 – 5)
1. Star Wars easy wordsearch (Feel free to copy and print the picture for the wordsearch. I still have not been able to figure out how to attach a PDF file.)
2. Story Starter *Moving to Hoth* – This was split between three boxes.
Your mom and you are moving to the planet of Hoth. You don’t want to go but are trying to make the best of it. Your mom says you can bring one pet. What would it be? What supplies would you need to move it to Hoth? What would happen if I changed Hoth to Endor? How would it be different?
3. We got the copy of the original Star Wars radio show for them to listen to while doing our craft for today. Cyan’s craft was to cut out a Leia paper doll and her outfit from Hoth.
Day 1 for Alex (grades 6 – 9)
1. I printed out a premade word search for this one. It can be found here.
2. Story Starters *Robotic Hand* – This portion was two workboxes.
You wake up and you realize you have a robotic hand. How does it feel to have a robotic hand? As you lay in your hospital bed being looked over by your medical droids, things start to come back to you slowly. Who are you and how did you lose your human hand?
Of course, with Alex being so much older, I required much more of him for the writing assignment portion of the lesson. I gave him the more abstract Story Starter and I also gave him quite a bit more leeway to put in what he wanted. I made it due at the end of the week (Monday for us) and just required that he write it in cursive (something he has been working on). I did have him watch the Brain Pop on robotics and robots to get his mind working in the right direction.
3. Snap Circuits – I had him do the first project in a borrowed copy of the snap circuits game.
4. I gave him instructions on how to fold an Origami X Wing fighter to do while we were listening to the Star Wars Radio Show.
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More fun tomorrow!!!
Inspiration comes from the strangest places. This week is the last week of the Pacific Science Center’s Star Wars exhibit. We are HUGE Star Wars fans. I should say Don is a huge Star Wars fan and my children have all followed suit. I like it, but wouldn’t say I am as into it as they are.
So we go to the Science Center, and I am thrilled to watch the butterflies hatch and play with all of the other spaces… my kids and husband are dragging me to the Star Wars area. But once I got in there I have to say I was completely inspired! There were tables of robotics, presentations on costuming, videos on planetary conditions, and real life holographic and hovercraft. It was quite inspiring!
We spent about an hour at the table with the robotics. The goal was to build a robot that would go over various terrain and then turn, and finally go forward enough after turning to get into this box that says “finish!”
I came home with so many ideas on how to do a unit study on Star Wars that I decided right then and there we were going to spend our whole school week (with Don’s schedule that is Fri – Mon) studying all things Star Wars!
The only thing I couldn’t figure out is how my kids were going to keep up on the things they were working on in for writing… then I had a brainstorm idea! Story Starters!!! I wrote some up and now my unit study is complete. The story starters are as follows… stay tuned for more over the next four days. It should be a BLAST!
Star Wars Story starters (language arts)
1. You wake up and you realize you have a robotic hand. How does it feel to have a robotic hand? As you lay in your hospital bed being looked over by your medical droids, things start to come back to you slowly. Who are you and how did you lose your human hand?
2. Your mom and you are moving to the planet of Hoth. You don’t want to go but are trying to make the best of it. Your mom says you can bring one pet. What would it be? What supplies would you need to move it to Hoth? What would happen if I changed Hoth to Endor? How would it be different? This one includes a bit of Science as well, feel free to study the different habitats that are similar on our planet to the conditions of these Star Wars places:
a. Hoth = Antarctica
b. Endor = Northern CA Forest
3. It is your first class at the Jedi League. Your professor is Master Yoda. You walk in and there are two questions floating on the holo-board… The first one is “Your deepest fear, your worst enemy, it will be. What be yours?” What is the second question? How do you answer them?
That last trip we had to the Seattle Science Center was almost 4 years ago.
Logan at 4 months old:
Look how much he’s grown:
4 yrs and 3 months
This year I decided not to hatch butterflies. Instead we are going to study frogs and ladybugs. But I was THRILLED with the little butterfly lesson reminder my kids got at the Seattle Center this last weekend with our trip to the butterfly house.
We got to watch a Blue Morpho Butterfly come out of it’s chrysalis! It was incredible! We watched it come out, and as it started to pump up it’s wings with fluid to make them bigger (from it’s distended abdomen) I got to give my kids a refresher course. How amazing is this??:
What a beautiful little bug!
We also got a great refresher in how to tell an aging butterfly.
This is a young butterfly. See the smooth edges on the wings?
And this is an older butterfly… can you see the torn and tattered wing edges?
It was a beautiful refresher and a really great day!
