Yesterday we studied bears for Another Celebrated Dancing Bear.  We learned bear facts and read about how to stay safe in bear country.  We also watched some bear videos – the one of the cubs playing was Doo’s favorite.  The bluff charge and salmon fishing videos were also very interesting.

Afterward, we made bear claw biscuits.  I made them sugar and gluten-free since that’s how I eat so I invented the recipe myself.  I personally thought they turned out blah and way too spongy but Doo gobbled hers up and asked for more today!  So what do I know.

Gluten and Sugar Free Bear Claws

Trader Joe’s Gluten-Free Pancake Mix

Cinnamon

Agave Syrup

Almond slices

Make TJ’s pancake mix according to the package.  Add cinnamon to taste.  Pour into muffin cups and bake at 350 for around 15 minutes.  Pop out of the muffin tin and, while still warm, poke 4 almond slices into each “paw.”  Mix agave syrup and cinnamon to taste and spread onto each one.

Voila!

Another Celebrated Dancing Bear is about a bear from the circus who teaches his friend how to dance.  His friend then joins him in his circus act.  The story takes place in Russia during “the days of the czar.”

We reviewed some vocabulary from the Five In A Row manual before our first reading, such as “samovar” and “czar.”  Two words I feel should have been added to their vocabulary list was “preserves” and “phonograph” – definitely two words not in Doo’s regular rotation!

Doo is 4 1/2 years old this month.  She has become a voracious reader and we are continually amazed at what she reads out loud to us.  I just gave her the 2 little reading assessments here and the first one had her at the third grade level and the second one had her in the second grade level.  Wow!  Go Doo!

Owl Moon is told in the first person.  We compared/contrasted it with her current chapter book, Little House on the Prairie, which is told in the third person.  Then Doo created her own first person story which is as follows:

Once I went to the barn.  And I saw a drip of water coming on to the ground.  It was rain! And I went inside.  I put on my boots to go outside.  And I saw my friend Emma and she was splashing in puddles.  I had her scarf but I wasn’t going to give it to her yet.

The End

“Emma” is one of her many, many imaginary friends.

Photo from yesterday’s field trip.

Today we covered a few things I had not gotten to in the last few days.  Papa sent us a couple of sites so we read more about birds and, specifically, owls.  Plus we read a bit about a newfound dinosaur in the evolutionary path of a bird.  I tried to explain evolution to Doo but it seemed a bit mind boggling for a 4 year old to grasp. I do think that the pictures of bird and human evolution helped some, though.

We also made an owl out of paper plates.  Doo needs more practice with scissors and we teamed up for the stapling.

Today the family went on a rainy day field trip to the Natural History Museum here in LA.  We specifically went to enjoy their Hall of Birds since we’ve been talking about birds, specifically owls, this past week.

There was a lot to see and do in the Hall of Birds.

Listening to various bird calls.

Doo weighing her bones.

Watching a bird’s body change in flight.

Clicking to see which bird ate what food.

Urban birds plus birds in popular culture (Big Bird, Woody Woodpecker, etc.)

California Condors enjoying a little snack.

Ancient avian art.

Hoot!

Yesterday’s lesson coming to “life” – a barn owl gobbling up a rodent.

Snowy Owl.

Great Horned Owl, like in Owl Moon.

Daddy and Doo checking out drawers full of birds, information, etc…

Doo was excited to find a drawer full of bird heads.

A “marsh” that changed between day time and nighttime.

A Great Horned owl in the marsh.

We also explored other parts of the museum – like the cool Dino Lab where we watched a paleontologist at work.

We checked out many animal displays plus saw part of a dinosaur “puppet” show.

Checking out one of Papa’s favorite animals.

Hi Papa!

A lion having a snack.

A hyena having a snack.

Little Paleontologist.

We checked out many critters behind glass.

Python skeleton.

Members loaning area – you can actually borrow animals to take home!

I couldn’t get a good shot of this one – it’s wild life in an urban area.  That’s a house cat in the coyote’s mouth!

At the end of our visit I surprised Doo with a stuffed animal cardinal.  You press its back and it makes an authentic cardinal bird call.  Our bird call book included a cardinal so she was familiar with the bird and its call already.

Friday I had the day off from work (woot!) so we were able to spend a long time learning about owls.

We checked out:

Owl photos and their calls.

A handwriting sheet featuring an owl.

An online owl puzzle.

An owl catching its prey.

But, best of all, we dissected our very own owl pellet.  Owls gobble up their entire dinner and then, a few hours later, throw up whatever they do not digest.  Tasty!

So we got to dissect a barn owl’s pellet to see what the little guy ate.

Lookin’ good!

We had a plate for the pellet, one for the “trash” (fur, etc) and another for the bones.

Our “best” bone – a skull of a rodent.

We appeared to have the remains of a little rodent.  Delicious meal, Mr. Barn Owl.

We also had Doo’s pen pal’s card on display.  Satori had made an owl card when she rowed Owl Moon a few months ago and Doo was the lucky recipient!  I kept it safe so we would have it for our owl pellet dissection as well.  See below that the owl is ready to share his owl pellet with the world.

Post-dissection, we also took apart a virtual owl pellet.  One more tasty rodent remains added to our day.

Inspired by Alicia’s post, here’s a map showing all the states Doo has been to in her short life.  All thanks to the awesome cross country trip we took when she was 4 months old (it was great! Can’t wait to have the time and $ to do it again.)

visited 25 states (50%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

In Owl Moon, Pa calls out a Great Horned Owl bird call to locate and attract the interest of an owl.  I ordered us Bird Calls from Amazon and it arrived today.  Doo had fun pressing the buttons to hear each bird call and we read the birds’ descriptions.

The birds in the book are:

American Robin

Killdeer

Barred Owl

Eastern Towhee

Northern Cardinal

Black-Capped Chickadee

Red-Winged Blackbird

Northern Bobwhite

Today we started rowing Owl Moon.  This is a story about a child (it was hard to tell if the child was a boy or a girl) who goes owling with her father for the first time.  They walk through the woods on a cold, wintry night and her father calls out an owl bird call to attract the attention of a Great Horned Owl.  They eventually get to hear and see one before they head home.

(An aside, Doo just read the above paragraph to me with barely any help – her reading is coming along really nicely!)

The moon is full in the story so we had a little lesson about the moon and its phases after our reading.  We looked at what the moon looks like on the outside and inside.  Doo learned about the first moon landing, as well.

In the story, the father is called “Pa”.  This made Doo very happy since Laura calls her dad “Pa” in the Little House series (we are currently reading the second book, Little House on the Prairie.)  Plus Laura lived in the woods in the first book and Owl Moon takes place in the woods.