The letter ‘W’ is a toughie. Especially for a 3-year-old. You can look at that letter all you want and still come up with the same conclusion… it’s an upside down ‘M’ and that’s all there is to it! What better way to help Crowley conquer ‘W’ than spending a morning learning about whales?
We start with a story. The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. It’s a great children’s book. Check out my review of it here.
Out next step is to actually look at some REAL whales LIVE. So we head to he computer to explore some whale web cams like this one of the Beluga Whales. Spend time with world-famous Killer Whale, Shamu. We also found endless videos of Shamu performances on YouTube. And then for the most majestic of them all… the Blue Whale, there is this video shot for National Geographic which includes their incredible songs. Amazing!
Now that we have seen a variety of whales, it’s time to head outside to find out just how big a Blue Whale really is.
I take a ball of twine that is exactly 100 feet long, and hold one end.
And yes, to do this properly, your shirt must be on backwards, too!
Crowley and his grandfather, G.G. pick up the other end and start walking! Finally, with a few HOUSES between us, we get a very real picture of how amazing that animal must be.
Now, back to our adventure room to make a whale.
With our web cams LIVE in the background. We get started. I found this project idea here and only made a couple of modifications.
Follow this link for directions. Then consider the following. Cut flippers and tail out of a foam sheet in a coordinating color.
When cutting out the tail, cut two identical tail shapes. One piece is the topside of your tail. The other is the underside of your tail. Place them over the rubber band and attach with tape.
Then take a sticky hand full of painter’s tape and place it in between the two tail pieces. Press.
Also, we decided to draw our eyes instead of using googly eyes. I find googly eyes are always falling off of projects. And we have a crawler in the house, so the drawn eyes are safest for us!
Now you can attach your whale to your mural. We found that a hot glue gun worked the best. Take a look at how very busy our ocean is becoming!
