FIAR- Night of the Moonjellies

 

  Night of the Moonjellies is a book which tells the story of a little boys day helping his Grandmother at her sea side hot dog stand in the New England states. On his way to the stand, he found a Comb Jellyfish, and put it in a bag. When the stand closed that night, his Grandmother took him out into the ocean to release his Moonjelly, and they created priceless memories on their adventure.

I was excited to row this book after reading many blog posts about other peoples rows. I had planned to do a whole unit study on the ocean using this book. But, as I read the book we found it a little bit boring for our tastes. This was disappointing. However, as we began our row, I was determined to get the most out of it. Although we did not do our ocean unit, there were so many lessons I was able to pull from this book. All in all, we did end up enjoying this row.

 

Math: Adding Tens and Ones using Cubes, Measuring

I was teaching Christopher adding ones and tens together using cubes as “number rods”. He also did a little activity where he looked at the picture and added the tens and ones together and then wrote the answer in the correct box. he loved the activity and did really good. I only had to help him one time.

Christopher learned how to read a ruler, and practiced measuring some cute little ocean creatures. He even measured to the 1/2 inch.

The printables used in these activities can be found at

Social Studies: Responsibility, Owning a Business

“It was named after the owners, my grandma, and her sister Grace”. –Night of the Moonjellies

We took the kids to the farmers market and gave them a few dollars and a list. We talked to them about some of the responsibilities of owning their own business. One thing we talked about was how they had a menu at the hot dog stand. This meant that someone had to make sure they had the right ingredients to make the food on the menu. Hailey and Christopher were able to help purchase items on our family menu. We had $60.00 to spend. They purchased, Purple Hull Peas, Watermelon, Corn on the Cob, Lemon’s, Peaches, Tomatoes, Cantaloupe, cucumbers, Kiwi, Oranges, and Apples.  They had a lot of fun doing this, and came un just under budget.

“The summer I was seven I helped out two days a week at Mar Gra’s…” – Night of the Moonjellies

In this book, the little boy helped his Grandmother at her hot dog stand. He had a list of things that he was responsible for. I had the kids recall some of his responsibilities. Filling up the napkins and straws were two of the things he was responsible for. I had them tell me what would happen if he did not do those things. Then we talked about the responsibilities they have at home.

Language Arts/Grammar: Word Find, Letter Sound Bingo, Ell Word Family, First Person Point of View, Pronouns

Christopher enjoyed doing this little reading activity. He read the story, then he found particular words in the story. It was a Word Find.

This letter sound bingo game was from All About Reading level 1. He chose to use foam sea creatures as his markers since we were doing an ocean theme.

The word jellyfish seemed like a good word to talk about the ell word family. We used these letter cubes to put together ell words.

The story Night of the Moonjellies was written with a first person point of view. The boy was telling the story from his own point of view. He used the pronouns I, Me, Mine, when referring to himself. I used a lesson from First Language Lessons Level 1 to teach Christopher about pronouns. We did the pronoun chant a few times, and then we talked about how the book was written. We discussed different ways to tell a story, and them I had him use first person point of view to complete a writing prompt. In This project he completed the sentence, “If I were a Jellyfish…….” Here is what he wrote,

“If I were a Jellyfish, I would eat lotion, and swim in the ocean. I would eat potion and grow bigger, bigger, bigger.” (he likes to rhyme)

Sensory Play (for fun and therapy): Jellyfish Sensory Bins

  The kids had a blast playing in these sensory bins. I used water beads to represent jellyfish. They played, and played.

Geography: New England States, Mane, Rhode Island

I’m not sure what happened to my pictures they have disappeared. For this lesson we located the new England states on a map, and talked about what makes them New England states. We also continued our state study by coloring pages from our My State Notebook Coloring Pages. We focused on Maine and Rhode Island.

Science: Moon jellies, Comb Jellyfish, other creatures found in the ocean

In this book the little boy found a comb jellyfish that had washed up on the shore. Naturally we talked about Jellyfish. We learned about different types of jellyfish, and how they are not actually fish. We watched a youtube video, and made a jellyfish in a bottle.

We read a number of ocean themed books. Christopher read One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish as a part of his I Can Read 20 Books challenge. We learned about all kinds of ocean creatures, and enjoyed looking at the beautiful creations that God made.

Art: Pastels, Water Reflection

“Thousands of Moonjellies stretched along the sea in every direction.” – night of the Moonjellies

As the book nears the end there is a beautiful illustration of what it must have looked like for the boy to look out at the moonjellies. The artist used a combination of Oil Pastels and Paint. The kids attempted to recreate the scene.  In the painting there is a faint yellow color in the water. We talked about how this was the light from the boat reflecting on the water.

Bible: Patience

In the story the little boys Grandma tells him that she has a surprise for him, but that he would have to wait until they were finished working. The boy waited patiently all day.

For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and carry away [and enjoy to the full] what is promised. Hebrews 10: 36 

We talked about what it means to have patience, and to be impatient.

Memories and Food: Shrimp Broil

This book was all about food. Hot dogs, hamburgers, onion rings, lobster rolls, etc. MarGra’s was said to have the best lobster rolls in town. We decided that the kids would not like lobster, and we had been wanting to do a shrimp boil for a while, so that’s what we did. This was such a fun family meal. We will all remember it for years to come.