Thursday, June 8, 2017

Summer Camp Planning - Paleozoic I - Cambrian

Please note, if you have arrived at this post out of chronological order, that this is part of my overall From Lava to Life summer camp planning.

At the bottom of the post I've updated with the actual lesson notes after teaching it... if you find my brainstorm-jumble frustrating, I hope this added information will help! Please feel free to contact me with any questions!


Already Owned:


Bought for Camp:

    NEED TO BUY 2 inch soft rubber brayers if we will be doing printing

    I actually ended up with a 4 1/2 inch hard brayer (from the Mod Podge tool set below) and it was great.


Planning:

    Cambrian Period - National Geographic
    "The Cambrian period, part of the Paleozoic era, produced the most intense burst of evolution ever known. The Cambrian Explosion saw an incredible diversity of life emerge, including many major animal groups alive today. Among them were the chordates, to which vertebrates (animals with backbones) such as humans belong."

    cause of this explosion possibly the increase in Oxgygen? do photosynthesis lesson here in the AM as transition from Precambrian stromatolites to Cambrian

    or is it due to the breakup of Rodinia?

    Cambrian Explosion - I can think of so many cool FONT THINGS to play around with for this and the title of the museum exhibit

    read Cambrian book from

    fossils from collection: trilobite, algae

    early marine organisms

    sponges - needle felt, for kids who liked wet felting the geodes

    worms - sock puppets - I have all those little infant socks and I want to use them for something! and we could dye them with onion skins in the crockpot?
    or clay worms, but that doesn't seem as fun

    jellyfish artwork - for calendar or museum?
    my blog post: A Beautiful Way to Do Jellyfish Paintings
    chalk pastels - liquid watercolors - salt - rubbing alcohol - eyedopper - watercolor paper

    Ancient Ancestor of Starfish and Sea Lilies Found in Morocco
    article, August 6 2013

    Radial Design activity from Teaching Art with Books Kids Love, p. 95

    trilobite time!
    "Trilobites, like this perfectly preserved specimen at South Dakota's Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, were among the most successful organisms ever to populate Earth. These familiar marine arthropods first arose about 545 million years ago in the early Cambrian and thrived throughout the world's oceans until they were wiped out in the Permian extinctions about 250 million years ago."

    Georgia O’Keefe art with india ink glue trilobites

    experiment with Gelli printing plates to make fossil design mono prints?

    prep Tuesday night:

    • July artwork - first LIFE! bacteria - colored pencils, sparkle Mod Podge
    • August artwork - hot glue stencils of microscopic life, chalk pastels
    • September artwork - jellyfish paintings
    • October artwork - algae - round Gelli plate, brayer, acrylic paint, tools for drawing designs
    • set out Cambrian Period book, starfish article
    • set out photosynthesis lesson - green silk, grey cards for elements H, O, C
    • set out supplies for radial design art for museum - markers, plain white paper
    • tomorrow - taste crockpot yogurt, set up additional yeast experiments if desired


Implementation:

WEDNESDAY AM - review yesterday, check on crockpot yogurt, check on yeast balloons, check on naked eggs, make museum poster for The Precambrian Time (paint splotches of blues and greens, hang outside on clothesline so drips run down, spray paint blobs with water to make more drips, draw letters for title in squiggly worm-like shapes on blue paper, cut out letters and glue to background, attach white thread to crochet bacteria and needle felted sponges and sew to top of poster, hang), make museum poster for The Big Bang (a large white piece of paper with a tiny pencil dot in the center), read the Cambrian Period book and show fossils

WEDNESDAY PM - weave in orange finger knitting and strips of fabric, finger knit orange/red mixed, add to rug, get caught up on calendar artwork (July: draw bacteria with color pencils on blue paper and cover with a thin layer of Sparkle Mod Podge; September: Jellyfish Paintings; October: 8 inch round Gelli printing plate with green acrylic paint rolled onto it and algae designs drawn on with a cotton swab -- made beautiful and super-easy prints)



Reflection:

We fell in love with the 8 inch round Gelli printing plate and it was definitely the hit activity of the day!

I really liked how the freeform hot glue bacteria on the wax paper turned out but I didn't put it in the freezer so it stuck to the paper as it dried, and after we got it unstuck it didn't really work that well as a stencil, so we decided to do more and do the hot glue directly on the scrapbook paper within the shape of a magnifying glass, to show that it's a microscopic thing, and have the paper + hot glue design be the August art. So I had to go out and buy another glue gun and more mini glue sticks.


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