Flamingo Friday: Chilean & Caribbean Flamingos

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Continuing on looking at the species of flamingos, I thought I would give you some information about the last two that live in the Americas: the Chilean and the Caribbean Flamingos. Now these are the only flamingos I have seen live since our local zoo and Sea World have these kinds.

Source: By Kevin Walsh from Bicester, England, UK.
(flamingoscene.Uploaded by PDTillman.) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The Chilean Flamingo:

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The Chilean Flamingos range from 31 to 51 inches in height. Their weight ranges from 4.2 to 6.6 pounds. It is closely related to the Caribbean and the Greater Flamingos. Their plumage is pinker than the Greater flamingos but lighter than the Caribbean. Their legs are also grey with pink joints and a large amount of black on their bills. Their young are grey and remain grey for two to three years. Both male and female Chilean flamingos produce the "milk" to feed their young.

Chilean and Caribbean Flamingos at Stone Zoo, Stoneham, Massachusetts

Here is a YouTube Video of some Chilean flamingos at the Atlantic Zoo.

They breed in temperate South America: from Ecuador and Peru to Chile and Argentina and east to Brazil. They also have been introduced in Germany and the Netherlands and have a small population in Utah and California in the United States.

Hazel and a flamingo at Sea World

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Sources:  Sea World Animal Bytes and  Wikipedia

The Caribbean Flamingo:

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A Parent feeding a Young Chick at Stone Zoo

 The Caribbean flamingo is also known as the American flamingo. It is the only species of flamingo that inhabits North America naturally. The Caribbean flamingo is one of the larger and the brightest of the flamingos. Their height ranges from 31 to 57 inches and their weight ranges from 4.2 to 6.6 pounds. Their feathers are pink with  red wing coverts. They have black flight feathers (like most flamingos). Their beaks are pink and white with a black tip and their legs are completely pink.

Source: By Martin Pettitt from Bury St Edmunds, UK
(Caribbean flamingo) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The Caribbean flamingos are found in the North Coast of South America, the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, and a range of Caribbean islands. There is also a small population in the Galapagos Islands. They are the only species of flamingos that breed in small groups (sometimes as small as 3-4 pairs).
Sources: Wikipedia, Sea World Animal Bytes, and Flamingo Resource Centre

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Here is a video from YouTube of a Caribbean flamingo chick taking its first steps.


That is what we have for this week's Flamingo Friday. Soon we will talk about the Greater and the Lesser flamingos. Enjoy!!

We're Going on a Leaf Hunt

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We found a fun book for the autumn: We're Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger. It is a fun take off of We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. Now Hazel got scared of We're Going on a Bear Hunt so we have not made it all the way through the story yet. However she enjoyed this version. It lends itself for a perfect scavenger hunt activity. I put together different sheets to vary it depending on age and on what you want to focus: colors, sizes, types of trees, types of seeds. If you have a group you can also make it a competition to see who gets the largest, etc. I made a sheet for that as well. 

 




For younger children you can look for colored leaves. Then of course they can also just collect leaves and sort them by color, shape, and/or size.

We went on a leaf hunt today and had a wonderful time. Hazel asked if we could go on one every day. We had a large wind storm with some rain the other day,so many of the leaves are down. Hazel loved walking through the crunchy leaves on the side of the road.

We decided to look for the colors. Here is Hazel holding up the orange leaf we found. And, yes, she had me hold it up so she could take a picture of me as well on her camera.

Then in typical Hazel style after picking up many leaves, she discovered mushrooms.

Then of course she wanted to take pictures since I was.

We also found many acorns and acorn tops as well as a few sticks. On the way home, Hazel decided to ride in the wagon.

When we got home we looked at all of our treasures.

We have needed to make two cards, a birthday card for her teacher and a thank you note for someone at church who bought her a beautiful dress. We decided to use our treasures to make the cards. Hazel stamped a piece of white construction paper with "Happy Birthday" and another with "Thank you." Then on the front we glued (or at least attempted, I may need to use some hot glue) sticks on as the trunks and Hazel Mod Podged the leaves on back side and stuck it onto the paper and then put a layer of Mod Podge on the front. The Mod Podge glue will help keep the leaves from losing their colors.

I let her do the gluing so they are still drying.

Our other plan is to needle felt some acorns and make necklaces or just acorns for her friends and teachers at school. And here is a picture of my favorite tree right now (the photo really doesn't do it justice):

OH and a quick update on our painted acorns. We pulled out the nail polish I bought for Hazel this summer and I let her paint with that. She had a blast and they came out really well.

Halloween is Coming: Wiggly Halloween DVD Review & Giveaway with Halloween Crafts

Today I am going to share with you a few of our Halloween preparations as well as a wonderful DVD from The Wiggles: Wiggly Halloween. I was sent a copy of this DVD to review here (all opinions are my own) and I get to give a copy away to one of you! Thank you NCircle Entertainment for this opportunity!

The new Wiggles entertain in this friendly Halloween DVD. Now if you have been following me for any time, you may know Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. I think it has gone way overboard and lost the fun and meaning somewhere along the way. I try my best to focus on the non-scary parts for Hazel since she is sensitive and we take her trick-or-treating to family and friends houses (sometimes not on Halloween) and around our neighborhood to a few of the neighbors we are friendly with on the very early side. The past two Halloweens Steve has been working Halloween night due to storms hitting our area, so I have had to deal with the many, many trick-or-treaters we get on my own as well as getting Hazel out trick-or-treating. I do however remember the fun of dressing up and of trick-or-treating, so I really try to get Hazel excited for this.

Candy Corn Rice Krispie Treat

That being said, I found this video a perfect show to express my views. They mentioned scary things like witches, ghosts and zombies but did them in a non-scary way. The songs are fun and entertaining. Hazel favorite part is that there is a female Wiggle now. Every time the scene changed she had to point out who Emma was. It was really cute. The songs had words changed so that they would not scare young children and the whole DVD is full of fun, music and dancing. There is definitely an effort on the part of The Wiggles to get the children watching up and moving around with their dances. I also love how they feature children in so many of their songs. This DVD is a perfect non-scary celebration of Halloween for young and/or sensitive children. I know Hazel is almost too old to be enjoying them, but since she is so sensitive this is one of the few shows that does not scare her.

Above is a picture of the candy corn rice krispie treats we made with Hazel's best friend and his mom. His mother found the recipe in a magazine, but I don't know which one. I found a similar one here. They made the rice krispie treats before we got there with brown rice krispie cereal. They chose not to dye the treats to match the candy corns. They also bought Reese's Pieces instead of M&M's since the colors matched better.

Next we are sharing some of the edible bugs we made to bring over to Hazel's friend. He is always giving her presents so she wanted to give him one. We found the idea in Family Fun Magazine this month. They are made out of things like dates, prunes, raisins and dried cranberries. We also used chow mein noodles, dried bananas, white chips and sunflower seeds. The instructions called for sliced almonds, but Hazel's friend has a severe nut allergy, so we used sunflower seeds instead for the flies.

The last idea we are sharing today is our Spider Web Jar that we saw on ShinDigz DIY section. I received the fake spider web as part of the order I got to review their products. It is really easy. You need a empty and clean jar, fake spider web and spiders (which the web often comes with) and a LED tea light. Follow the instructions on their site.

Now onto our giveaway!! Here is your chance to win your own copy of The Wiggles: Wiggly Halloween DVD from NCircle Entertainment. Please follow my Giveaway Rules and just follow the Rafflecopter for what you need to do. Good luck!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Math Lesson: Finding Shapes and Patterns Everywhere!

Congratulations to Danelle for winning the Pocoyo's Circus DVD. Come back tomorrow for a new giveaway!

I haven't done a math lesson post in awhile, so I thought I would share some great picture books on shapes and patterns and a fun activity I use to do with my geometry students made easier for younger kids. The first book I am sharing is Round is a Tortilla: A Book of Shapes by Roseanne Greenfield Thong. Since it is still Hispanic Heritage Month, this is the perfect book to share and use for shapes. The book goes through many shapes: circles, squares, rectangles, stars and more. Each shape has several different things that are that shape. Many of the objects are mentioned in Spanish or are Hispanic in origin. We really enjoyed reading this book as it taught a bit about the culture as well as the shapes.

The next book is A Star in My Orange: Looking for Nature's Shapes by Sana Meachen Rau is a fun book about looking for stars in nature. Some we have thought of are on the leaves of tomatoes. This one had a few of its points bent and/or broken, but you can get the general idea.








 Another place is in an apple when you cut it horizontal instead of along the length of the core.

Our final book for today is part of the Math Every Day series and it is Patterns Outside by Daniel Nunn. It is a wonderful book to introduce looking for patterns. The focus of  the book is patterns found at a park in nature.




Now to go with these three books, I thought a fun activity would be a shape scavenger hunt and scrapbook.  This is an activity I use to do with my high school geometry students. Their list was much longer and harder, but I made a simple one in Word that you can use or change to what your child knows. (I did this project with the students at the beginning of the year to introduce many of the vocabulary words to them.)

The activity itself is to find different triangles either in a picture from a magazine, newspaper (some place they can cut it out) or take a photograph of one. Ideas would be the triangle formed to make a roof, a triangle musical instrument, the triangle in a butterfly wing, etc. I gave numbers for each shape. The list is done by pages so all the pictures of the triangles will be on the same page, then the pictures of squares, etc. The object of the activity is for kids to see geometry and shapes everywhere as well as get use to the terms. If you try it, please let me know how you like it! Again feel free to adjust the shapes and vocabulary words to make it age appropriate for your child(ren).

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures: Cinderella Tales from Mexico

I have shared with you several Cinderella tales from Mexico as well as many different crafts and such from Mexico. Last April and May I shared two tales that are available in picture book form: Adelita and Domitila. I gave a brief history of Mexico in the Adelita post. Today I am going to share two more Cinderella tales from Mexico. These I found translated in English in Latin American Folktales: Stories from Hispanic and Indian Traditions by John Bierhorst.

From our Adeltia Post

The first tale is very similar to the Polish Jewish Cinderella tale, The Way Meat Loves Salt by Nina Jaffe. It is called Love Like Salt. In this version it is a king who has three daughters. The king asks his daughters how much each loves him. The eldest says more than the world's gold. The middle daughter says as much as all of her jewelry and the youngest replies as much as salt. The king is angered by his youngest daughter's answer and vows to have her put to death. He sends a servant to take her to the woods and kill her bringing back her little finger and eyes. The servant cannot kill the princess, but has to cut off her little finger and took the eyes from a small dog lost in the forest. She wandered the forest looking for food and shelter. She found a hermit that lived in a cave.  The hermit lets her stay with him. Her life has really changed. She digs roots for food and drinks water directly from the stream and the cave is no palace. One day a lost prince finds her gathering flowers. He is overwhelmed with her beauty and proposes marriage to her. She accepts at once. They go home to his parents and he tells them he wants to marry this girl. They agree and the wedding invitations go out. On the day of the wedding she sees her father has arrived and points him out to the prince. She tells him to have the cooks not put any salt on the food that her father will be served. At the reception, the king complains about the lack of salt. She asks why he cares about salt so much now. He says you cannot eat without salt and she asks if he was ever offended by someone saying they loved him as much as salt. The king remembered his youngest daughter and she told him she was his daughter and shows her missing finger. He begs for forgiveness now realizing how much she meant.

Papel Picados we made last year

The second tale is The Dragon Slayer. This is a tale about a father with three daughters. The youngest daughter has the most beauty and the older two are very jealous. The oldest two take their father's money and hide it under the youngest's mattress while she sleeps and then tells their father when he discovers the missing money where it is. He cannot believe it, but checks anyway. He takes her by the hand with his machete in the other. She begs for her life saying she will go far away. He lets her go. She wandered for miles and eventually sat down to rest and eat the tortillas she had. An old woman came and asked for some food. She tells her to help herself. The old woman tells the girl where to go for work and gives her a magic wand. 

From our Hispanic DIY Musical Instrument Post Last Year

The girl uses the wand to find the castle the woman told her about and gets work in the kitchen. The king was very gloomy however and the girl asks her wand why. She hears that he must send his son, the prince, to be eaten by the seven headed dragon or the dragon will come eat all the people in the kingdom. The girl takes the advice of the wand on how to kill the dragon and manages to kill it. She then asks for the prince's hand in marriage. The king does not want his son to marry a kitchen girl, but he cannot go back on his word and they plan the wedding for the next day. She uses her wand to help get a dress and the wand tells her to ask the Virgin Mary for help. She wakes to find a beautiful gold dress. The prince falls in love with her instantly, but so does the king. The king gets jealous of his son and wants to kill him so he can marry the princess.

Dancing with a Rebozo from last year's post.

The princess uses her wand to find out how she can prevent this and she has to find a giant and get the ring from his tooth. She does this with the help from her wand and the ring gives her the power to change things and she changed the king into a wild pig. The prince shot the pig and went off to win the war his father had sent him to fight. When he returned home he and the princess lived very happily.

From our Adelita Post

Now that concludes our fairy tales for this week. Next week's fairy tale will be on Sunday since Monday is the Virtual Book Club for Kids day. This month's author is Nick Sharratt.