The Timeline of Life, Part 2

In the Mesozoic and Cenozoic,  there were only a few images that I used from the Garden of Francis download. 

For the Mesozoic, I used this article, The Three Ages of Dinosaurs, to help me decide on what to include. Then, the first place I checked for images was Super Coloring. If I couldn't find something there, I did a google image search. The dinosaurs were easy to research, and it was easy to find images.

In the Mesozoic, I followed the trail leading to the Age of Mammals by including the therapsid Lystrosaurus and Eozostrodon in the Triassic, Oligokyphus in the Jurassic, and Repenomamus and Cimolestes in the Cretaceous.

After the Permian extinction event and the disappearance of the primitive sea lilies, I tried to include some other things that went on in the sea. Apparently, coral barriers formed in the Triassic, starfish diversified in the Jurassic, giant bivalves joined the party in large numbers during the Cretaceous, and the first true starfish genus showed up in the Paleogene.

I also researched insects and plants. Beetles diversified in the Triassic and flies arrived. Googling Jurassic insects led me to the scary, giant flea-like insects. The Cretaceous saw termites and mosquitos, and the first true butterflies flitted into the Paleogene. Cycadeoids were nommed on by dinos in the Jurassic, angiosperms diversified in the Cretaceous, and grasses appeared in the Paleogene. Man cultivated grains in the Quaternary. 

I have some cool marine beasties swimming along the bottom of the Mesozoic. In the Cenozoic, I was excited to include megalodon. Sharks had been swimming around since the Paleozoic, but the extinction of the large marine reptiles at the end of the Mesozoic left the apex predator position open. I included the damselfish in the Quaternary because I read an article discussing it as an example of evolution in action.

I liked the large herbivore from the Garden of Francis mutes and liked that they also included the whale, so I followed up with the elephant in the Neogene.

I really wanted to include a saber-tooth tiger (smilodon). Once I added him, a miacoid in the Paleogene seemed obvious. Although not descended from smilodon, the tiger seemed the appropriate miacoid descendant to include in the Quaternary. 

The Garden of Francis mutes included the man, so I added the ape in the Neogene and the primate in the Paleogene. 

The mutes included eohippus and mesohippus, so I added pliohippus and the modern horse. 

The archaeopteryx was included in the mutes. After him, I included feathered a feathered dinosaur, ichthyornis, and hesperornis in the Cretaceous; gastornis in the Paleogene and a hummingbird and an American Kestrel in the Quaternary. I chose the modern birds based on my middle son's favorites, but finches would be the obvious bird to include.

I continued with the paleo-maps along the bottom, extinction events, and ice age information. I wrapped up our timeline with some information about the geologic timescale. 

I am pleased with the finished product, but there is always more. ;) I wish I would have included more Cephalopods and more turtles. I wish frogs were there. I am sad to have excluded the wooly mammoth and the giant wombat. Ah well, too many animals only so much space. Oh- and why include plants and no fungi! OK, OK, what is on there makes me smile... big. :D

The Great Lessons, Lesson 2: The Coming of Life: Part 2

Doodle continued working with his art history timeline. 

In our second week of covering Lesson 2, Doodle reviewed insect metamorphosis using the free ladybug life cycle cards from Montessori Print Shop. For some reason the adult insect didn't print properly. :(

He continued using the five big major extinction events cards and added the five major ice ages that I made.

Using both the free set and the $1.99 set from Montessori Print Shop, Doodle looked at dinosaurs. 

He also wrote a paragraph on three different dinosaurs that he chose from the cards. The goal was to include all the facts on the card and three things from online research that he thought were interesting or important. Here is one of the three:

Archaeopteryx is a member of the family Archaeopterygidae. It was named by Hermann von Meyer in 1861. Its name means ancient feather or wing. A total of eleven Archaeopteryx specimens have been found plus a feather. Although it had feathers and could fly, it had similarities to dinosaurs, including its teeth, skull, lack of a horny bill, and some bone structures. Paleontologists view Archaeopteryx as a transition between dinosaurs and modern birds. This early bird lived in the late Jurassic period about one hundred fifty million years ago and was about one foot long and weighed eleven to eighteen ounces. Archaeopteryx is the oldest-known fossil animal that is generally accepted as a bird.     

We looked at our prehistoric marine life posters.

Be careful! The fossils will chew on your head.

We watched two free DVDs from HHMI- The Day the Mesozoic Died and The Origin of Species.

He also read a little in A Really Short History of Nearly Everything, and I finished our Timeline of Life and will write a separate post about what went into making it.

The Timeline of Life, Part 1

OMG! These things are crazy expensive. Is it worth it to pay $200+ for a timeline? For us, I decided that it was definitely not worth the money for a rising sixth grader who will probably spend two weeks with Lesson 2 this summer. While we plan to visit the grand scheme of things again in the fall, it will be through Big History Project and not Montessori Great Lessons. The coming of life on earth will be the same, so a timeline would be nice. I would definitely pay $50 for a 2'x10' poster that covered the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic, but any more than that kind of makes me cough. I would even have paid $80 for a 2'x10' timeline poster that came with a blank 2'x10' poster and digital download cut outs to place on the blank one. I would have seriously considered $100 if it came with all of the previously mentioned items and some nice extras that go along with Lesson 2, even if the extras were just digital downloads. However, I cannot bring myself to pay over $200 for a timeline, blank, and pieces that will be used for two weeks.

So, after I finished ranting about the cost, I went to the Parent-Teacher Store and purchased a 2'x12' roll of bulletin board paper for <$4 with tax and got to work. I figured a scale of 1"/ 5 million years and marked off periods including the Ediacaran from the Proterozoic Eon. I purchased the timeline mute images for $6 from Garden of Francis and started coloring. I printed paleogeographic images from the Paleomap Project. I printed information about the big five mass extinction events from BBC Nature.I also used information from BBC Nature's Geological Time Periods. I used information from all over the place including BBC about ice ages. I researched trilobites, sea lilies, insects, amphibians, and early reptiles to try to get a handle on general times of diversification and extinction. I thought this article about the complete hexapod fossil helpful/ interesting. You can see my little blue hexapod running out of the Devonian period and into the Carboniferous.

It may not be completely accurate scientifically, but, as Miss Barbara pointed out, this is an impressionistic introduction, but I do hope the few things I researched are close to current scientific understanding!

Unfortunately, the images of dinosaurs from the Garden of Francis mutes are too few and too old school inaccurate to use for my Mesozoic section so more research is ahead for this next week!

The Great Lessons, Lesson 2- The Coming of Life: Part 1

This week Doodle continued working with his timeline art cards, and began Lesson 2, The Coming of Life.

I don't think that I have actually posted a picture of the art history timeline cards. They are from TeachersPayTeachers for $3, I figure we will be using them long enough that they were worth laminating. There are 22 three-part cards (so 66 pieces) covering art from the stone age through modern. Right now Doodle is working with cards 1-11.

For Lesson 2, I used Miss Barbara's Story of the Coming of Life- modified on the fly. I told the story a little each day and we completed it through the Permian.

To coordinate with the Coming of Life, I put together a packet on cells. I went to TeachersPayTeachers and searched for free materials on cells. So, everything was free except I the Cell Graphic Organizer by Bond with James that I purchased for $3.50.

If I had been on the ball, I would have asked Doodle to layout the inside material differently where he could have cut between each word. Then, he could have lifted each flap individually and used the lapbook as a study aid. The way he glued the information on the inside flaps prohibits cutting, but it is attractive and logically well-organized. I just wanted the share about cutting between the strips in case anyone saw it and thought about make one. 

From Montessori Print Shop, I bought the four individual items for 6 Kingdoms of Life. Although I felt like this would just be review, it was worth the < $8 to print and cut the material. It turns out that he did need a refresher for putting kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Also he didn't mind having the easier cards in his material.

I also created some cards for the big five mass extinction events using information from the BBC website. The information was begging to by printed out on cards.

Here is how I organized and stored the materials. With the materials primarily being flat, one cubbyhole was enough. The microscope has its own cubby, and the prepared slides and other microscope stuff is in the cubby to the left of the microscope.

Doodle read The Big Picture Book by John Long, and we talked about trilobites, sea scorpions, sea lilies, and giant dragonflies. We are trying to hatch some triops. It has only been a couple of days, but so far nothing has hatched. :( I hope they do!

I used the Clock of Eras and some information from fossils-facts-and-finds. I was sure to include the explanation of the color choices, because I like the thoughtfulness behind them and also because they are also the colors used on The Timeline on Life.

As a giant mommy project, this week I began I creating our very own Timeline of Life. I worked alongside the story, so it is completed through the Permian. I'll do a separate post explaining what all went into creating it, but here is a picture:

The Great Lessons: Lesson 1, The Coming of the Universe and Earth

Lesson 1, The Coming of the Universe and Earth

This was a quick one week introduction for a rising sixth grader who had never experienced the Montessori Great Lessons.

Book
We read the first 75 pages of A Really Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

 Doodle read How the World Began: Creation in Myths and Legends

Poster
We read and looked at the poster The Cosmos: You Are There.

Visual
We read and printed the Cosmic Timeline shown at the scale of one calendar year from the University of Victoria site of Prof. Arif Babul and attached it to the poster.

Activity
We went to the park and did The Earth as a Peppercorn solar system model. There are a lot of descriptions online explaining how to do this activity. I took ideas from several, but this is the one we used to pace off the distance. It, of course, isn't as exact as actually measuring the distances, but it was awfully convenient. We actually only made it to Uranus as the park area wasn't large enough to accommodate the all the planets and Pluto. We plan to try this activity again with friends who have a straight dead end road near their home.

Doodle is sitting beside Uranus and the sun is all the way in the treeline in the background.

We also visited went to an inflatable planetarium that was made available free as a public outreach initiative. There were less than ten of us who attended the teen/ adult session, so it was more personal than any planetarium show that I have attended. Doodle really enjoyed going. It was definitely the highlight of Lesson 1.