#23 - Fox

[Marie]

Lesson #23 Fox

[Alyssa Lancaster]

Two great fox books that are read as a story but tell lots of facts about Foxes are: My first Book of Nature: The Fox by Angela Royston
and Wild Fox, A true Story by Cherie Mason.
my three children loved them--6 1/2, 5, and 3.

[Winkie]

My boys *loved* this book, but it's a real tongue-twister for mom to read! (it even has a warning in the front)

Fox In Socks by Dr. Seuss

[overholt]

We had a lot of fun singing the old Sunday School Song "The devil is a sly old Fox"

[ironclad]

I discovered that the name of the author for the book suggested for book day was spelled incorrectly. If you are trying to find "The Gingerbread Boy" the author is Paul Galdone. (in the teachers manual it is spelled Paul Caldone). Thought this might help.

[sweetlucyhope]

Here is a good picture of a fox for coloring:

http://www.coloring.ws/t.asp?b=m&t=http ... or-fox.gif

This link has an "okay" picture but gives instructions on the coloration of the fox:

http://pelotes.jea.com/ColoringPage/Mam ... redfox.htm

Blessings!
Lesa

[RachelT]

More fox books!

You Are Special, Little One by Nancy Tafuri (sweet)

Saving Samantha, A True Story by Robbyn Smith van Frankenhuyzen (I hope I spelled her name correctly! A nice book of a rescued wild fox who eventually returns to the wild.)

Rachel

[Mom2MnS]

Here are just a few of the books we loved during the fox study...

Chanticleer and the Fox by Barbara Cooney
Wild Fox by Cherie Mason
Flossie and the Fox by Patricia McKissack **
Grandfather Tang's Story Ann Tompert
The Adventures of Reddy Fox Thornton Burgess

**this book is absolutely precious! It is written in dialect and was so fun to do with dd. The main character, Flossie, out foxes the fox - and my daughter was delighted when she realized that.

[Julie - Staff]

I want to have a snack or recipe to go with the letter or theme of each K unit. I have found recipes for most units, but I have run out of ideas and was hoping that one of you creative people out there could help me out with F-fox.

Posted Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:07 pm by dhudson
Lets see - animal crackers for fox? Or cookies made up in the shape of a fox?

Posted Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:01 pm by DS4home
Here's an idea I just thought of for fox. Make his nose! Use a sandwich cookie and poke four straight pretzles into the frosting to stick out like wiskers in the shape of an X.

Dawn

Posted Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:42 pm by Amy in NC
How about X-shaped cookies. You might also do a twist on the hot dog octopus and just cut one slit at each end of the hot dog. Then when it cooks it would look like an X. (maybe)

Posted Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:25 am by firewarrior
X Trail mix, Box (mini boxes of cereal), Chex mix

[cbollin]

My third child is in K, and I never had this problem when teaching the others to read. When we sing the a-a-apple song all goes well until fox. He gets stuck on the fact that fox doesn't start with x. Or sometimes he sings it as follows: w-w-water f-f-fox, y-y-yellow...

I understand his confusion on the fox card. Everything else is the first sound and then all of a sudden one of them is the ending sound. so, I'm guessing he would just appreciate the advanced warning and a quick explanation, maybe a visual cue to see, and hear you do it first.

Before singing the A A apple song, just tell him "that it's hard to come up with words beginning with the letter X that are things that God made. Well, X-ray might have worked, but that is hard to do fun school stuff right now.
Did you know that usually X at the very beginning of a word will usually pretend to be the letter Z? yeah. so that would be confusing, right. So, on one this one word near the end of the song, we *will* use the ending letter in foX since that is where X says /ks/ in that word. and that I hope you give it a try."

(note to mom: if he needs more info on that later on, in words such as "excuse", the "x" is not the first letter, but it says /ks/. Take note that it is the last sound of the syllable. Basically, that's the same thing with fox. More than likely that will overwhelm him already. X-ray is just an "eXception")

Mark the fox flashcard in some way to help him remember that. You might write foX on it and have an arrow pointing to the letter X. Then tell him to try and follow your lead for the switch up. Let him know that it is important to listen for ending of words and ending of syllables too.

Thanks, Crystal, for your helpful thoughts
I have explained the fox thing to him several times, but it just really bugs him. But he is th kind of kid who sees things in black and white. We have to be careful about saying we might do something (like, "Oh, we should go to the park this afternoon,") because he thinks it is a promise! So...in his eyes it just doesn't make sense for the work fox to be the x word. I must confess that there are some days we just skip the song to make life easier &)

If he knows the sounds, you can skip it from time to time and not worry about it.

Maybe if you got silly about about it and said something silly like "the Fox is the tricky and sly one, so don't let that sneaky fox trip you."

hang in there. I've got kids that get bothered when the rules seem to go wacko. (and now, my youngest is running around saying Swiper no swipingi, swiper no swiping, oh man!)

I guess the other thing to make sure on your side is that he isn't trying to be class clown. But that's probably not what's going on.

-crystal

[JohnsWife]

We love the book, 'Dr.DeSoto' it goes along so well with the fox being deceitful and saying nice things all the while thinking something else. Such a cute book and the pictures are darling.

[DS4home]

Day 5 activity says to gather pictures of animals and classify them. We decided to classify all of our stuffed animals! We used everything from beanie babies to large stuffed animals and made a big pile on the living room floor. We designated three areas to be water, air, and land. Then each animal had to go to their place to live. We had a large amount of land animals after this, so we decided to classify them further. We made three more areas in our land for zoo animals, forest animals, and farm animals (we live in the midwest). My dd found this part to be more challenging. It was a fun and educational activity.

Dawn

[Melissa]

Here's another cute book to add to fox week ~ Hattie and the Fox by Mem Fox.

Melissa

[mnmmomjen]

Ditto on Dr. De Soto! Clever story, a "sly" fox, and mice that are even more sly than their patient!

[Yodergoat]

We are not yet to the Fox unit, but when we do it I am going to be sure to emphasize to Gail that there are several types of foxes, although not all are considered to be "true foxes" as in the genus Vulpes... but still, I consider them to be foxes because they're all, well, foxy and sly! In our area, the southeast US, there are only two types... the Red Fox and the much more elusive and oddly catlike Gray Fox (a different genus than the red). But there are many others in North America and worldwide. We will probably mostly discuss the ones in North America. The Gray Fox is one of my very favorite native mammals, so beautiful! I am teaching a class at our co-op about native TN wildlife, and I am anxiously awaiting when I get to show the children some pictures and the borrowed pelt of a lovely Gray Fox.

So with that in mind, I have been looking for books for Gail which will represent some of these other foxes. I haven't checked the library yet, as the unit is still far off, but I do have one recommendation already.

I have the book, "Ice Bear and Little Fox" by Jonathan London in her file folder for the Fox unit. Got it at a library book sale for 25 cents. It is beautifully illustrated and also gives several Inuit words for the various other arctic animals in the story. Very informative about the interesting relationship between Polar Bears and Arctic Foxes. I like it! Note: it does have an illustration of a cute seal about to get smacked by the bear on one page, and the next page shows some blood-soaked snow and a few "remains" of the seal meal which the fox is eating. Could make some children sad.

Just thought I'd mention the "other" foxes and give this book recommendation for those who want to explore them.

[lisabee]

For Day 5 we didn't have any magazines with animals, so I went to the blog 1+1+1=1 and printed off some of her Montessori Animal Cards from the Nomenclature and Matching sets and laminated them. Now we have plenty of animals to categorize--I made paper bags with habitats (ocean/Water, Land, and air) and had him sort them out! And now we have beautiful cards we can use later too.

I also used activities from the Fox Lapbook available at Homeschoolshare.com. It is a perfect go-along for this unit!

And we watched some of the Aesop's Fables about foxes on YouTube--then read them. Our movie for the week...Fox and the Hound!

[MuzzaBunny]

We found over 2 dozen fox themed books at our library and enjoyed all of those, but as a special treat, I ordered in a DVD thru inter-library loan. It's called, "The Fox and the Child" and I cannot say enough nice things about it. Beautiful, gorgeous scenery, really lovely story. Obviously, you might need to have a quick conversation with your dc about rabies and approaching wild animals, but all in all, a lovely film. DD has spent the last two days being a vixen and providing for her cubs, acting out all the movie scenes. Great educational value! Now, SPOILER ALERT. This is a G rated film that the whole family will enjoy, so if you'd rather not know anything, stop reading here.... It does have a tragic part right toward the end, some blood and sadness. Very sensitive little ones might be upset. (I know I felt like tearing up!) So, just fair warning. My dd did okay, even encouraging me when she heard me mutter "ohhhh, how sad", by telling me it was all okay though because of thus and such...

Among our vast selection of books, I highly recommend "Saving Samantha" by Robbyn Smith van Frankenhuyzen. DD was delighted.
Fox has been our favorite unit!

[Yodergoat]

I want to also recommend "Flossie and the Fox." Cute story and fun to read in southern dialect. I'm from TN, like Flossie, so I was able to do it easily, as it is close enough to how I speak "anyways."

We used a fox puppet to act out the story. I played the part of Flossie, reading her words in her accent, and had the fox puppet on my hand to answer in his own sly voice. So much fun and a delight to see Gail "get it" when she realized that Flossie knew all along.

It was also a great conversation starter about how different things can share like qualities. In the story, the fox tries to prove that he is indeed a fox to Flossie, who doesn't seem to believe him. He will mention one of his foxlike characteristics, to which Flossie will respond that this or that other animal also has that characteristic. Such as a bushy tail, which a squirrel also has... or a pointy nose, which a rat also has.

It was also a fun book to have her narrate back to me.... she used the dialect from the book and it was so precious.

I borrow all manner of puppets from a nearby county's library, and so far have been able to get a puppet for many of the animal units and we always pair them with an appropriate book. Or we act the stories out with Gail's own stuffed animals. It becomes a highlight of each unit.

[CaseyVG]

I put all the kitchen chairs in the living room in a circle and covered them with a big blanket. We pretended it was a fox den, we were the foxes of course!

I also cut their sandwiches into 4 triangles which made an X.

[MuzzaBunny]

The Fox Unit for MFW K seems to be lacking a good Bible story to illustrate how "God makes me wiser than my enemies". Kids don't really have enemies, and while Satan is our enemy, that's a little hard for them to understand just yet. The curriculum gives the example of the children of Israel winning battles when they obeyed God's rules, but losing battles when they didn't. But, it's just a short illustration. Can anyone recommend an age-appropriate Bible story that illustrates this concept?

I'm in the middle of school (dd is reading) so I have to be quick, but I think David eluding Saul would be a good one.

That's a good one, but can't find it in any of our Bible story books. It just occurred to me that the Walls of Jericho story might work. God's wisdom there seemed strange, but they obeyed anyway, and their enemies were defeated.

Yes, that would be very good!

[lea_lpz]

It just occurred to me that the Walls of Jericho story might work. God's wisdom there seemed strange, but they obeyed anyway, and their enemies were defeated.

My daughter is in k and we'll be doing that unit next and she is coming up to that story in her Sparks book. I also remember that there's a Veggie Tales video on that.

Other stories:
Adam & Eve
David and Goliath
Samson & Delilah

[Julie in MN]

I also remember that there's a Veggie Tales video on that.

I think kids do get the idea of "enemies" from videos -- even Veggie Tales videos usually have an enemy, of some sort (like the guys who were going to drop a piano on the king's head in Esther). A lot of kids like Superheroes, who always have a villain. Even fairy tales like the Gingerbread Man in the Fox unit have an enemy type of character.

And even in a very sheltered existence where a child hasn't heard current events and local stories, there is usually an experience of coming up against mean/bad/sin/etc., even if just as an observer of family and church events. The Day 2 Proverb about someone who uses words to hurt has come up in most children's lives already.

You've got some great Bible ideas, but I just wanted to say that you might want to explore these ideas with your child, because you might find out that a child is more acquainted with the idea of an enemy than we realize.

Julie

[lea_lpz]

Here are just a few of the books we loved during the fox study...

Chanticleer and the Fox by Barbara Cooney
Wild Fox by Cherie Mason
Flossie and the Fox by Patricia McKissack **
Grandfather Tang's Story Ann Tompert
The Adventures of Reddy Fox Thornton Burgess

**this book is absolutely precious! It is written in dialect and was so fun to do with dd. The main character, Flossie, out foxes the fox - and my daughter was delighted when she realized that.

Flossie and the Fox was so excellent! We had to read it aloud to Dadda tonight because it was so good! My kids got such a kick out of my best Southern drawl and the language and story was so fun . Can't recommend this book enough.

No extra projects this unit. We're gearing up to finish k so trying to complete these last couple units in one week. We really took our time during this year to do a lot of extras and field trips on each unit, spending more closer to 2 weeks a unit, so now we gotta get moving on...,such a fun and blessed year, but we are ready for a break and excited about doing 1st.

[lea_lpz]

We also read Saving Samantha: A True Story by Robbyn Smith van Frankenhuyven and watched The Fox and the Hound, which inspired dd to write her own version of The Gingerbread Boy where the fix comes to live with our family and is friends with our dog. Some how she keeps missing the point that a fox is wild and could not be tamed. But still good book and movie for this unit.