Thinking Thursday: All about SHARKS!

Oh my, did you know that sharks have LOTS of teeth over its lifetime, like up to 50,000 lots! Well that's what we learned today. We researched some sharks for Thinking Thursday and made this cute little guy....

It very well could be considered a "Pinterest Fail" but M thought it was cute so that's all that matters, right?

When we went to the library on Monday, I had asked Myla what our research topic would be this week and she debated between squids and sharks. We went with sharks and I'm glad we did, because I learned a lot!! Now, I've never been into "Shark Week" like so many other people I know so this may be really boring info to all the shark experts out there. But we were fascinated. I think I will now become a shark week fan.

Anyway, before we got started, Myla thought of her three shark research questions.

We had already read one of her shark books a couple nights ago so I really encouraged her to think of something she didn't already know.

She came up with...

1) What do sharks do?

2) What kinds of fish do sharks eat?

3) How many teeth do sharks have? (this was actually Daddy's question but Myla liked it) Her daddy, btw, is slightly obsessed with sharks, an avid shark week lover, yet is highly terrified of them.

I had Myla fill in a few of the words in the questions. She wanted to try to write so I will definitely let her when she shows interest. :)

Ready to research!

She wanted to go straight to the videos! I did have to google "shark videos FOR KIDS" because who knows what would come up. (We are also going to the beach twice this month so don't want to terrify her too much)

We also looked through the shark books to find the answers. It wasn't too hard to find. Myla's first question got answered by watching the videos. ;) Since I was such an active participant in the research (seriously, mind blown) there wasn't a lot of research pics.

Here is what we found out!

Pardon the messy handwriting, I need a bigger board.

Translation: 1) Sharks swim around and look for food, swim together in schools, attack!, travel long distances to find food.
2) They eat ALL kinds of fish, shrimp, seals, otters, sea turtles, EVEN EACH OTHER.
3) They have anywhere to 45-48 front teeth with up to 7 rows of spare teeth.

Not really sure how that can add up to 50,000 teeth as stated above...still pondering that? It was from a different source. But their teeth can grow in ONE day if they lose one.

Also not written down, do you know some sharks have these little sucker fish that live on them? They are called remoras.  They feed on the bits and pieces (AKA leftovers) of prey that float in the water when a shark feeds. But the sharks tolerate them and don't eat the remoras. They just eat everything else. Fascinating. What's even more fascinating, is that this info first came from Myla who had learned this on one of her animal videos. (Seriously, she loves watching animal videos, it's crazy) I didn't believe it so I had to look it up.

Ok, so after learning about sharks, it was time for our shark craft. I had just pinned this cute shark from Pinterest last night and thought it would be super cute and simple to make.

I found it on Almost Unschoolers blog. You can check out how cute their shark is, compare to mine and decide for yourself if it's a Pinterest Fail. I kinda think so!

Paper Plate SHARK craft

Materials

Blue or grey construction paper
small paper plate
scissors
glue stick
pencil
googly eyes if you have them ( I didn't)

First, we took the small paper plate, folded in half and then cut little triangles along the sides.

M did about half before she wanted to help me cut out the shark's body, so I took over and finished the plate. 

I had drawn a shark body looking at the template online. See?

She did pretty well cutting it out.

The mouth is ready!

 Simply glue one side of the plate to body.

 Then we folded down the teeth so they actually look like teeth. I'm not convinced but M loved it.

Since I didn't have any googly eyes, I just drew them on. Myla wanted to draw a little sucker fish on the shark, after all, "they're best buddies".

So is the body just not big enough?? I can't tell why this looks so strange to me. Oh well. 

Here is a video where she explains what she learned. 

And now here is another one that she didn't realize I was recording at first. She was just SUPER excited to tell me all about this Wild Kratts website that has fun games and that you can play from your computer, iPad or phone. She seriously sounded like a commercial. LOVE her enthusiasm...

So that's all for Thinking Thursday. 

Poor little brother didn't have a thinking activity planned for him today, he destroyed the house instead. Every single toy was scattered across the floor... in every room. The good thing is he can play very independently now. The bad news is he's a tornado...

This is only a small view of what the house looked like. This is his corner, where he could play for hours with his cars, trucks and trains. He's such a mess. He was building "sidewalks for the people", using his fire truck to put out fires, delivering new bicycles to the stores, using his "dulldozer" and backhoe to dig holes for new buildings, and taking hurt people to the hospital in his ambulance etc etc.

I shouldn't give him such a hard time...it looks like he did some thinking today after all. :)

Until next time...

Thanks for reading!