Florida Everglades lesson

So……  I could have sworn I wrote this post when I wrote my posts for the week, but apparently, I didn’t write up this particular science lesson disguised as a geography lesson.  Here goes our Florida Everglades lesson.

Hey, Future Ticia 2022, I’m updating this post with slightly edited pictures, and to make it a bit more usable. Also, adding in what I’ve learned 12 years later. Those additions will be noted where I add them in.

As part of our Florida Unit (wow, Future Ticia 2022 is amazed I didn’t write a Florida Unit post, I need to go back and rectify that), we read about the Everglades, and then we made our own version of the Everglades.  I’d actually say if you can find a different book to read that because this one was okay, but not great.

(there are affiliates links in here)

Resources for Florida Everglades lesson

Hi! This is Future Ticia 2022 updating this post so it’s a more useful post. This is a super cool craft, and it’s well worth making with your own kids, so I’m adding in some resources I didn’t have at the time (awesome YouTube videos), and the books I read to my kids when we first did this lesson.

This video isn’t particularly intended for kids, but has lots of pretty shots of the everglades.

My library had two books on the Florida Everglades, but only one was particularly useful to read:

• Everglades– the author has written several nice non-fiction books that I enjoy using especially because the illustrations are glorious
• Everglades– this is actually a different book with the same name and author as the one in my library, this book would work because it’s a Rookie Reader, and is a nice small amount of facts and information to get the point across. The book my library has is a True Book, which is a great series for kids first learning how to write reports
• The Swamp where Gator Hides-this came out AFTER we did this lesson, but from what I can see and what I’m reading the book is nice and solid

All right, let’s get to what our Florida Everglades lesson actually looked like back then when we headed into a craft.

Lesson supplies

construction paper: 2 blue, green, and yellow; glue (I also took a small amount and tinted it blue with tempera paint, Future Ticia 2022 would like to note, that I buy glue in 1-gallon bottles, and pour it into smaller containers to use, it’s more cost-effective); dried grass; scissors; printout (will be uploaded to the subscriber page, join my newsletter); crayons

Let’s start putting together our Florida Everglades craft

Ha ha ha ha, Future Ticia 2022 here, this is back when my tutorials are much more sarcastic and silly. Have fun with sarcastic.

1.  Cut out large numbers of animal pictures.  So many that you will be able to cover the paper more times than you could imagine.  While the kids are doing that you can trim the first page of blue paper to make it look wavy and to be about a third of its size.  The yellow paper is about half, and the green is about 2/3, and finally, the other blue is left normal.

2.  On each layer glue the appropriate animals.  It’s water, marsh, grassland, and sky, in case you were wondering.  For the marshland, we used the blue-tinted glue and put the dried grass on yellow paper.

3.  Insist on putting all of the animals on.  There are so many on it that we had to put them on the front and back.

Sadly, there are also some in the wrong areas.  But, it was done gleefully saying, “Look, I put the manatee in the sky, isn’t that silly?”

Well, here are the finished pictures.  AAAAAHHHHHH viscous puppy attack as I get the pictures.

Oh no, I’m being licked to death.  And those sharp little puppy teeth are trying to chew on my nose.

Whew, got him calmed down and sitting on my lap now.  He’s figured out how to get past our puppy gate for upstairs.  And then he figured out how to get past my improvisation to stop him from doing that.  Why are all young things in my family horribly good at getting into mischief?  My boys defeated the child-proofing on their door in less time than it took me to put it on when they were babies.

So, that’s the many layers of the Everglades.  I could have made it much more complicated, but this was quite complicated enough for me.

It was wildly popular and they enjoyed making a mess as they created their Florida Everglades project.

More geography lessons that turned into science lessons

• Salt Lake City science lesson
• Washington State, Mount Saint Helen geography lesson
• Pompeii history and science lesson (okay, this one is history, but it fits the theme)

“Florida Everglades Wetland Landscape Next to Shark Valley” by Captain Kimo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.