At-Home Activities: Desert Adventures - Special Equipment

Heather Martinson
Jan 9, 2021
5 min read

January 11-15

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Workshop Class Activities

Craft – Sand Art
Key Points – Desert Survival Needs
Collaborative – Aquifer Model and Experiment
Language Arts – Desert Journal
Math/Logic – Desert Temperatures Graphs
Prepare for Adventure – Survival Water
Big Activity – Water Cycle Skits
Movement - Relay Race for Water

At-Home Activities

See a suggested week schedule at https://www.celebrationeducation.com/single-post/free-curriculum

Materials

• various fiction and non-fiction books that relate to deserts

• notebook or lined paper

• world map: https://www.freeusandworldmaps.com/images/WorldPrintable/WorldMercator6NoLinesPrint.jpg

• tens cards and number tiles, print and cut apart (included)

• a deck of cards

• 3x5 cards

• drawing paper

Reading

Various fiction and non-fiction books that relate to deserts

Writing

Copywork

“The desert tells a different story every time one ventures on it.” - Robert Edison Fulton, Jr.
“I have never been in a natural place and felt that it was a waste of time. I never have. And it's a relief. If I'm walking around a desert or whatever, every second is worthwhile.” - Viggo Mortensen

Language arts lesson

A character sketch is a written description of a character. A character sketch can include information such as:

• physical features like hair color and height

• personality (funny, serious, quiet, etc.?)

• family

• beliefs

• hobbies

• why you like or dislike them

• back story

• what the character wants

• how they change in the story

Writing Activity

Think about a fictional book that you’ve read recently. Who was your favorite character in the story? Write a character sketch about this character.

Journaling

The most adventurous thing I ever did was…

Math

Math Concept

The colors on this weather map show the temperatures in our country on November 19, 2020. What temperature was it at your home on that day?

Math Project

Use the chart below to color parts of the world with the colors to indicate the temperatures on October 27, 2012. Use the free printable map here: https://www.freeusandworldmaps.com/images/WorldPrintable/WorldMercator6NoLinesPrint.jpg

Math Concept

Rounding means making a number simpler but keeping its value close to what it was.

The result is less accurate, but easier to use. See more about rounding here: https://www.mathsisfun.com/rounding-numbers.html

Math Project

Spread the tens cards out across the room, like a number line. Sort the number tiles to the tens cards that they would round to. You may want to remake this activity in order to round to the nearest hundreds or hundredths.

Mental math

Remove the Joker, Jack, Queen, and king cards from a deck of cards. Aces equals one. The red cards are negative and the black are positive. Deal six cards to each player and place the remaining cards in the center as a draw pile. On your turn, draw one card. If any two of your cards could equal 6 or -6, place these on the table in front of you. Discard a card to end your turn. The first person with 3 pairs wins.

Math games

Pick Three: Remove the Joker, Jack, Queen, and king cards from a deck of cards. Aces equals one. Spread the cards out in rows face down. On your turn, turn over 3 cards. Can you create a number sentence with the numbers on the three cards? For example, if you get the cards 8, 1, and 8, you could make 8 x 1 = 8. You could keep these three cards. But if you get 8, 7, and 9, you can’t make a number sentence with these cards, so you turn them back over. Take turns in this way until the remaining cards cannot make a number sentence. The winner is the player with the most cards.

Projects

Research and Report

Choose a desert to collect some trivia about. Use this information to create trivia cards on 3x5 cards with questions on one side and answers on the other side. They can be about desert animals, plants, geology, or the people that live in deserts. How many of the questions can your friends and family answer correctly?

Themed Fireworks Project

Draw a depiction of the water cycle. Use these vocabulary words in the drawing: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection.

6-week project

Investigate, research and observe the topic you chose last week. Collect interesting information into a notebook or binder. Work on your display.

Outings

Go for a hike in a desert.

Other Ideas

Make a Venn diagram comparing the poles and deserts.
Find animal shapes in clouds. Write a story that tell what the animals are doing up there.
Create a Desert Garden.
Discover what happens to water when it leaves your home: http://www.dcwater.com/kids/activities/here_to_there/here_to_there.html
Play a water conservation game http://www.wateruseitwisely.com/kids/tip-tank-game.php
Make a board game about the water cycle.
Do a Weather Project by Build-A-Project. Use promo code “celebration15” to get 15% off: https://www.buildaproject.net/product-page/weather-project-kindergarten-2nd-grade
Create experiments to determine the effectiveness of some desert coping strategies. Measure the difference in temperature between sunny and shady areas. Measure the difference in temperature between the surface and below surface spots in a pile of sand. Measure the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures. Make a chart to show the different temperatures.
Plan out a desert trip on a map. You need to plan your trip and leave a note, letting someone know your plans: When you plan to go (what season it will be), length of trip, what you will carry, your route, any other objectives, i.e., photography, studying a particular animal, etc.
To demonstrate the way animals and plants of the desert conserve water, soak several sponges in water and then squeeze the excess moisture off. Place each of the sponges in a different situation: one uncovered in bright sunlight, one covered with wax paper in bright sunlight, one in shade uncovered, one in a Baggie. Find ways of measuring the amount of moisture left in each sponge after one hour.
How much annual rainfall does a desert get? How much annual rainfall does your area get? Create a chart to show the comparison. What type of chart will you use?
How close to a desert are you? Mark your place and each of the world's deserts on a globe and measure with a tape measure or string. Convert to miles.
Graph the average annual precipitation from random areas around the world. Find the average precipitation in your area and find where it fits in relation to the other areas. Calculate the median, average, and other statistics. How do your random areas compare to world wide average precipitation?
Keep track of all the water that you use in one day. From there, figure out how much water you use in a year. Multiply that by the number of people in your city. How much water do you think gets used in your town each day?
Look at paintings by Georgia O'Keefe, who used the desert for inspiration. Use some of the colors she used to make your own desert pictures.