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Hi. For those of you doing Bigger, I was wondering if you actually go to the seashore and make a "square". We haven't been to the beach and was wondering if most people actually do the "square" or just read about it like we are. Somedays I feel like we are missing something by just reading about it. I'm not really enjoying this book and wonder if it's because we are missing the hands-on piece.

Thanks,
Camille

We don't live near the seashore here in Minnesota but we loved the book. Actually we loved the whole series of Square books. In the summer we brought the book to the beach and that was a way to integrate the information long term. We also visited our zoo's aquarium and we have Underwater World at Mall of America to view some sea creatures. There are no desert creatures around here either. Tammy

I asked the same question just a little while back. We are in PA and can't go to the beach to do this, but dd likes looking at the pictures of all the sea creatures in the book. Since she has difficulty with drawing, I have been letting her choose pictures of sea creatures from the internet and printing them off to put in her notebook. I think that helps to give her a more realistic view of what is found on the seashore, since we can't go there. My dd is very hands-on, but she is doing okay with this. I'm looking forward to the 'Woods' book. We have woods all around us.

We don't live near the sea, we are in MI. But we did look for some of the things from the book when we went camping on Lake Michigan. It's not the ocean but some things are similar. This was the summer after we had done Bigger. My kids learned a lot from the books even though we can't do the hands on part.

Fo us in most of the small square books we just read them. We didn't make a square unless we were camping near that environment. I don't want to meet the insects in small Square Arctic...

But I did drag along the small square book to the sea shore when we went (1 week before starting school) so when we did get to it in school she perked right up and remembered the ghost crab and jelly fish etc. If you can do the experiments great, if you can't no worries.

We didn't have a "square" of any of the areas in the books, but my kids loved the books. They weren't my favorite books, but my kids loved them and retained so much of the information from them. They keep asking for more of the one small square books. So I think that just reading them and doing the HOD activities really cement the info for the dc.

Thanks Ladies for you comments.