Old Black Fly Buzzes Around the Alphabet
Use Old Black Fly to start a unit on insects that will inspire reading, writing and scientific experimentation.
Old Black Fly's Table of Contents
- Old Black Fly
- Language Arts
- Fly Swatter Spelling Game
- Matamoscas: The Fly Swatter Word Game
- Old Black Fly Writes a Letter
- Science
- Housefly Behavior
- Math
- Old Black Fly Math Workjob
- Old Black Fly has 6 Legs
- Social Studies
- Old Black Fly buzzes around my Farm
- Songs, Poems, and Chants
- Arts and Crafts
- Old Black Fly Toilet Paper Tube
- Old Black Fly Coloring Pages
- Physical Education
- House Flies are Fast
- Old Black Fly is in the Four Wheeler's Online Unit Study Directory
- Look Who's Twittering about Old Black Fly
- Old Black Fly's Guest Book
- About the Author of this Lens
Old Black Fly
by Jim Aylesworth
Apple Pie Recipe
Sibley
Buy at AllPosters.com
Old Black Fly's been buzzin around, buzzin around, buzzin around. Old Black Fly's been buzzin around and he's had a very busy bad day. is the way is book starts and the rhythm keeps pulsing along with the fly landing on one spot after another all over the kitchen.
He ate on the crust of the Apple pie.
He bothered the Baby and made her cry.
Shoo fly! Shoo fly! Shooo.
and continues through the alphabet until finally...
SWAT!
Old Black Fly is an absolute must read for toddlers through early grades and adults as well.
Old Black Fly (An Owlet Book)
Amazon Price: $7.95 (as of 07/11/2009) 
Language Arts
Fly Family Reading
Old Black Fly's Favorite Fiction
Reading to children is essential to turning them into lifelong readers. Here are some great stories about flies.
Thank you to Naturegirl7 for the suggestion of Liza Lou And The Yeller Belly Swamp.
Non-Fiction Fly Books
Old Black Fly learns about House Flies
Hang the fish net over the reading nook to display books about flies. This net represents a spider's web.
Add some plush House Flies to represent Old Black Fly.
There doesn't seem to be many non-fiction books written specifically about house flies. I keep a collection of books about insects and help the children find the pages with information about house flies.
Sometimes a Fly can change Somewone's Whole Life
Amos: The Story of an Old Dog and His Couch
One day as the Old Irish Setter lazes his life away a fly comes along. When Amos swats at it suddenly his whole life is changed!
You won't believe how he suddenly can get around and how that changes the life of the whole family. All because of Old Black Fly.
This is by far one of my all-time favorite books. It will have you in tears it's so funny.
Amos: The Story of an Old Dog and His Couch
Amazon Price: (as of 07/11/2009)
Old Black Fly's ABC Order Center
Old Black Fly's Alphabet
Make an alphabetical list of the items Aylesworth used in this book to represent each of the letters of the alphabet.
Apple pie,
baby,
cookies,
dog,
eggs,
frosting, and so forth.
Find pictures of each of the items. Glue them onto index cards. Write the name under each picture and laminate them.
1. Pick 5 cards.
2. Put them in ABC order.
3. Write the words on a paper.
Primary Literacy Centers : Making Reading and Writing Stick!
Amazon Price: $17.96 (as of 07/11/2009)
Flies at the Picnic Bulletin Board
Cover the bulletin board with a red checkered cloth. Attach picnic food and dishes and then use plastic flies to spell words such as:
fly
picnic
sandwich
old
black
Or whatever words you are studying with this Old Black Fly Unit Study.
Just change the word to FLIES!
Old Black Fly Word Wall Pointer
Giant Microbes House Fly
Amazon Price: $6.95 (as of 07/11/2009)
Fly and Spider at the Picnic Video
Miniscule - Picnic
A fly trapped under a glass and a spider who is determined to get it.
Runtime: 4:46
35727 views
10 Comments:
Fly Word Family
The Word Family Activity Book includes activities for teaching words that rhyme with fly such as:
fly
why
try
shy
You could also make a bulletin board shaped like a sandwich and attach fly cutouts with the fly words on them. To practice these words check out the Cheers on my Word Wall Lens.
The Word Family Activity Book (Grades K-2)
Teach the top 50 word families and watch kids become better readers, writers, and spellers with this big collection of reproducible games and activities. This teacher written resource is packed with ready-to-go reproducibles and interactive word wheels, pull-thoughs, flip-books, mini-puzzles, spinners, concentration cards, bingo boards, and more. Learning word families has never been so much fun! For use with Grades K-2.
Amazon Price: $11.24 (as of 07/11/2009)
TREND ENTERPRISES INC. T-10563 ACCENTS DRAGONFLY
Amazon Price: $18.80 (as of 07/11/2009)
Swat the Old Black Fly Word
2. Give 2 children a fly swatter.
3. Call out a word and have the children race to "swat" the word first.
4. The winner chooses a new person to be the swatter.
Fly Swatters can also be used in Read the Room activities as seen in Ms. Levin's Class.
Birdwell Cleaning Flyswatter 54-288
Amazon Price: $0.94 (as of 07/11/2009)
Fly Swatter Spelling Game
Use fly swatters to spell the spelling words called out by your partner.
Matamoscas: The Fly Swatter Word Game
"In this game two teams face off in a relay style running up to to the board to swat the word called out by the teacher and then passing the fly swatter on to the next team member.
Variations:
1.Make this game easier by having the children swat the letters, numbers.
2. Swat the letters to spell the words.
3. Teacher calls out the definition, translation or antonym.
- SWAT IT
- Children take a fly swatter and swat the word (letter, numeral, etc.) as it is said in this rhyme:
There's a word I see.
Swat the word ____.
One, two, three!
%u2022 A variation of this game can be played by dividing the class into two teams. Give one person from each team a fly swatter. Call out a word. The first person to "swat" the word wins a point for her team. - Matamoscas - Swat the Fly
- Two teams face off to Swat the Words while learning a second language.
- Sight Word Swat
- Students build their sight word vocabulary through the usage of a game called Sight Word Swat. As the teacher says the word aloud twice, students are to swat the word on the game board
Old Black Fly Writes a Letter
Old Black Fly Postage Stamp
Don't forget to stamp the letter. Now you can even stamp it with a Housefly Postage Stamp.
Flies in the Garbage Can
Use hotglue to glue felt wings to ping pong balls.
Write vocabulary words on the flies with a marker.
Set up a garbage can with the letter i on it.
Put the flies in the garbage can lid.
If the word has a long i as in Fly put it in the garbage. The rest of the flies go in the other garbage can.
Self checking:
Write the answers on a paper and stuff it into an old washed out container with a cover and leave it in the garbage can. Children can take out this container and check the flies.
10GAL STL Garbage Pail
Amazon Price: $17.23 (as of 07/11/2009)
Science
The Life Cycle of the Common House Fly
The House Fly goes through four stages in it's life cycle.
Egg: A female House Fly can lay up to 500 eggs in a three to four day period. Eggs are white in color and are usually less than half and inch in size.
Larvae or maggots: emerge from the eggs within eight to 20 hours of being laid. The larvae eat whatever they can find in the area. Maggots prefer to live in a moist a warm, moist environment for about 4 to10 days.
Pupa: The maggot then moves to a higher and dryer location and takes 3 to 6 days to encase inself in a reddish-brown skin where it evolves into an adult House Fly
Adult: House Flies live for 15 to 30 days. Females are able to start producing eggs after two days of life and will continue to lay eggs for about a month. Female house flies are usually larger than the males.
Classic Insect Films II
Amazon Price: (as of 07/11/2009)
Flies (True Books-Animals)
Amazon Price: $6.95 (as of 07/11/2009)
A Day in the Life of a House Fly
House Flies get their nutrients from spitting saliva on their food, which liquefies it so they can suck it up with their sponge-like mouths.
Flies: From Flowers Flies to Mosquitoes (Animals in Order)
Amazon Price: (as of 07/11/2009)
Housefly Behavior
- eNaturalist::Friendly Fly?
We've all had insects land on our body and most/all of us find it irritating, to say the least. But unless you actually see an insect land, how does one know that a mosquito, for example, has landed on your arm? In most cases, the tiny hairs on our body "tell" us it's there!- Housefly Behavior
- When they are not flying, flies continually preen themselves, cleaning their eyes with their forelegs and dusting off their legs by rubbing them together. They do this because most of their taste and smell receptors lie on the hair of their legs. -Wikipedia
Watch a fly resting on the windowsill.
Flies have a very highly-evolved evasion reaction which helps to ensure their survival. It is possible to confuse a fly's evasion system by swatting it with two objects simultaneously from different directions. The holes in a fly swatter minimize the air current that warns the fly as being hit, whilst reducing air resistance and increasing speed of the swat. - Wikipedia
Housefly Tag
Try this out by having one child be the housefly and another be the fly swatter. Now have two children be the fly swatters. Was it harder or easier for the fly to evade one or two fly swatters?
In 2008 it was discovered that a fly anticipates the approach of a threat, calculating the angle of attack, and alters its stance ready to make the most appropriate getaway. This evasive action, which allows the fly to jump away in the opposite direction, takes place within 200 ms. -Wikipedia
Flies Live with Humans and Animals
You will find House Flies nearly anywhere you find you find humans or animals. They like garbage, manure or most anything else that left out in a warm environment.
House Flies get their nutrients from spitting saliva on their food, which liquefies it so they can suck it up with their sponge-like mouths.
Laminate and mount a chart diagramming the parts of the House Fly. This will show how to spell words when writing about flies.
Teaching a Love of Nature
Books for Parents, Homeschoolers and Teachers
Hands-On Nature: Information and Activities for Exploring the Environment with Children
Activities to help children understand the outdoor world.
Amazon Price: $18.45 (as of 07/11/2009)
Sharing Nature With Children (20th Anniversary Edition, Revised and Expanded)
Activities to do with children while exploring nature. Help them observe nature up close.
Amazon Price: $9.95 (as of 07/11/2009)
Math
Old Black Fly's Math Lesson
Flies at the Picnic
Make a workmat with a sandwich on the left and a glass of lemonade on the right. You might glue these onto red checked paper or glue a piece of red checked table cloth to stiff cardboard to make it look like a picnic and 5 or more plastic flies for each child.
1. Pass out Fly Workmats and 5 plastic flies.
2. Students place all five flies on the picture of the sandwich.
3. As the class "How many flies are on the sandwich? (5)
4. "How many flies are on the lemonade? (0)
5. "How many flies are at the picnic? (5)
6. Now everybody say 5+0=5.
7. Model how to write this on the board.
Now move one fly over to the lemonade and ask the same questions.
Continue until 0+5=5.
Variation:
1. Start with 6 flies.
2. Have children write the number sentences.
3. Have children try to discover all the number sentences of the number 8 independently or in pairs or as a part of center time.
This is adapted from an activity in Hands-On Math and was one of my students' favorite math activities. Having flies to move helped them to focus on the math and to retain the number facts.
Old Black Fly Math Workjob
How Many Flies?
1. You will need a bag or two of small plastic flies.
2. Make math mats with cut out shapes picnic foods 1-4" in size.
For example: chicken leg, slice of bread, strawberry, and watermelon slice.
3.Using the plastic flies, estimate how many flies it takes to cover each food and record answer.
FISTFUL OF FLIES
Amazon Price: $3.75 (as of 07/11/2009)
Learning Resources Magnetic Healthy Foods
Amazon Price: $32.99 (as of 07/11/2009)
PHOTOGRAPHIC LEARNING CARDS NOUNS: FOOD
Amazon Price: (as of 07/11/2009)
Old Black Fly has 6 Legs
Counting by 6's with Old Black Fly
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Skip Count, Skip Count, Count by Two's
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Skip Counting is what you do when you count by 10's, 5's or 2's. All young children learn to Skip Count but did you realize that this is one of the beginning steps to learning multiplication. This lens has rhymes, songs and activities for teaching S...
Social Studies
Old Black Fly likes to Socialize
Keep Old Black Fly off your food
Children Playing in the Kitchen
Buy at AllPosters.com
The easiest way to keep flies out of your home is to keep things clean. Don't leave food lying around, make sure you take out the garbage on a regular basis and wipe up messes right away.
Old Black Fly buzzes around my Farm
When we first drove up to the farm one summer the cows were grazing in the fields and the flies were thicker than molasses in January. From the time that Garner Rix first started to clear the land to the day I chased the old black flies off my porch, the flies have been buzzing around our farm.-
Garner Rix and the Royalton Raid - 1780
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Garner Rix was just 12 when he moved with his father, pregnant mother, two sisters and three brothers from a farm in Connecticut to a log cabin on the banks of the White River, a place that would one day be called Royalton, Vermont. He helped h...
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Old Vermont Barn
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The old barn on our farm in Vermont was built by my Great-great grandfather in about 1870. He learned to build from his father and grandfather in a tradition passed down from the first New England settlers. He took those traditions but he applied new...
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Apple Trees and Apple Blossoms
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When Garner Rix moved with his family to Vermont in 1780 he brought apple seeds with him. He carefully planted those seeds which grew into trees and produced apple blossoms in Springtime and bushels of apples in the fall. It has been 200 years since...
Songs, Poems, and Chants
There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Fly
Old Black Fly and the Old Lady
As you sing the song of the Old Woman who Swallowed a fly, add each of the mentioned animals to her skirt. Soon the children will be singing the song on their own and preforming it in the puppet theater.
The next stage is when you find them reading along with the words in the book.
Old Black Fly Sings and Chants
Counting the Flies
by Evelyn Saenz
One little, two little, three little black flies.
Four little, five little, six little black flies.
Seven little, eight little, nine little black flies.
Ten black flies in the house.
Ten little, nine little, eight little black flies.
Seven little, six little, five little black flies.
Four little, three little, two little black flies.
One little black fly...SWAT!
Use plastic flies to act out this poem:
1. Start with 10 flies in your hand.
2. Put one on the table for each number you sing.
3. Swat and remove a fly for each number from 10 to 1.
Variations: Write the Addition and Subtraction sentences you are singing about.
Insect Soup: Bug Poems (Rainbow Morning Music Picture Books)
Amazon Price: $13.45 (as of 07/11/2009)
Old Black Fly is Caught by the 5 Frogs on the Log
Frogs and Flies Song
Make some frogs and flies, a log and a pond and you are all set to enact the song on the flannel board.
The words to the song or sentence strips can have flannel glued to the back for putting in order.
Arts and Crafts
Old Black Fly's Art Center
This simple craft was made with cut out pieces of felt, pipe cleaners and a clothespin.
Old Black Fly Toilet Paper Tube
Wash Your Recycled Cans
Old Black Fly comes around when food is left out or when the garbage is not washed out well. Making this Fly from a recycled toilet paper tube can be used in conjunction with a unit on recycling and the need to clean all those tin cans and other containers before putting them in the recycling bin or Old Black Fly will be buzzin' around your house.
- Reverse-psychology recycling
- The [N]Zed Word October 27, 2008
The cost of trash in New Zealand and what to do with an empty toilet paper roll.
There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Fly Center
Sequencing Activity
1. Color and laminate the pictures.
2. Write the names of the animals on the cards.
3. Children write the names of the animals that the Old Woman swallowed in the correct order.
- There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Fly
- There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Fly cut and paste project.
Old Black Fly Coloring Pages
- House Fly and other Insect Coloring Pages
- Free printable coloring pages for kids to download, print and color. These coloring sheets can also be used as clip art.
- The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Child's Day, by Woods Hutchinson
- Have you ever looked at a fly through a magnifying 108glass or under a microscope? If you haven't, try it sometime. You will see that his legs are covered with little hairs; and it is on these little hairs that the germs lodge. They are too small for you to see except with a very powerful glass; but scientists have proved that they are there, and they have found that there are always typhoid germs among them.
- Fly in the Garbage
- Color the fly, fish bones and other garbage.
Physical Education
House Flies are Fast
Old Black Fly Tag
Close your eyes and have someone else very gently touch the hairs on your arm or leg. This is the way that a house fly detects motion.
Now go out on the playground and play Old Black Fly Tag. One person is the fly swatter and the others are the flies. When a fly is tagged it becomes another fly swatter until all the flies are gone.
For the very young children you can play the Old Black Fly Tickle Game. Hold your baby in your lap and pretend that your finger is a fly. Make a buzzing sound and then have your fly land on all those tickle spots. Lots of giggling fun!
- House Fly Facts
- House Flies are hard to swat because they react to movement five times faster than humans do. Sensitive hairs on their bodies send data directly to the wings, so these flies can take off the instant motion is detected. In humans, the sensory data must usually first be processed by the brain.
- BBC - Parenting - Play and do - Tickling games
- Get your baby giggling with a gentle tickling game.
Old Black Fly is in the Four Wheeler's Online Unit Study Directory
Thank you to the Four Wheelers for including the Old Black Fly in their Online Unit Study Directory.
- Internet Directory of Unit Studies
- The Four Wheelers Internet Directory of Unit Studies contains a list, roughly arranged by subject, of links to unit studies that are published on the Internet.
Old Black Fly's Favorite Lenses
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Word Walls and Pointers
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Word walls are a collection of words for beginning readers to use to promote learning in reading and writing. WordWalls are most effective when the children help to generate them. This lens will point out various types of WordWalls used in classroom...
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Alligator Pie
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Alligator Pie is a great poem for introducing the alligator theme. Use it in a reading chart and then go on to learn about the alligators. Alligators bring us eye to eye with the watery, muddy world of the swamp. Write a poem or explore an alligato...
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Take trips to the frog pond, play games and sing songs, gobble up the insect words and swat the fly verbs. This lens will give you dozens of ideas, resources, hints and tricks to create frog-themed activities for both homeschool families and classro...
Old Black Fly's Guest Book
Please leave a message for Old Black Fly
poddys wrote...
This is another really great lens anda great educational resource. 5*****.
Posted May 22, 2009
Treasures-By-Brenda wrote...
I remember the song, I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly very well. Thanks for lensrolling to my ant-filled dinner menu!
Brenda
Posted May 10, 2009
Jimmie wrote...
Flies also make for a wonderful nature study topic for those living in the city with few natural resources around them.
Posted February 03, 2009
naturegirl7 wrote...
Love it! Have you ever read Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp by Mercer Mayer? I'm not sure if it's still in print, but I think it is. Welcome to the Naturally Native Squids group. Don't forget to add your lens links to the appropriate plexos and vote for them.
Posted October 27, 2008
spirituality wrote...
Great lens as always. Bugs are a great theme to start from.
Posted October 20, 2008
groovyoldlady wrote...
Oooo. I love the fly swatter idea! My 7 year old just can't "see" phonemes, so I've started giving her sight words to memorize. I could put them on bug shaped cut-outs and have her swat 'em as I read 'em!
Posted September 20, 2008
JaguarJulie wrote...
Well, I'll take mr. old black fly any day over mrs. no-see-um! Fun lens. 5*****
Posted September 04, 2008
RedPanda25 wrote...
This is a great lens! Welcome to my Children's Books Group. I really like you lens! 5*, by the way.
Posted September 04, 2008
enslavedbyfaeries wrote...
Totally cute lens and so fun too! Welcome to the Going Buggy Group.
Posted September 03, 2008
mulberry wrote...
These lens bring back so many memories of elementary school. Wonderful activities.
Posted September 03, 2008
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Old Black Fly
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About the Author of this Lens
Evelyn's Hands-On Learning Blog.
Old Black Fly tickles my senses. I love the rhythm and rhyme because it just wants to make you dance.Find out what I'm up to when I'm not dancing with the flies:
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Evelyn Saenz: Lensography of a Teacher
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My passion is teaching and finding ways to teach children in fun, hands-on, creative ways. The unit studies I make on Squidoo reflect my view that learning should be integrated and no skills should be taught in isolation. I believe that each topic s...
