Old Black Fly Unit Study

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Old Black Fly Buzzes Around the Alphabet

Old Black Fly's been buzzing around and lands on an alphabet's worth of spilled drips and drops of food. This poem is fun to read aloud with it's lilting rhyme has makes you want to dance.

Use Old Black Fly to start a unit on insects that will inspire reading, writing and scientific experimentation.

Old Black Fly 

by Jim Aylesworth

Apple Pie Recipe

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: $7.99 (as of 12/05/2009) Buy Now

Language Arts

Fly Family Reading 

Old Black Fly's Favorite Fiction

Fly Family Reading

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

I Watch FliesSpider Web

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.

Though it is difficult to find 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

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 12/05/2009) Buy Now

Old Black Fly's ABC Order Center 

Old Black Fly's Alphabet

ABC Order

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: $16.29 (as of 12/05/2009) Buy Now

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 

Attach a fly to the end of a pointer. Use the pointer to point to the letters in the Word Wall Words that your are working on. Children love to pretend to be Old Black Fly and use the pointer to point to words and read them as they land on labels all around the room.

Giant Microbes House Fly [Toy] [Toy] [Toy] [Toy]

Amazon Price: $6.94 (as of 12/05/2009) Buy Now

Fly and Spider at the Picnic Video 

There are no words with this video so it would be great for the kids to make up their own story and write it down.

Miniscule - Picnic

A fly trapped under a glass and a spider who is determined to get it.

Runtime: 286
47007 views
27 Comments:

curated content from YouTube

Fly Word Family 

Picnic Bulletin Board

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: $10.19 (as of 12/05/2009) Buy Now

Swat the Old Black Fly Word 

1. On fly shaped accent papers write Old Black Fly vocabulary words.
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: $2.11 (as of 12/05/2009) Buy Now

Fly Swatter Spelling Game 

Use fly swatters to spell the spelling words called out by your partner.

Matamoscas: The Fly Swatter Word Game 

Swat the Fly 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

Help your children learn about letter writing by writing to family and friends to tell them all about this fun Fly Unit Study. Write a letter to a National Park or Wildlife preserve to ask about flies that they encounter and what times of year are most effected by flies. Write to a pest control company and ask how to prevent infestations of flies.

Don't forget to stamp the letter. Now you can even stamp it with a Housefly Postage Stamp.
powered by Zazzle.com

Flies in the Garbage Can 

Oscar the GrouchGarbage Cans with Flies

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.

Behrens 6110 Galvanized Garbage Can

Amazon Price: $17.40 (as of 12/05/2009) Buy Now

Economy Ball Pack

Ping Pong Balls

Amazon Price: $39.99 (as of 12/05/2009) Buy Now

Science

The Life Cycle of the Common House Fly 

The House Fly goes through four stages in it's life cycle.

House Fly 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

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Flies (True Books-Animals)

Amazon Price: $6.95 (as of 12/05/2009) Buy Now

A Day in the Life of a House Fly 

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.

Flies: From Flowers Flies to Mosquitoes (Animals in Order)

Amazon Price: (as of 12/05/2009) Buy Now

Housefly Behavior 

eNaturalist::Friendly Fly?
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 

Fly Chart

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

House Fly

Photo Credit: House Fly
on Flickr, Creative Commons.

Hands-On Nature: Information and Activities for Exploring the Environment with Children

Activities to help children understand the outdoor world.

Amazon Price: $19.10 (as of 12/05/2009) Buy Now

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 12/05/2009) Buy Now

Math

Old Black Fly's Math Lesson 

Flies at the Picnic

SandwichLemonade

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.

Flies

Old Black Fly Math Workjob 

How Many Flies?

When food is left out flies often land on it spreading disease.


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

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Learning Resources Magnetic Healthy Foods

Amazon Price: $32.99 (as of 12/05/2009) Buy Now

PHOTOGRAPHIC LEARNING CARDS NOUNS: FOOD

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Old Black Fly has 6 Legs 

Counting by 6's with Old Black Fly

Social Studies

Old Black Fly likes to Socialize 

Keep Old Black Fly off your food

Children Playing in the Kitchen

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.

Songs, Poems, and Chants

There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Fly 

Old Black Fly and the Old Lady

Old Lady Who Swallowed Fly

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

Ten Little Black 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: $12.78 (as of 12/05/2009) Buy Now

Old Black Fly is Caught by the 5 Frogs on the Log 

Frogs and Flies Song

5 green frogs

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 

House Fly Craft

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

Toilet Paper Tube Fly

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

Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly

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 

Housefly

Photo Credit: House Fly
on Wikispaces, Creative Commons.

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

Old Black Fly

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 

The Four Wheelers Internet Directory of Unit Studies

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.

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About the Author of this Lens 

Evelyn's Hands-On Learning Blog.

Ms. FrizzleOld 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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by Evelyn_Saenz

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 lea... (more)

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