They've Flown the Coop

Remember the nest and eggs that we've been watching? Well, they hatched!

We have had so much fun observing, journaling, and reading about Robins!

The babies could be best observed through the space between the floorboards of our deck. The above picture was a common sight at our house. My bird-loving girl sure did enjoy our visitors. Whenever she would peek down on them, they would do this...

They seemed to think that she was their Momma and were looking for food from her. She LOVED this and did indeed want to feed them. But, look Momma, they want me to feed them! (No, I didn't let her.) She learned that if she found a place a safe distance away from the nest to observe, she could watch them get fed by both of their parents. Did you know both Robin parents return to the nest to feed the babies?!?!? We did not know this but we actually were able to observed both parents at the nest at the same time. That was cool.

Well, as you can see in the pictures, there were three baby Robins. Now, however, there are none. The babies have left the nest. While my little ones are sad that their feathered friends are gone, it sure was an exciting adventure. And, in a unique blessing of well-timed nature, on the day that the birds left the nest, a caterpillar that we had collected from our backyard made a chrysalis in the jar that we were observing it in. One nature observation ending and another one just beginning!

We learned so much about Robins. Here is a link to a great site with tons of information on the American Robin. Enjoy!

Our Springtime Visitor

There has been a lot of activity under our deck recently. We've seen a Robin flying in and out making numerous trips a day with a variety of natural items clutched in her beak. My daughter has been fascinated by this and has eagerly anticipated the baby birds that will be born here.

Her nest is in the perfect spot for a curious 4-year-old to observe. It is several feet away from our outdoor toy box that we use daily this time of year. Yet, this mama bird was wise enough to put the nest just beyond the reach of those curious hands.

Several times a day, we sneak over (not too close, of course) and check on her and listen for the sounds of the babies chirping. I couldn't ask for a better observation and prediction activity for my bird-lovin' little girl!

Nature Table Additions

A sure sign that Spring is on it's way... Pussy willows on our nature table!

Recently, we were able to enjoy a beautiful Spring day. It was warm enough to only don our jackets and it wasn't raining. Perfect! I love Spring walks. It fills me with such joy to be able to emerge from winter's hibernation and go out and explore with my kiddos. We love looking for signs that Spring is preparing to release itself. Pussy willows are one of those signs for me. They signal that Spring is nearly here.

My bird loving kiddos were more than pleased to find some feathers to add to the nature table as well. They fit in perfectly with the nests and eggs that I made for the kids' Easter Baskets. One nest is made out of yarn, loosely following this idea. The other is made from a hallowed out avocado. I made two yarn nests but I was pretty sure my son would destroy his. They need to be handled gingerly... not a talent he is yet to possess! So, after making guacamole, I popped a hallowed out half of an avocado into my dehydrator on a whim. It actually turned out! ::shock:: They eggs are simple wooden eggs from the craft store painted with acrylic paints to look like Blue Jay and Robin eggs - two regular visitors at our backyard bird feeders. My daughter loves matching them up to the pictures of eggs in her bird book, but now she wants me to make eggs for each species in her book. Hmmm, I might need to recruit a certain 4-year-old to help me tackle that project. We'll see...

Unique Gourd

Yesterday, at the craft fair that we went to, I ran into a friend that I haven't seen since before I had children. We used to work together and I miss the friendship that we once had. I was so pleased to be able to introduce my children to her. They were enamored with some pumpkins and gourds that she had decorated her craft booth with. Since it was nearly time for her to take down her booth, she let both of the kids pick one out to take home.

My daughter picked out a "princess pumpkin." One that looks like the pumpkin that turned into Cinderella's coach.

My son picked out this one...

I thought it was a beautiful gourd and I was curious to learn what kind it was. My friend did not know so I came home and looked it up. I got my answer here. It's called a Turks Turban (Cucurbita maxima) and although we only plan on using it as a decoration, we learned that it's edible too!

Madagascar Hissing Cockroach

Today, at the fair, we had an opportunity to learn about Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches. An exhibit promised that - for a fee - you could enter and see all sorts of unique creatures. Well, we weren't going to pay to go inside but we sure enjoyed the freebie outside of the exhibit. To entice you inside, the exhibitor had a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach for people passing by to look at, touch, or even hold. Well, my little girl jumped right in. "Can I hold it?!?!" she exclaimed. All those around us were shocked that the tiny, little, pigtailed, 4-year-old jumped right in to hold the very thing that they themselves were scared to even look at. After getting a round of applause from those watching, she enthusiastically asked, "Mommy, can we get one?" To which everyone laughed. When we turned down the exhibitor's offer to come inside and see more, we were told, "That's OK, you brought me tons of business. Everyone wanted to see the little girl holding a giant Cockroach!"

After we left the exhibit, she told me that the cockroach looked like a big Cicada without wings. Pretty funny since I had been thinking that the whole experience kinda reminded me of this time last year when we had the invasion of the Periodical Cicadas. Most toddler's were fearful but not ours. She loved the Cicadas and cried when we told her they wouldn't be back for many, many years.

It looks like we may have a future Entomologist.

Ba-a-a-ah!

Grandma and Grandpa gave our daughter a lamb in her Easter basket. Not a soft cuddly one, a science project one. It involved taking cardboard pieces and fixing them together. A plastic head was placed on top of the cardboard "body." The lamb then stood on a stand in a little petri dish type thing. Then, the "magic solution" was added to the dish. Afterwards, the sheep grew "wool." Our daughter enjoyed watching it change and found it rather fascinating. We kept it up and out of her reach where it could be observed but not disturbed.

No matter how hard we tried, the lamb would get bumped and the "wool" would fall off in tiny flakes. It looked like the sheep was snowing. I was already curious about what the "magic solution" was but with it snowing in our house, I decided to investigate. The package said that it was "non-toxic" but that was all. There was nothing that identified the ingredients of the solution. I found an online company that sold them and emailed them my question.

Here is the response that I got...

Thank you for your e-mail.

I have had a close look at the instructions, and the ingredient is potassium phosphate. Now I did a degree in chemistry, but that was quite a few years ago! However this is not going to be something that is poisonous. Wikipedia has a piece about the three versions of potassium phosphate - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_phosphate - all of which seem to be used as food additives, among other things!

The instructions say that it should be used by children over 10 years, and that there should be adult supervision, which is probably sensible. There are the usual warnings – wash your hands afterwards, etc. The product has been sold in the UK for many years, although it is I believe made in Germany.

Basically, I would be happy for a 10 year old of mine to do this, with a little bit of supervision. To be really cautious, I would probably suggest that you do not allow the child to place it by their bed, in case they start eating it in their sleep, although I doubt that would do them any harm.

I hope this helps

Hendrik Ball
http://www.grand-illusions.com/

I really didn't think that I would get a reply and his made me smile. Gotta love a company with good customer service. So, I learned about Potassium Phosphate, fake sheep and an interesting website. I found that they have a section with optical illusions. Some of them are really tripped out and very fun to look at. It's weird when your eyes and your mind see two different things.

Birds and Bugs

Today was one learning experience after another for me. First, my mom came over for a visit. While she was here, we went in the back yard to look at our garden. She noticed that we had some pests that had munched on some of the leaves on our veggie plants. I expressed my concerns over using traditional, chemical pesticide....primary concern being that the kids are very involved in the garden. I'd rather let the bugs eat it all then expose my kiddos to harmful chemicals. She suggested a kid friendly alternative...a bit of dish soap and water in a spray bottle. We made up a batch and the 3 year old was more than eager to go try it out. I certainly hope it works.

Then, a friend stopped over to drop off a book for me to read. She also brought me iced coffee...yum! Her hubby noticed some of the birds in our front yard. One that he noticed was a Robin. He asked if we had a Robin's nest in one of our trees. I really didn't know if we did or not. I certainly hadn't noticed one. The reason he asked was because of one of the birds that he saw. It was a Robin whose underside was spotted in a blotchy sort of way. He pointed the bird out to me and explained that this was the markings of a young Robin. I had noticed birds like that before but never knew anything about it. I was happy that he had pointed it out.

Finally, one of our caterpillars spun his chrysalis today. Our family is fascinated by this. I watched it with my students when I was teaching but watching it with my family is really fun! Or curiosity was peaked, so we did some research. I learned that there are a number of "bugs" that have a pupa stage. From Wikipedia:

Holometabolism, also called complete metamorphism, is a term applied to insect groups to describe the specific kind of insect development which includes four life stages - as an embryo, a larva, a pupa and an imago. For example, in the life cycle of a butterfly, the embryo grows within the egg, hatching into the larval stage caterpillar, before entering the pupal stage within its chrysalis and finally emerging as an adult butterfly imago.
The superorder Endopterygota groups holometabolic insects. Orders in the superorder are :
Coleoptera - Beetles
Diptera - Flies
Hymenoptera - Ants, bees, sawflies and wasps
Lepidoptera - Butterflies and moths
Mecoptera - Scorpionflies
Megaloptera - Alderflies, dobsonflies and fishflies
Miomoptera (extinct)
Neuroptera - Lacewings, antlions, etc.
Protodiptera (extinct)
Raphidioptera - Snakeflies
Siphonaptera - Fleas
Strepsiptera - Twisted-winged parasites
Trichoptera - Caddisflies

I was shocked by some of these...especially fleas. Pretty interesting.

Surprise House Guests

A friend that I used to teach with stopped by today for a visit and she brought friends...

Due to the unseasonably cold spring that we had, she had to wait to release her Painted Lady Butterflies that her class had been watching transform from caterpillars. The delay caused a problem. Those frisky little butterflies mated and laid eggs. Instead of tossing them, she called the company that she had bought the caterpillars from and found out how to raise them. The eggs hatched and she took care of a large number of tiny caterpillars. They grew and today she was releasing them into the wild. When she had 4 left, she thought of us. She stopped by with all the supplies that we need to raise Painted Lady Butterflies. My daughter was ecstatic!

What I learned about today helped us look at them up close, examining all of their details. The above picture was taken through a magnifying glass from Lakeshore Learning. It's called a Big View Magnifier. I've never seen one like this before. We LOVE it. It folds flat which makes it easy to carry around and to store. Once you unfold it, it is freestanding and it has the perfect amount of room for her hands to place objects under the glass. We have not only been looking at the caterpillars but EVERYTHING else too. My 3-year-old is fascinated with looking at the details of objects under the magnifying glass. It's on loan with all the other butterfly equipment from my friend but we will be buying one...it's worth the investment.

We are more that happy with our new houseguests! I haven't raised caterpillars since I taught kindergarden 7 years ago. It will be so much fun watching them through my children's eyes.

Art Imitates Life

My daughter has always been really creative. She loves all things that have to do with art. Her artistic expression sure has exploded this past year. There isn't a day that goes by that she isn't drawing something. I love to see what she comes up with each and every day. My chest puffs up with pride as she sketches her friends, her baby brother, her family, birds, trains, or the view from her window. One of my favorite things that she draws are experiences that she has had or things that she has seen. This is really interesting to me because it's a way for me to see what has caught her attention and what has stuck with her.
Well, today, there was no puffing of my chest with pride. No, indeed. The girl decided to draw a picture of something that interested her...the bugs in my light fixture. The bugs that I should clean out but that I hope no one notices...

The black circle is the light fixture. The yellow is the light shining. And that green, creepy, crawly thing? Yep, that's my bugs! The orange at the top is a ribbon that she attached for hanging. So-o-o kind of her! Here, Mommy, let's hang the picture up so everyone knows that there are dead bugs living in our lights! Geesh!

And, to show that art does really imitate real life, here's the light fixture in question (I'll only show one of them but, actually, there are two of them)...

So, yes, I did promptly clean out the bugs in the light. The cleaning was accompanied by a million questions about bugs and lights. She is so curious! But first, here's my clean light...

I was having a hard time getting this picture. It was hard to see that the bugs were actually gone. I tried with different flash settings and I got this picture. I kinda like this one. It looks like a full moon!

Anyways, all those questions about bugs led us to do a little Mother/Daughter research. We found lots of really technical sights that definitely weren't at the 3 year old level. But then, we found a site with a transcript from an interview with Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus.

We found our answer and some online learning fun! Bonus!

By the way, the bugs go by the light for several reason:

1. They use the moon and stars to guide them at night and they get our lights confused with natural lights.
2. They are attracted to warm things because warm things generally mean food.
3. They stay at the light because they get very confused when they realize that it is neither a celestial light nor a warm body to eat.

Now, on to clean that second light!

Pink Dolphins

"Pink dolphins live in the South China Sea. They look pink because of red blood vessels near the surface of their white skin." I didn't even know there was such a thing as pink dolphins so I surely didn't know that about their blood making them pink! Kinda funny, I learned something today from my kid's new toy!

That above quote is from the tag from the Animal Planet dolphin that my daughter picked out today at the toy store. I went there with her to let her pick out a special present for her brother just from her. After she found a gift for him, I let her get this dolphin for herself for being such a great big sister. Yes, I know, I'm a sucker! She does love that Pink dolphin. She named her Princess Kaloosta and she has been showered with kisses and introduced to all of the stuffed animals in her room. Currently Princess Kaloosta and my own princess are sound asleep snuggling together in bed.

Green Eggs and Ham

Today, I did yet another Green Eggs and Ham presentation. This is one of my favorite presentation that I do throughout the year. Today was for a group of three year olds and a separate group of two year olds. This is my first presentation for the two year old set. I was pretty nervous and was looking up some info online to see if I could modify anything for this younger group of kids. I ran across this list of chicken facts. If you've ever wondered how many toes a chicken has or how long it takes for a chicken to lay an egg, this is the link for you. If you've never wondered such things, just skip the link. I'll give you the fact I found most interesting...

"One trait, called Melanosis, causes chickens' bones, ligaments, skin and tendons to be colored BLACK."

Bring this fact up the next time your sitting down to a delicious chicken dinner with the family. I'm sure you'll get quite a reaction!

My quest to learn something new each day didn't mean that I would learn things that are worthwhile or relevant. So, I can chalk this one up to being just useless information. But, hey, I learned something today!

(By the way, the presentation went fine but I wouldn't want to do it every day. It's a brave teacher that will face the terrible twos times 14 each and every day!)

A bunch o' links

A friend of mine gave me a link to a really great Waldorf site. She pointed me to a unit study on color. I think that I may start this with my daughter. I love that the study integrates so many hands-on activities into the study. It has a great deal of literature and art integrated into the unit. This is a feature that really draws me to it.

While there I also found a link to a calendar generator that will print out a calendar for whatever town you live in. The calendar that I printed out for us has sunrise and sunset times, moonrise and moonset times, and moon phases. My kiddos are too young to really use it but I think it's really cool and I think that as they grow this could be really great learning tool.

The same friend sent me to the Montessori by Hand blog. She directed me to this post about composer cards and a pouch to put them in. I love this idea! Definitely something that I want to add to my to-do list. My daughter currently has a favorite book called Bach by Ann Rachlin. Since she enjoys this book about the life of Johann Sebastian Bach, perhaps I need to use this interest to start introducing her to other composers. This idea by Montessori by Hand would definitely get us started!

Today I am thankful for a great friend who takes the time to share the great things she finds with me so that I can learn as well.

Today I babysat a friend's two kiddos. My daughter spent much of the time "reading" to them. She is such the little teacher...it makes her momma proud!

Their favorite pick of the books was one called Awesome Animals by Gina Ingoglia. This one was "read" to the boys by my daughter but it was also requested that I read it too. Guess what? I learned a lot from that little book...

• Nine banded Armadillo females always have 4 babies at a time.



• Those 4 babies are either all female or all male.



• When a proboscis monkey uses his nose to honk and warn others of danger, it's nose gets stiff and sticks out.



• A sloth's fur looks green because tiny plants grow in it.



• Koalas only eat eucalyptus leaves and thus smell like the strong smelling leaves.



• Full grown Komodo dragon males can weigh as much as 300 pounds.



• Anteaters have no teeth.



• Camels can shut their noses to keep out blowing sand. They have a third eyelid that keeps the sand out of their eyes.

One more thing, I also learned how to add a picture to the header on the blog. Not sure I like how it's placed but I guess that just gives me something else to learn.

Total Lunar Eclipse

Sorry about the picture, it's the best I could get. Ok, so I've seen them before but it's still fascinating. There was (and still is) a total lunar eclipse tonight. Learn about it here. My mom called to remind me...whew, thanks Mom. I would have forgotten. The kiddos were already in bed and the best view of the eclipse was from the sliding door in our bedroom. We grabbed some pillows and a big blanket and cozied up on the floor to watch the lunar spectacle unfold. Me, my honey, comfy and cozy, with a cup of Mocha watching a lunar eclipse... a perfect date! Unexpected, spontaneous, beautiful, peaceful...just what we needed!

They teach you about space and stuff in school and it is all very fascinating but unless I see it firsthand, it's not concrete to me. So whenever I experience something that I learned about long ago, I try to look it up to see if I can jog my memory into learning what my teachers taught me so many years ago. Here's what I learned or re-learned tonight:

• We won't have another total lunar eclipse until 2010.
• The full shadow on the moon is called the umbral shadow.
• Christopher Columbus used a total lunar eclipse in 1504 to frighten natives on Jamaica into feeding his crew. They were scared of its red color.
• The depth of the reddness of the shadow is dependent on the dust and particles in the atmosphere.
• Recent volcanic eruptions can cause it to have a deeper shade of red. ( I definately didn't know that!)

That all sounds so scientific when really it was just a beautiful evening with my hubby!