Nature - Insects

So it's spring, and we should be outside more, but .... Anyway, to celebrate, I started a series of explorations in books and online about the wide range of creatures outside. It's somewhat random, following this great book we have, the Christian Liberty Nature Reader, Book 1. They have short blurbs on a variety of interesting creatures, then we follow up with google searches and other investigations of our own.

The life cycles, habits, food, etc of these animals have been fascinating! In the past few weeks, we have talked about and probably drawn:

• the caddis fly


• the ichneumon wasp - drills into trees and lays eggs in the larvae of other insects (see photo above)


• the gall fly


• the cicada - it's larva spends 17 years living underground!


• mosquitoes - no containers of still water in the backyard


• grasshoppers - (did you know that they don't start out as worms, as many other insects do?)


• solitary and social spiders


• the diver spider


• solitary and social bees....

I could go on. I've been fascinated at the connections I'm making. I'm hoping the children are equally fascinated. They cluster around to hear more every time I take the book out. I think I'll get Book 2.

Carrot Juice, Barley Green, celery, asparagus, spinach juice!

This morning, Zach spilled his vegetable juice on the floor, so didn't get to drink much of it. He came into the kitchen to ask for more, while I was talking to a visiting friend. She listened in shock to the request, and was in even more shock when Zachary threatened tears because there was only a little bit left. She was stunned that my kids found the home made vegetable juice yummy!

So here is the thing. I freely admit to indoctrinating my children so that they don't eat candy and they love barley green. I'm so excited that I get to homeschool and be the voice that reinforces that message everywhere I can. I also don't have to worry about the effects of candy at close proximity, like in the cafeteria.... So, today in science, we are reading about how the human body gets sick. I'm not sure how, but the kids decided that the white blood cells like the vegetable juice and other healthy foods (maybe I suggested it?) and that the germs liked the junky foods. I'm thrilled at this association and I reinforced it with gusto!

Stop by one morning for a glass of carrot juice with barley green, celery, asparagus, spinach, apple and garlic! Give your immune system a kick!

Turtles Teach Condensation!

We've been pet-sitting 2 Red-Eared Sliders (Tumble and Mumble) for the past 2 weeks. Watching them has taught us many things, including this concept - I hate changing the water! I think we will either get a tank with all the filters so that the water stays clean all the time, or else no aquatic animals until the children can do EVERYTHING themselves.

Anyway, the question was asked today, "How come the water in the tank looks less than it did a few days ago? Are the turtles getting bigger?" "That's because of evaporation", I said. "What's evaporation?" I was busy with the computer, so it took me a few minutes to hear the lesson in the making. Given my constant cry that we don't do exciting stuff in our homeschool, I tore myself away and hurriedly set up....A SCIENCE EXPERIMENT! You can tell I'm excited. Preparation isn't one of my strong points. Any setup that requires more than a minute doesn't get done. I ran to the stove, put a pot of water on to boil, and started to talk about evaporation. As we watched the water disappear from the pot, I put ice in a cup and talked about condensation. Put the cup of ice over the pot on the stove and showed condensation almost immediately (I know, I am a genius). It was exciting to hear Simonne speculate that the water in turtle tank was evaporating slowly because the air isn't as hot as the stove. 15 minutes of science, I love it!

By the way, watching the turtles taught us many things:

• The bottom of the turtle shell is black and yellow.
• They wipe their faces and each others faces
• They sleep with their legs both in and out of their shells
• They love to climb onto each other and will stay like that for hours!
• They have no teeth
• We wash our hands after handling them
• They close their eyes by bringing the bottom lids up
• They stretch their necks and legs
• If the turtle falls and lands on it's back (as they have done many times), it can flip itself back over with ease.
• They make a sound like air escaping when they are not happy
• They have claws
• They look like they yawn

just to name a few.