Fun at the Zoo

We went to a local zoo today.  It was a beautiful Spring day and we had a great time seeing all the animals.

The prairie dogs were a favorite.  We went fairly early and they were outside eating so we were able to get a pretty close look at them.

George really liked the rhea.

The guanacos look just like the alpacas we see on the farm by our house all the time.

In the Education Center we saw cave cockroaches.  I guess I'm doing a good job of not having my dislike for all things creepy crawly rub off on the kids since Vicki piped up with "I love cockroaches".  Of course, she also said she loved turtles, starfish, frogs and snakes.

After we saw all the animals, we rode the train.

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We had a nice picnic lunch and finished up with some ice cream. 

A bunch of peacocks came to see us while we were eating our ice cream. They were very curious and came within a couple of feet of where we were sitting.  The kids wanted to "pet" them but I didn't think that was a good idea.

The zoo we went to had a very nice and extensive playground with 3 different sections to climb on and a sandbox.  The kids enjoyed playing but the day was getting hot and we were all tired.  Both kids fell asleep on the ride home (doesn't help that we ended up getting lost and it took us over an hour).

I was planning to start our animal unit next week but George spent the beginning of this week with Granny Franny.  We still need to finish up our plant unit and do our Earth Day/recycling unit.

Lunch at Cracker Barrel

Stephanie was on Spring Break last week so we were able to meet Grandpa Charlie for lunch at Cracker Barrel.  While we were waiting for them I was able to get some pictures of the kids.  It's a rare occasion when I can get all three kids together for a picture so I had to take full advantage of it.   It was a beautiful warm day so we waited outside.

Vicki had to bring all the drinks for her baby dolls.

the kids playing Checkers while we waited outside.

My charming children.

It's hard to believe my baby is going to be 16!

There were a group of women at the Cracker Barrel that day who worked as clowns and came every six weeks or so to practice their balloon animals. We were lucky enough to be there on that day. Georgie was given a fishing pole complete with fish and Vicki was given a mermaid. Of course, they both fought over them and they were a little bit in the way while eating but very cool still.

Vicki's mermaid.

Georgie playing with his fish outside after lunch.

Homeschool Nature Walk

We went on a Homeschool Nature Walk at one of our local County parks.  The theme for this walk was Nesting Time.   This was the first time we had been to this particular location so the kids had a lot of fun exploring the Visitors Center before the walk started.  They had a series of buttons you could push to hear the sounds various local animals make, then lift up a wooden flap to see a picture and read details about the animal.  Both kids had fun with this and Vicki loved imitating the sounds.  They were also both pretty good at guessing the animal from the sound.

The Walk started with a discussion on what animals make nests and what materials they use.  My kids are definitely not shy so they spoke up often even though they usually didn't know the answer.  George had a little trouble sitting still for this part and ended up running back and forth behind the seats.

Once the walk started George found some friends to hang out with.  There were two older boys (around 10 or 11) and one girl (9 years old) who he alternated between.  The boys were running ahead of everyone else but the girl would walk with him and hold his hand.   Vicki alternated between trying to catch up with George and riding piggy back.   There were a lot of parts where the "trail" was very overgrown and rocky but for the most part the kids managed well. 

We visited a beaver dam and saw the difference one animal can make to a habitat.  The blocking of a small stream resulted in a swampy, flooded area where many of the trees died off since they were not type that thrived with very wet roots.  We discussed how this was now the new natural habitat for the area and whether it was a good location for birds to build their nests.  We discussed if it would provide shelter, food and protection and decided that the many dead trees and many (many, many) small insects made this a good bird habitat.  We saw a red bellied woodpecker (we also have one of these in our backyard occasionally), a turkey vulture, lots of swallows, a brown creeper (discussed how well he blended in with the bark of the tree), and a tufted titmouse.

the beaver dam

the resulting swampland

There were many things to look at along the way.   There were some ferns growing that were in various life stages that we were able to get a real close look at - perfect for our Plant study.  We also saw tadpoles and frogs in the stream below the beaver dam.

The walk was fun, but exhausting.  George was very energetic and kept wanting to run ahead while Vicki needed to ride piggy-back about half the time.  We will be doing two more of these walks - one in May on Migration and one in June on Bones.   

Once we returned to the Visitors Center we played a really fun game that I'm trying to figure out how to adapt for fewer people.

Two hula hoops were set up about 3 feet apart - these were the bird nests.  Cups filled with snacks (pretzels in this case) were set up about 10 feet away from each hula hoop - one cup was designated for each nest.  The group was divided into two groups (one for each nest), then each group was divided into babies and parents.  The babies sat in the nest (hula hoop) with an empty cup each and chirped for food.  The parents had to go one at a time to retrieve a piece of food, bring it back to the nest and give it to the baby chirping the loudest.  They also had to remember to eat themselves.  At first, the babies were very young and one parent had to stay at the nest at all times so they had to alternate going.  After a little while we stopped and counted how much food each baby had and if the parents had remembered to feed themselves.  In our "nest", the parents forgot to feed themselves, I was the loudest baby but Vicki kept taking the pretzels so we had a bully in our nest.  :-)

For the next run, both parents could go together but they had to be quick so that the babies were safe.  This time they remembered to feed themselves but one of our "babies" (Vicki - who didn't blink an eye at some strange lady picking her up and walking away with her) was taken from the nest.   The guide tried to steal George from his nest but he went and ran back to it on his own.

The game was a lot of fun and definitely made it clear (especially to the older kids) how much work it was for birds to keep their babies fed and safe.

To see what others are doing this week, visit Preschool Corner & 5K too at Homeschool Creations.

Plants - Part 1

We started our Plants unit today with a study of Seeds.  We read the section of What Your Kindergartener Needs to Know that discussed plants and seeds.  George really does not like this book.  For some reason, he resists and acts up everytime we pull this book out.  I ended up letting them do some coloring pages from the Giant Science Resource Book while I read the sections.   We read a few other books on seeds (see list below) and began our experiments.

Our first experiment was to look closely at seeds and break open a seed to look inside.  First I took an assortment of seeds that we had just bought to start our vegetable garden for the year and allowed the kids to explore them using their magnifying glasses.  George mainly used the edge of his magnifier to break the seeds but I did manage to get him to examine some of them.

Using an experiment sheet from Science Experiments for Young Learners I had soaked lima bean seeds in water overnight.  We broke them open and examined the parts of the seed and viewed the tiny little plant that was starting to grow.

After examining our seeds and doing a record sheet we set up a series of experiments that will take a week or more to see results.  All the experiments are from Science Experiments for Young Learners although many of them are variations of things I have seen in many other places.

First we rolled up seeds in a moist paper towel - 5 rows of 5 seeds each.  After it was completely rolled up, we placed rubber bands around it to hold it closed and placed it in a jar with a small amount of water (about enough to cover the first row or two of seeds).  In about a week, we will unroll the paper towel and see which seeds germinated.

This didn't need to be placed in a window but this was the only shelf I had cleared off that I could keep the kids from disturbing.

For our next experiment, we set up two plastic bags with paper towels and seeds in them.  One will be kept moist while the other will remain dry.  We will view them each day to see any changes.

For our last seed experiment, we planted seeds in two different bowls of dirt.  One will be kept in the sun, the other in the dark.  We will observe these in a week and compare them.

George seems to know what the results are going to be already but I keep telling him we just have to wait and see.

Easter and Spring

We haven't done a lot of school stuff for the past week since we were celebrating Easter and studying Spring.  To me, the best way to study Spring is to experience it.  So we spent lots of time outside.
We blew bubbles....

played T-ball....

We took a Nature Run...

and hung out on our favorite rock.

And, just to make it look more like school, we brought along our magnifying glasses to check out some dirt.

We celebrated Easter by decorating some foam eggs using dabber paints and roller paints.

We colored Easter Eggs.  I found the idea to use whisks to hold the eggs in Family Fun magazine.

We did an Easter Egg hunt at home.....

and another one at the park with Mom's Club.

I tried really hard to get a nice picture of the kids in their Easter outfits.  All I wanted was them both looking at the camera with no funny faces or poses.

Oh Well, maybe next year.

To see what others are doing, check out Preschool Corner and 5K too at Homeschool Creations.

Little Miss Chatterbox

Vicki has been surprising me lately with how clear she speaks and some of the things she comes up with.

We were driving Stephanie to dance one evening and we saw a sign "This Exit M" (large McDonald's M). Vicki points and says "Mommy, that says 'this is FRENCH FRIES!!!"   I promise we don't really visit McDonald's THAT much.

Stephanie loves musicals and her two favorites right now are Rent and Wicked.  She was listening to the song "Popular" from Wicked in the car and, of course, singing along.  When the song ended, all of a sudden Vicki pipes up from the back seat, "Wow, that was really great Steph".  Steph told her thank you and Vicki responded with "I really like that song".

When Vicki saw her new Easter dress she asked, "Is that for ME?  THANK YOU Mommy!  It's BeaUtiful".

Tot School - Easter

Vicki is 32 months old.

I finally found a way to have uninterrupted quiet time to work with Vicki on Tot School activities - do it before Georgie wakes up.  I don't know why this didn't occur to me before.  He usually sleeps at least 30 minutes to an hour later than Vicki does, at least on the weeks where we don't all have to get up to take Stephanie to school.    So, here we go with our first Tot School activities.  Vicki is showing a lot of interest in George's reading activities so I'm starting The Reading Lesson with her (sort of).  We're doing the letter C (Lesson 1 of The Reading Lesson covers c, o, a, t and s).

She did a letter C search.  I saw this idea on Confessions of a Homeschooler (probably other places too but I'm pretty sure I saw it there first).  I made up my own sheet so the letter we were working on would match the theme we were doing.  I put a couple Easter Egg graphics (from Word Clipart) in the place of some letters.  Vicki had a really good time doing this.  She did better with the circling than I thought she would.  After finding the C's, she went through looking at other letters and tracing them while singing the appropriate lines from Leapstart Letter Factory DVD. 

I pulled out our Sensory Bin (for only the second time - see 5 Senses lesson).  I had taken Easter Egg foam stickers, put two of them back to back and wrote letters on them - Capital letters on one side and Lowercase on the other.   I have an aversion to spending a lot of time printing, laminating and cutting out things related to a theme (since they may only be used once) so this was a lot easier with a similar result.  Vicki had a great time with this.  She'd pull out an egg, read the letters, then bury them back in the rice.  After a while, she pulled all the letters out, piled all the rice in the middle into a "big castle tower", then smashed it flat again.

She played with rice and eggs for over half an hour.  I really wish I had started with these earlier since it's not nearly as messy as I thought it would be.  I use a 15 Qt storage bin and filled it about 1/3 of the way up with rice (it took about 1/3 of a 25 pound bag of rice).  I put in down on a towel to help contain any spills but she's actually been very good about not scattering it around.  I do plan to eventually color some rice to make it a little more interesting.

After the rice, we did a number chart printed from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  We used small foam Easter Egg stickers (without removing the backing paper) and put the correct number on each space.  We only did 1 through 6 since Vicki still has a lot of trouble with numbers (letters and their sounds came much easier to her).  She liked it enough to do it twice.

We then used these stickers to outline a letter C.  She only did about 1/2 of the letter before deciding she was done.  By this time, Georgie had woken up and she was more interested in playing with him then doing school.

It was a beautiful, sunny Spring day so we took a Nature Walk after lunch.  We bought along our magnifying glasses to take a closer look at things like our forsythia bush, bugs, rocks, etc.

Vicki's favorite thing to explore by far was the numerous puddles and streams of water flowing through the neighborhood after all the rain we've been having.   I started off telling her to stay out of the water but everytime I turned around to tell Georgie to slow down and wait for us or hurry and catch up (for some reason my kids can never walk together) she'd immediately make a beeline for the nearest water (and there was A LOT).  I finally gave up stopping her.  It was a warm day (they ended up not needing the sweatshirts) and she was wearing canvas sneakers so they were pretty easy to dry out once we were home.

Visit 1+1+1=1 to see what other Tot's are doing in Tot School.