Creature Adventurers

The kids love to watch the PBS show, Wild Kratts.  It's about two grown up brothers who wonder what it would be like to be an animal.  They morph into a cartoon where they create creature power suits and they get to act like that particular animal.  They are always getting into crazy predictaments, which makes the show entertaining.  However, it is also very educations.  The kids have learned a lot about animals, all different types of animals.  Then, we can talk about those "creature powers" and understand that it was God who designed those animals.  It was God who gave them there specialites.  It's God who we should honor and glorify when we see the amazing speed of a cheetah, or the burrowing capabilities of an earthworm.

This show has, in part, encouraged the kids to be "creature adventurers".  They love to capture small insects and lizards and check them out. But, their desires are becoming much larger than lizards.  

Nate and Hannah trying to feed the birds in the backyard by hand.

 Earlier this week, we watched "My Side of the Mountain".  It's a movie (well, first it was a book), about a young teenage boy who decided to live for a year in the mountains.  He created his own home out of a tree, conducted algae experiments, and even trained a peregrine falcon to hunt for him.  Nicole really connected with that, because the Wild Kratts have talked a lot about Peregrine Falcons.

So, Nicole has decided that she wants to lure a Peregrine Falcon to her hand, catch it, and then release it.

This was her first attempt.  She used a garden glove and had deli sliced ham in her hand that she flopped around.

 That same night, she came up with this list of chores to do.

She is really focused on learning about these birds, and other larger birds of prey.  We've done some research and printed pictures of them in flight so she can tell the difference between a Red Tailed Hawk, and a Peregrine Falcon.  I love that girl!

Of course, they are still capturing lizards.  I thought this was funny....they put a fake lizard in the little container as company for the two real lizards!

 We had a butterfly that got into our lanai last week.  The kids have had fun watching it these past few days.  But, it started to die last night.  This was them saying goodbye.

 Nicole is soaking up as much science as she can!  She asked for the microscope because she wanted to look at a spider web.

And, this was Hannah, finally beginning to catch her own lizards.  

 I am so happy with the curiosity that my children show.  Although I don't want to catch lizards, or have a falcon land on me, it's fun to watch them come up with these ideas.  This is what I love about homeschooling.  I can encourage and foster these ideas.  Who knows...maybe Nicole will be a bird lover and work with them.  Probably not, but I'm sure she will have fond memories of creative play as a child.  I think she'll remember her vest, her magnifying glass, her microscope, and her animal and plant identification book.  For now though...we'll keep exploring and keep learning!

Caterpillars & Butterflies

Oh boy, did we have an exciting couple of weeks!  First of all, Nicole bought herself an exploring vest and a butterfly tent.  Then, just a day or so later, she stumbled upon a fuzzy caterpillar!  We researched the caterpillar, and she discovered it was Tussock Moth caterpillar.  We found out that it likes oak trees so, we put it in the butterfly tent, gave it some oak leaves, and it went to town eating!

Capturing the fuzzy tussock mother caterpillar

Close inspection of the 7 year old kind!

We then found a monarch caterpillar in our butterfly garden, so we cut off a piece of the milkweed, and stuck the caterpillar in the tent as well.  They were happy friends.

A monarch caterpillar

Soon, I noticed that poor little monarch caterpillar reaching with all of it's might to the side of the cage and I knew what was going to happen.  I gently pushed the milkweed to the side and the caterpillar climbed it's way to the top of the cage and dangled itself upside down for about 48 hours.

Getting ready to do some hard work!

One Saturday afternoon, we were working outside and Hannah was about to get in trouble for being inside and NOT working when she came running out, "The caterpillar is making the Chrysalis!".  Nicole and I knew this would happen fast, so we ran in to watch.  May I just stop here and say that this is one of the most amazing things to witness.  It's so neat to know that this little guy is going to come out looking so much different!

About 3 minutes later, the Chrysalis was made and we went on with life as usual (with an occasional glimpse at the butterfly tent.  I did not have high hopes of this guy ever making it out alive, at least our caterpillar a few years ago never came out.  In the mean time, the tussock moth died.  I feel bad about that, but we couldn't lift the opening without fear of damaging the chrysalis.

And....it's made!

Amazingly, about 10 days later, Nicole noticed something different when she checked on the chrysalis.  It was a different color.  That morning, we checked on the chrysalis every ten minutes and notices the outside was becoming more and more see through.  We could see the wings of the butterfly!

This was when we first noticed the change

About an hour later

An hour or so later again.

Then, something amazing happened!  While our friends Karen and Alex were over, Hannah (again!) noticed the butterfly was trying to come out.  We didn't believe her at first, but then found that she was right.  We not only got to watch the caterpillar make its chrysalis, but we also got to watch the butterfly come out of it!  The kids loved it, and were so patient to watch.  It was truly amazing!

If you look closely, you can see it clinging to whatever is left over of the Chrysalis.

Our little butterfly hung upside down the rest of the day to dry out its wings, and later that night we released him near the butterfly garden.  We left the next day for Naples.  I'm so glad it happened while we were home and got to see it....and that we were able to release it before we left:)

Getting ready to be "Free and in the Wild", as the WildKratts say.

Water Cycle

Well, we've been here before, a few times I believe, talking about The Water Cycle.  We are (very) slowly making our way through the kindergarten curriculum of My Father's World this summer.  It gives us something great to do on slow weeks (of which there have not been many), and is a good review for Nicole, while Hannah gets an introduction to Kindergarten.

A few weeks ago, we talked about The Water Cycle.  We did two really fun projects that turned out really well and became a great example of the water cycle.

The first example is a water cycle in a bag, and it really worked!

We put a little bit of water into a plastic cup and labeled the water line.  Then, we drew the water cycle on the front of a gallon zip top bag.  We carefully set the cup in the corner of the bag, symbolizing a source of water.

 Then, we taped the bag to a sunny window.  Our back windows get direct sunlight in the afternoons.

 About two days later, we could see a great example of condensation (clouds), and then water pooled in the corner of the bag (precipitation).

This was later that afternoon.

And a day or so later.

 We left our bags up for a couple of weeks and could very easily see the water cycle happening inside of our bags.  Great little project!

See the puddle at the corner of the bag. That's our "rain".  You can also see how much water evaporated, compared to our line on the cup

We also made a terrarium.  We put some small rocks in the bottom of a glass jar, then layed some moist soil and sand, leaving about the top third empty.  We put a few pieces of moss and some small plants into the soil (and a fake bug of course), then sealed the lid.  We left these out back for the sunlight to hit as well.  Well, it was like a little rain forest in a jar.  The moisture in the soil became condensation, and when the condensations got to heavy, it dripped down like rain.

Aren't they cute?

A couple of days later, we had 'clouds' and 'rain'.

Unrelated to the Water Cycle, our ants came in for our ant farm.

This completely creeped me out.  I was not a fan of keeping aggressive, biting ants in my home (because my instinct is to kill them!  However, they set out to work right away, and were quite interesting.

We ended up leaving them on the back porch.  Unfortunately, moisture got in and the ants  died within a week or so.  In case you never knew...I'm not that good with animals, however, I have to say....I'm glad those ants are dead!

Happy Independence Day!

Another 4th of July has come and gone.  This one though was exciting and busy for our family.  

Earlier in the week, the kids and I prepared by going over some of our previous memory work about the founding of America.  We talked about the Revolutionary War, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and I even read it to them.  Hopefully one day soon, they will be able to fully understand and wrestle with it. 

The morning started with the family marching in the Lutz 100th Anniversary parade with American Heritage Girls.  We were not able to help make the float the weekend before, but didn't they do a great job?  Nicole and Hannah rode on the float and had fun throwing candy and squirting the crowd with water guns.  Nate walked alongside Jeremy and I.  He too enjoyed throwing candy at the crowd (and when he ran out, he would run around and collect candy on the street, and then throw THAT candy at the crowd ;)  He was also given a box of snap pops from the float behind us.  Nathan delighted in the screams and jumps that came from mommy as he threw the little exploding toy at my feet. 

The AHG float

Watch Out!

Uh-Oh!  Hannah's got a water gun!

This is the AHG oath 

To be honest, the parade ran much more smoothly than I expected.  Nate walked the whole the time, and no crying happened until we were walking back to our car and Nate fell while running to catch up with us;)

After a short afternoon nap, it was time to prepare for the party.

When we moved here, we knew no one.  Our move was made much easier though by the wonderful neighborhood we ended up in.  These people started off as just neighbors down the street....but have become sweet friends.  I loved the fact that we all gathered together for a fun evening of food and fireworks.  Each family brought their own meat to grill, and a side dish to share, as well as some fireworks to light.  We were also joined by two sweet families from the church.  It was perfect!

The kids put together a 4th of July bicycle parade.  Jeremy led them in the jeep, while the group of children rode down the street with their decorated bicycles.  To their delight, there were people outside who were cheering them on and clapping for them.  I think it was the highlight of the kids' night!

Preparing for the Parade

Turning the corner to cheers and applause from another house.

Hannah was waving and saying "Happy Independence Day!"

The little parade.  Maybe we can make this a tradition!

Of course, there were also sparklers....lots of sparklers, snap pops, snakes and fireworks!  Not so surprisingly, Jeremy was pretty much in charge of the fireworks (although a lot of kids got to help set them off as well).

One of my little firecrackers

Jeremy is lighting a smoke bomb for Nate

I'm pretty sure Hannah is holding a Roman Candle.  For the record, I think this is a bad idea, hahaha.

Everyone lining up for a light.

My other little firecracker!

It was a great night, a great celebration, with great friends.  I'm so thankful the Lord brought us here!