Froggies and Butterflies

We completed our unit study with the observation of real, live tadpolies! Yes! God's timing is so great. At church, one of my fellow homeschoolers was handed a mysterious parcel covered in a plastic bag. So I inquired of its contents and what do you think it was? Okay, okay -- I'm sure you've already guessed -- tadpolies! I was so excited! What a perfect complement to our study! So, without much badgering, I was able to acquire some tadpolies of my own. In fact, I acquired quite a few. More than I needed. And you know what I found out? Tadpolies need lots of care. More than my own dog. The water declorinating and changing, the feeding which included blood worm defrosting (okay??), setting up their home and weeding them out as they developed. Okay, I killed a few. That was the hardest part. I hated flinging them over our back fence. So dishonoring. But, I got over it and pressed on. It was so exciting to see them develop their back legs, then their front legs and watch their tail shorten. Just like the pictures in books! And just like the girls had drawn in their frog cycle. It was so cool to see it in action.

But we found out that as soon as they developed their little front legs, they were eager to escape the confines of their bowl. We learned that they were some type of tree frog. They would stick to the sides of their bowl like glue and we could see how their little feet were not webbed but fingerlike with the little knobbies at the end. And they were SO little! And cute!

However, the time did come when we had to let them go. They were actually escaping from their habitat - one that was specifically made for developing tadpoles and frogs. They were so small that they could escape between the slats in the container that served as air holes. We would find them on the counter all the time. So we took some of them out to one of our local water sources, called the Lagoon and featured earlier on this blog, and we let them go. I was actually a little sad. They looked so little and helpless out there with all the ducks, geese, lizards and other predators around. At that point we still had about 10 left between the ones I had in another habitat and those still developing. At least that's what I thought. I counted them every day and it seemed like there were less of them. A few of those darn little critters had escaped and met their demise on the counter, all dried up. Oh, it was a sad sight! So after about a week or two, we took the rest of them and let them go at one of our parks with a large creek. Still so small. I'd rather not know what ultimately happened to them. And what am I going to do with all those frozen blood worms in my freezer? My son, Tyler, grossed out when he came upon them. You know they are mosquito larvae? Ewww!! Anybody need some?

Right now you may be asking, what do butterflies have to do with this post? Well, in the midst of the tadpole rearing, my mom ordered us some caterpillars. Those were a neat sideshow to the tadpoles. They only took about 2 weeks from the time we got them to the time that they turned into a butterfly. I had never seen the process before and it was pretty interesting. The butterflies were beautiful.

We let them go shortly after they metamorphosed because I couldn't bear to see them flap around the little butterfly habitat. The little balls that they are sitting on are paper towels soaked in sugar water, but how can that compare to their instinctive craving for nectar?

So our school year culminated with "changes", tadpoles to frogs and caterpillars to butterflies. Oh, and let's not forget -- a first grader to a second grader and a third grader to a fourth grader.

I couldn't be more proud!

Frogs!

We are currently on Unit 5, Chapter 6 of our Weaver curriculum. At this point, we are in Exodus where Moses and Aaron go before Pharoah and announces to him that the Lord has said to "Let My people go!" Pharaoh does not comply and as we well know, the Lord begins to pronounce judgments upon the land. First the river Nile is turned to blood and now there are frogs everywhere! Imagine frogs in your cereal bowl! Then Moses cries out to the Lord concerning the frogs and the Lord hears his cries and causes the frogs to die. Ooohh yuck! What a stench that must've been. Even still, Pharaoh's heart is hardened and he does not relent to let the Israelites go because his magicians were able to duplicate what Moses and Aaron have done.



Immediately what comes to mind is this:

• God keeps His promises (like He did with Moses and Aaron when He promised to give them the ability to perform these miracles)


• God hears our prayers (like when Moses couldn't take the frogs anymore!)


• People can try to imitate and copy the true and living God, but as we'll find out, in the end they will prove to be false.

We have been reading about froggies this week and today I gave the girls an art lesson on how to draw a frog. They did pretty good considering that I was the one teaching them! Gracey's is first, Emily's second.

Homeschool Share Back to School Blast 2008

Okay, I don't normally get into the whole "Blog" thing because I use this blog to keep our favorite people up to date with what's going on in school for us. But I wanted to share an opportunity that I am excited about. Over at Homeschool Share, they are having a contest for new unit study curriculum. I am interested in submitting a unit study for the First Time Unit Study Writers. We have 2 years under our belt using unit studies and I would love to actually write one! Plus, they have this super-cool shirt to give away if you post their contest on your blog; hence the reason why I'm writing this post!

So if you have a moment, visit one of my new favorite websites, Homeschool Share, and check out all of their great resources!

Benjamin Franklin Lapbook

Our most recent Lapbook
*Note: If the advertisement is up on the screen, just "X" out of it and the slideshow will play

Weaving

In line with our study of Moses and the Nile River, we also did some braiding and weaving. First the girls braided some raffia to make a basket. I don't know where I got the idea that this would make a good basket but with some trial and error, we managed to make a few, with the help of my handy-dandy gluegun! Grace's turned out looking like a straw hat -- perfect for her Build-A-Bear, Lilli! Emily's looked more like a basket and here she is with her Build-A-Bear poodle, Pinki.

The girls also tried their hand at the real act of weaving (once I watched a you tube video on it!). They made little placemats. We are going to convert their placemats into hearts to decorate for Valentine's Day. They loved weaving and seeing the final piece of art!

In March we are going to watch basket weaving from Longaberger themselves (You know, the really beautiful but very expensive baskets) at the Jelly Belly factory. We've been on that tour many times but this will be fun to see actual weaving going on.

Volume 2, Unit 2, Chapter 2

For the past 2.5 weeks, we have been learning about lots of things! For Bible, we are in Exodus 2, learning about Moses' family. Just when you think you know everything you can possibly know... So, in Social Studies, we have been studying the Nile River. We are trying to compose a lapbook for it, but my creativity is on the low end. We'll see if it gets done now or later! In Science, we have looked at the composition of the earth: land/water, crust, mantle, outer core, inner core. I found a great hands-on project for this:

Greenish-yellow: land mass; Blue: water; purple:crust; lt. orange: mantle; pink:outer core; dark orange: inner core.

The girls created their "earths" and then we cut away a section to see what it looked like inside. What a neat visual!

Thanksgiving Unit Study

I decided to take a break from our curriculum unit studies to do a short unit study on Thanksgiving. It was so interesting! There were so many new things that I learned! I used information from several different resources and developed our study from there.

We went in this order:

• The Mayflower


• The passengers aboard the Mayflower


• The reasons for going to the New World


• The Wampanoag people who lived on the land originally


• The arrival of the English Colonists and their first year


• The Mayflower Compact


• The different dialects and languages of the Colonists and the Indians


• The harvest festival, now commonly known as Thanksgiving

There is so much information on this topic so we read a lot and tried to apply it as often to things that we already know about. I was concerned that some of it would go right over Grace and Emily's head but they surprised me about how much they understood. In fact, as we covered the Mayflower Compact and the reason for it and this early American type of government, Grace put it all together in her mind and compared it the government of the show we like to watch, Kid Nation. That opened a whole new door to talk about as we covered that subject! My fears were for naught!

One of my favorite books was Sarah Morton's Day, A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim girl. At the suggestion of some of the material I had, we began documenting the things that the girls did each day. We are starting to put it in a little book now.

Lastly, we made the "trip" from England/Holland to the New World on our dining room table using Play-doh to make the ships - Mayflower, Fortune, Anne and Little James. They also had to pack a bag to take with them on the trip. They had a limited space because there was limited room for such things for 102 people on the Mayflower. Here are a few pictures of that little excursion:

Happy Thanksgiving! (By the way, days of thanksgiving were days of prayer and fasting. Boy do we have it backward!!!)