bug jar

I discovered a new bug jar for Sparkle - an empty peanut butter jar.
I added it to the nature walk bag and we also took it camping.

It is plastic so it won't break.
It is transparent, so we can see the bugs.
It was free - and easy to replace as we eat more peanut butter.
It has a wide opening so inserting the bugs is easy.
It has high sides, so bugs don't jump out too easily.
It has a screw on lid that stays on securely.

Here's some rolly-polly's in the bottom of the jar.


And most importantly ....
It does *not* have air holes, so that she knows she must release the bugs.

Here's Sparkle releasing her horde of rolly polly's.

Last Two Nature Walks

Our last two nature walks provided lots of excitement.

Two weeks ago the girls got to see newly hatched moths.



Last week one of the workers at the gardens pointed out a snake in a tree.

Monday nature walk

We started the Monday nature walk with Sparkle slipping and scraping her knee. I thought, how ironic, since I just skinned my knee last Friday. I was quite pleased when Sparkle didn't make a big deal out of it. She walked kinda funny for a while, but didn't whine or complain.


At the gardens my current mission was to look for different leaf shapes. I had a printout from the internet with five different leaf shapes (narrow, heart, oval, lobed, divided/parted) and we treated it as a treasure hunt to see if we could find each type of leaf shape. It took a bit of practice, but Sparkle was able to find all of them. The idea of leaf shape was a bit beyond Glitter, but she enjoyed pointing out plants that she liked as well. We saw fuzzy leaves and smooth leaves. There were tiny leaves and giant leaves. I felt like we weren't aimlessly wandering.



The weather was gloomy with light sprinkles, so we didn't do any drawing.

Bluebonnets and Yew

The bluebonnets were out in full force at the gardens on Monday. I'm pleased at how cute the girls look with their heads touching in this picture.



The girls also enjoyed going through the hedge maze of Yew trees. I met them as they came out the other side. It took them much longer to go through the maze than I expected. Turns out they were re-enacting a fairy tale along the way.

Spring Break at the library and park

We're on spring break this week. However, we still does some activities that I normally consider "school," but the girls enjoy, like going to the library and on a nature walk.

As I was pulling into the parking lot, I wondered why there were so many cars. Duh, it's spring break. The place is full of kids who would normally be in school. When we entered the library, I noticed that there was a greeter at a desk who normally isn't there. A few polite questions revealed that she was a volunteer to help count the number of library patrons, and she was delighted that there had been over a hundred people in the last hour. (The library had opened an hour ago.) Whew.

I skimmed the stacks a bit faster than normal, and then gathered the girls to head out. As usual, Sparkle was nose deep in a book instead of picking out books to take home. When I told her it was time to go, she begged to get some more "Amber Brown" books, so I told her to be quick. Apparently she didn't bother to look at the books when she grabbed them because when she handed the stack of four books to me, there were two of the same title. I made her put the duplicate back.

Then we dropped the cart of books off in the car and proceeded to the gardens. Normally we have the gardens mostly to ourselves except for the workers and one or two other families. This time the place was full of people, so I told the girls they couldn't plop down in the front entryway to draw.

I had a mission for today's nature walk. I'm always getting pansies and petunias mixed up, so I decided to look for those types of flowers and have the girls help me. Both flowers were easy to find and conveniently labeled.


Then I got entranced by some giant bumble bees. These guys are huge!


We wandered for a bit and got to play the "where did this come from" game. In this game Sparkle or Glitter sees a flower or a leaf on the ground and we try to figure out which plant it came from. Sparkle spotted these little white flowers on the ground and wondered where they came from. I suspected that they came from the tree directly overhead, but the branches were too far away to see any flowers clearly. So, I held my camera up as high as I could and took a picture. Then I zoomed in on the picture using the camera's display, and showed Sparkle. Yup, the little white flowers came from that tree.

Then it was time to go home. Glitter fell asleep in the car and when we got home, I moved her to the sofa to finish her nap. Sparkle snuggled up on the sofa and managed to read all three of her Amber Brown books before supper. Good thing I picked out a few more books for her as well.

Last week's nature walk

I'm a bit behind in my blogging, and I'm trying to catch up.

Last week on our nature walk Sparkle found a white goldfish and drew it. I wonder if it was an albino fish, or what. Sparkle noticed that it had red around its eye.



Then we found the black, green, and yellow bamboo and took pictures of them. Sparkle also found a different type of bamboo, but I forget what type it was.

Ants

I don't like Mondays. The only reason I function semi-decently on Mondays is because I keep a very regular schedule. However, today's schedule got thrown for a loop because Glitter was seriously sleep deprived due to the weekend's festivities. She fell asleep on the sofa in the morning when I was doing school with Sparkle. Then I found that a black and sticky liquid oozed into my pencil box and contaminated all the pencils as well as everyone who needed something to write with.

Yet, somehow morning school got done, laundry got washed and put away, and lunch got eaten. We even got in a bit of music appreciation -- I had the piano play the Pathetique sonata (second movement) from Beethoven, and told the girls the name of the song. We also listened to the second half of "The Yellow Dwarf" in "The Blue Fairy Book" during lunch.

Finally we made it to the library. On the sidewalk by the library, there were two small piles of ants on the sidewalk. On the way back out we stopped for a closer examination.


After looking at the ants, we continued to the gardens. Sparkle drew a picture of the pond, including the small waterfall, two fish, and coins on the bottom. Sparkle also revisited the spiderweb we saw last week. There still was no spider, but this time there was a fly trapped in the web. With the help of the magnifying glass, we could see that the fly was still alive - its rear legs were stuck in the web, but its front legs were waving like mad to get free.

We also observed the white, yellow, and orange pansies in the color garden. The girls went through a hedge "maze." Sparkle picked up a small branch and a piece of bark and had me narrate what we'd seen so that she could pretended to write it for me. When she got to the end of the bark, she had me stop. Then she discovered the other side of the bark, so I narrated more until it was filled up as well.

Nature Walk

We went to the gardens next to the library as usual today. Sparkle wanted to draw something right away, so I decided to try drawing first and then wandering afterwards. It worked fairly well.

Sparkle found a sweetgum pod(?) and perched on a giant rock to draw it. Glitter wandered around looking for toys in my bag. I got really nervous when it looked like Glitter might scratch the magnifying glass on the rock, but I was able to save it.



Pictures done, we started to wander. We hadn't gone far when Sparkle saw this neat spider web. There was no spider, thought.







Glitter liked to wander looking for swings and wanted to play in the water. I saw a pretty orange butterfly and pointed out to Sparkle how it flew from flower to flower. She got so excited chasing after it that she ran over Glitter.

We also noticed some grass that was like last week and I measured it. There were some uncut blades that were 7" tall. Most of the cut blades of grass were closer to 2"-3" tall.

Monday Library and Gardens

Monday's are my regular library day. (Although it seems that recently I've been going to the library more frequently and on different days due to holiday closures and inter-library loans coming in.)

Sparkle and Glitter have run ahead to door of the library.


I have a cart to transport all the library books between the car and the library. When the cart is full, I know that I can't get any more books.


I let Sparkle get as many books as she likes from anywhere in the library. She usually picks out books based on the pictures, and not the text, so I also pick out books for her. I let Glitter pick out two board books for herself. This limit is a holdover from the limit I used to put on Sparkle, as I didn't want to keep track of too many books and board books are more durable. Those reasons don't apply anymore, but now the limit prevents Glitter from piling book after book in the cart.

After the library, I've started taking the girls to the botanical gardens that share a parking lot with the library. The idea is to get a bit of nature study in.

Here are the girls experience grass. This grass is much softer than the grass in our yard. It has very dense, think blades that stick straight up, instead of thick blades which grow sideways. The tips of the blades are also yellow where they were cut by the mower.




The fish pond is a favorite with both girls.



I tried having the girls draw a picture. Glitter was happy to scribble away. Sparkle had a tougher time because she gets frustrated when the picture doesn't turn out as she wants. However, when she is pleased with her work, she is ecstatic.

Nature and Fine Arts Club

Our homeschool group has a "Nature and Fine Arts Club" that meets a couple of times a month at local parks. Usually we don't go because it overlaps with Glitter's preschool. However, last Thursday I pulled Glitter out of preschool a little early to try it out.

One of the other mom's in the group was leading the club already when we arrived. The mom read a picture book about Mozart and played a CD of his music. Then all the kids went off to find bits of nature for them to sketch. Here are Glitter and Sparkle drawing away.


Then Glitter got bored and had a snack.

Here are the finished journal entries. The top journal is Glitter's. The lower left journal is Sparkle's. (I did the writing for her, but she drew the picture.) Then, the lower right one is mine, because it didn't seem right to make the girls do what I wasn't willing to do myself.

This was the first time that we got to use the "nature study bag" that I put together. It contains

• two magnifying lens, one with a compass


• two small 6" rulers


• a measuring tape


• a flashlight


• plastic baggies


• colored pencils and a pencil sharpener


• small journals (4.25" x 5.5") for each of us (in other picture)

Even if we aren't able to make it to the homeschool group Nature Club in the future, I hope to continue using the journals and supplies at other nature walks.