Minn of the Mississippi

The girls and I are reading Minn of the Mississippi, which is about a turtle.  

After reading a chapter, we went kayaking on the lake to observe the turtles.

It was a windy day on the lake, and we didn't see as many turtles as we usually do, but we saw a few.

 

My favorite part of the morning was when we stopped to observe the Cypress People...we like to pretend that the Cypress knees are miniature people who come alive at night.  There are 2 guards in front of the biggest Cypress tree.

We also saw a grandpa reading to 4 children, a person curled up and sleeping, and a mother holding a baby with a teenager standing next to her.  It was so much fun to use our imaginations to see all of these nature made sculptures, and it reminded me of finding pictures in the clouds.  We had a beautiful and peaceful morning!

 

 

 
 

Insect Matching

I set up this insect matching activity for E(3) thinking she would really enjoy it since she loves insects, and she loves her toob figures.  I was wrong.  She doesn't care about this activity at all.  She is almost completely uninterested in choosing any of the work from her Montesssori shelves...she just can't be bothered with inside work when there  is so much to do outside :)

The insect cards came from Target.  We spread out the cards, and then E matched the figures to the cards.  We read information about the insects that is on the back of the cards.  O(6) really enjoyed learning more about the insects from the backs of the cards.

Both girls LOVE this book that we read shortly before we completed this activity.  We've all learned a lot about insects from this fun book, and E(3) asked if she can get waterbugs for her birthday after we read about female waterbugs cementing their eggs onto the male waterbugs backs.  She thought that was SO cool!  We went kayaking shortly after reading the book and completing the activity, and I had fun asking the girls questions from the book as we saw the various insects on the lake.  Fun times at Lakeside Homeschool!

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Nature Walk Bingo

I REALLY love taking walks with the girls.  Unfortunately, they usually don't want to go, so I have to make them.  Once we get going, they enjoy themselves, but it's hard to tear them away from their play that they are always so engaged in.

However, these Nature Walk Bingo cards motivated them to get moving, and we had a WONDERFUL walk today!  Both girls were much more focused on noticing their surroundings, and we saw so many things that we usually would have overlooked!

E(3) was reaching down to pick up this flower, when we noticed the bee in it.  We observed the bee for a few minutes before she picked up another flower.  She sniffed the flower and then had pollen on her nose for the next hour or so.

We were sad (but intrigued) to find this dead baby turtle.  The girls insisted that we take it home, so I carried it home on the leaf (I was a little squeamish about touching it, and it was covered in ants).  We buried it when we got home.  There is an ongoing discussion about whether or not we will eventually dig it up so that we can have the shell for our nature collection.

We saw this dead fish by a tree.  It was pretty far from the lake, so we are guessing that a bird accidentally dropped it there.

The girls LOVED walking through this field of thousands of tiny yellow flowers.  Their goal was to make it across the field without stepping on any flowers.

We stopped to touch the bark of trees along the way since their cards had "rough bark" and "smooth bark" listed as things to find.

The Nature Bingo cards came from Ladybug magazine.  You can find a printable black and white version here. 

Lake Observation

The girls and I have LOVED the warm weather over the past few days. We've spent hours playing outside, and they've gone swimming everyday. The water is cold, but they don't mind! This afternoon we walked down to our friends' house and laid down on their dock to observe the underwater lake life. We only saw one fish, but it was big and very exciting!

Bird Song Identification Game

The girls and I have had so much fun playing our bird song identification game! We take turns wearing an eye mask while someone else chooses a bird from the basket and squeezes it to hear it's song. If you guess the bird correctly, you get to keep the bird. They beat me every time!

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Lakeside Nature Study

Elliott found a teeny, tiny turtle in the lake a couple of weeks ago, and the girls were SUPER excited about their new "pet."  They named him "Turtle-ee."


We set up a small habitat for Turtle-ee and observed him for several hours. 

 The girls became very attached to Turtle-ee even though we made it very clear that Turtle-ee would be returned to the lake...eventually.


Evidently, Turtle-ee really wanted to be ours because he was still in our swimming area the morning after his release.  We spent another day observing him in his small habitat before putting the habitat under the pontoon where he escaped to freedom.  Luckily, the girls were happy that Turtle-ee had returned to his family and were not upset about his departure.

Bob the Builder

This may not look like Bob the Builder to you, but to the girls of Lakeside Homeschool, it does!


We found this insect on our deck, and O(6) suggested naming him "Bob."  E(3) agreed immediately, but said he should actually be called "Bob the Builder."  We watched him for quite a while.  He was moving slowly, so we knew something must be wrong with him.  We left him with leaves and other things, but he died while we were out of town.  He is now a part of our dead insect collection.  Poor Bob the Builder.  (Btw, these dead insects from our collection have a tendency of finding their way all around our house...I try to round them all up and back on the nature shelf before playdates...don't want to scare away any of our new friends!)

The Best Part of Our Day...

is our morning kayak ride!


Lately, the girls and I have been taking morning kayak rides right after breakfast and before we begin "school."  It is the most wonderful part of our day!  We have so much fun looking for wildlife...on our first morning, we tried to find 1 blue heron, 2 egrets, 3 turtles, 4 waterbugs, and 5 fish.  We saw everything except the 2nd egret.  The most exciting part was gliding right over a turtle.  My goal is to kayak with them at least 2 mornings a week....last week, we had 4 kayak rides, but only 1 so far this week.

Matching Tree Bark

E(2) and I have had a great time touching and talking about the bark on all of the different trees in our yard during our "B" weeks! E was very interested in the bark, and I was inspired by Playful Learning (which I was sent to review about a month ago) to put together a bark matching activity.

To prepare this activity, I took pictures of the bark of 4 trees in our front yard. I printed them on photo paper and laminated them. I gave each of the girls one picture at a time and told them to match them to the trees. They took off running to find their matches, and they had SO much fun!

This is a wonderful activity that really got the girls interested in learning more about the trees in our yard. As they matched the trees, we talked about the names of the trees. Last week when we were touching the bark, E picked up a pinecone and said "This pinecone! It goes with pine tree!"

As I'm writing this post, I'm thinking of more tree and bark related activities :) I love spending time outside with the girls and try to have them outside for hours each day, so activities like this one are perfect for us!

Fun with a Flower Press

I gave the girls a flower press in their April Fun Box, and they were so excited.

Both girls love to pick flowers, and they enjoy arranging them on the paper before smashing them in the flower press.


I thought about making a flower press, but I saw this for only 3 dollars and decided it would be much easier to just buy it :) It's simple and well made, and it will be a great addition to our nature bag.

Planting Seeds

The girls received daisy, sunflower, and basil seeds in their April Fun Box, and we planted the seeds in baseball card sleeves! This idea came from Family Fun magazine.

We put a little bit of dirt in the 6 bottom pockets and taped the sleeve to the sliding glass door with clear packing tape. We put seeds in each pocket. The soil was wet, so we didn't water them for a couple of days.

Within about 3 days, we saw growth! It has been very exciting to watch our seedlings grow!



O(4) uses a medicine dropper to water each seedling.


They are growing FAST! We'll transplant the sunflowers and daisies to our yard and the basil to pots very soon!

Our Nature Bag

We have acres and acres of woods behind our house that are perfect for nature walks.  Now that weather is nicer, we're trying to take several "woods walks" a week. 


O and I painted a squirrel on a drawstring backpack (freezer paper stenciled) that we take with us on our walks.  We have several necessities in our bag...a magnifying glass, crayon rocks, a notebook, and a flashlight.  I intended for O to wear the bag, but it's too big for her.  Last time we took it with us, Elliott wore it (since I am usually wearing either the baby or O...yes, O still fits in the Beco and LOVES it!).



O sat down on a fallen tree to draw what she saw.



Sweet sisters



We have fun inspecting holes with flashlights and looking at fallen trees with a magnifying glass.  It's also fun to find odd trees in the woods.  O was thrilled to see this strange tree...she said it looks just like a climbing wall, and she immediately ran to climb it.



While we are in the woods, we are ALWAYS playing pretend...we are either characters from the Little House on the Prairie books or characters from the American Girl books.  Lately, we've had fun pretending to be the characters from Kaya's books.  Baby E LOVES Kaya and calls her "KyKy," so she was thrilled a few days ago when we were pretending that she was Kaya.  My mom gave O a miniature Kaya doll for Christmas which was the highlight of O's Christmas.  O recently gave the doll to E since E loves Kaya so much.  Her kindness and generosity floored me...I hope they will always love each other so much!