Spiders and Tornadoes

Spiders...

When I decided to get The Very Hungry Caterpillar, I came across some other Eric Carle books that looked interesting, so I looked on Ebay to find a used lot of books that included the caterpillar book and a couple of the others in which I was interested.  One of them is called The Very Busy Spider.  Last week we talked about spiders, which included reading the aforementioned book and a couple other cute ones we have.

We had recently finished reading an issue of Ranger Rick that included a section on jumping spiders, which was thoroughly enjoyable for Jaden and me.  Trusten followed along, too, but usually Liv doesn't sit through our magazine readings.

We're being tight with our money right now, but I used what I had on hand to make spider treats for the kids.  They could have come out better had I used some things I had in mind, but the kids don't care.  I used some natural dot and long sprinkles I had on hand for the numerous spider eyes and fangs.  Too bad I didn't have size differences for the eyes.  I had vanilla wafer cookies left over from making banana pudding for our previous Sabbath dessert, and I melted some semi-sweet chocolate chips (with some water) to coat the cookies.  Then I cut up a fruit leather for the legs (like I did for the caterpillars).  Jade is happy I'm making more treats like this.  I made them often for him when he was between Liv's and Trusten's age, but I can probably count on my hands how often I've done it the last four years!

Among their Youtube videos last week were spider videos--some on jumping spiders, some on the two venomous spiders in the U.S. (black widow and brown recluse), and then some random fun ones like the largest spider in the world.

Tornadoes...

I think I may have already mentioned that Trusten became stuck on tornadoes, asking us numerous questions about them.  So, I got a couple good used books for cheap on Amazon (as usual) on tornadoes--Tornado Alert and then an Eyewitness Book, Hurricanes and Tornadoes.  The former gave facts and kid-friendly pictures about tornadoes, talked about Tornado Alley, and explained what to do in the event of a tornado, depending on where you are.  The latter book has info on all sorts of natural disasters, but there is a good section on tornadoes. 

In addition, the kids all watched several tornado videos during Youtube time, which mostly consisted of real video footage of tornadoes in action.  I printed out a tornado coloring sheet for Trusten, and his coloring itself is tornadic.  Actually, I was pleased.  I did not sit with him to assist him with coloring in the lines, and he's doing better on his own.  I admit, I do not spend a lot of time coloring with my kids, so they learn to do it well later than many.  I really want to watch the movie Night of the Twisters with the kids, but it will have to wait until I can reasonably afford to buy a copy of it.  It's apparently rare on dvd.  I looked into renting it, and I can't find anyone in the area who carries it, but I think it will be a better movie than Twister.  I've never seen the former, but I read the book as a child, and I read the movie reviews, and it sounds really good.

 

What the kids really enjoyed, though, was the tornado-in-a-bottle.  We had talked about the tornado's vortex and the vacuum that is created.  So then I demonstrated it with two one-liter bottles (the only size of something I could find with something decent for drinking in them),  with water halfway filling the bottom bottle and the second bottle taped to the top using duct tape:

Jade and I took turns flipping the water-filled bottle over and giving it a quick couple of twirls.  Voila--a water tornado in a bottle:

I was afraid they weren't going to tire of watching the water tornadoes.  It was a real hit!

Trusten's conclusion, though?  He came up to me a few days ago and said, "I hate tornadoes now." 

His current obsession, what he interrogated Jaden about last night after they went to their bunk beds?  Dinosaurs.  "If you saw a dinosaur, what would you do?"  And on and on it went.  He has already approached me today asking me similar questions.  So stay tuned. 

Some Periodicals We've Read...

Ranger Rick, Big Backyard, Arbor Day, and Weekly Reader

Animal Binder...

Remember Jaden's animal binder?

A couple months ago I got copies of pictures of him with animals over the last several years of his life, plus some of the pictures I've taken of animals we've seen (but that he's not held).  In his own time, he's going to use the pictures to make his own collages and add the pages to his notebook.  There are 84 pictures for him to go through, and some of the animals include butterflies, caterpillars, worms, sharks, cows, goats, chickens, cats, dogs, salamanders, snakes, and penguins. 

Children and Pumpkins...

All the leaves have fallen off our trees now.  It was beautiful while the color changes were happening.  Winter will be here soon.  I took fall pumpkin pictures of the kids, and I've started baking our pumpkins and freezing pulp for pumpkin pies.  Yum!  Here a few of the pictures:

Pumpkins, gourds, and three sweet chillins!

My sweet babies!

Jaden is doing well on his book work.  He blows through grammar like it's nothing...like his momma.  ;-)  He may not speak it well, but he sure thinks his lessons are easy, and he gets them finished quickly.  He works on his handwriting practice and daily math word problems on his own, and I quickly go over his grammar and Language Lessons, and he does those on his own, and we do his spelling lesson together, which usually doesn't take long.  I've had to slow down on his math (not to be confused with his daily math word problems).  Rather than doing one lesson a day and then his doing his corrections and another lesson the next day, one lesson is now spanned out over two days--the lesson one day, then he makes his corrections on the next day.

He's still making candles and reading, and now that it's freezing on some nights, he dresses in his bibs on those mornings and goes out to bust ice.  :-)  One more picture:

Jaden William using his Light Wedge to read a Tintin book in bed at night

Until next time...

Butterflies & Caterpillars

Caterpillars and butterflies (and moths) have always been a big deal in our household.  I love butterflies, and all my kids have loved both caterpillars and the adult moths and butterflies.  I have so many pictures of Jaden William with caterpillars over the last several years of his life, and I've started collecting quite a few of Trusten and Liv with the crawling creatures.

For years I've wanted to get Eric Carle's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and I just haven't.  I finally did, though, and the kids loved it.

I also showed the kids Youtube videos of the metamorphosis of caterpillars to butterflies and included a couple of videos with cute little songs about the magnificent creatures.

I used to make a lot of play dough creations for William when he was the ages of Trust and Liv.  We had so much fun.  I've recently started playing with play dough with Trusten and Olivia.  I make creations for them while they play with some by themselves.  Last week we had a session where I focused solely on making caterpillars and butterflies.  They used my butterfly cookie cutter to cut our butterflies, and they free played.

Trusten making balls as I had shown him how

Liv picking up her newly-cookie-cutter-cut butterfly

Trusten showing off his own caterpillar creation

My caterpillar

My butterfly (yes, with the lines from my hands, but they're like veins in butterfly wings!)

Liv using cookie cutter to make a green butterfly

Also during the week I made all of them a fruit snack that looked like the caterpillar in the Eric Carle book.

Not the prettiest caterpillar, but the kids love when I make fun snacks

Then I transformed my fruit, seed, and grain bar recipe into butterfly cookies by taking the dough and rolling it out thinner and using my butterfly cookie cutter.  That dough with all the stuff in it doesn't cut out cleanly, but we could still tell they were butterflies, and the kids loved them.

Super delicious with sweetened cream cheese (Trust likes jelly or plain)

For young, but slightly-older children than Trusten is, here is a good worksheet resource for The Very Hungry Caterpillar:  Activities and Lesson Plan for The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Until next time...

Why Do the Leaves Turn in Autumn?

"Momma, why do the leaves change colors in the fall?"

This has been an oft-asked question during the past couple of weeks by four-year-old Trusten.  So, I decided to pull out some stapled-together papers I've kept for four years with the article from Science Made Simple.  When Jaden William was the same age, he also asked this same question.  When I finished reading it, and we discussed it, we went on our nature walk to collect leaves--both green and changed--for the accompanying science experiment.

During Our Walk...

Right at the beginning of our walk, Trusten and Liv hugged each other.  They do that often.  Afterward, Liv found herself a Juniper branch, as she's recently become very fond of those branches; and Trusten found some sort of dry pod on a plant and asked me about it.  I don't, as of yet, know what it is that he'd found.  I didn't see the plant off which he picked it, either.

Here's an updated shot of the northern border of our property:

We got green leaves from an oak and a cherry. 

Jade picking cherry leaves to add to the collection bag

Whereas Liv normally picks up rocks, leaves, and other treasures on our walks, she usually quickly discards them...not so with the Juniper branch.  She loves those things!  She drug that branch nearly the whole walk from the house, until I picked her up to carry her for awhile, as she was tagging behind.  When we went back by the branch, though, she picked it back up and carried it halfway back to the house.

Some lovely pictures:

Liv likes to be picked up to trees or anything else high.  She'll tell one of us, "Jump real high" to let us know she wants to be picked up so she can reach something.  I decided to include her in the leaf harvesting.

On our way back to the house we saw a different sort of caterpillar.  I don't think I've seen this particular kind before.  I've not made the time to id it yet.

The Experiment....

Our supplies: Jars, bag of leaves, isopropyl alcohol, paper plate, and knife

Trusten chopping leaves as Liv watches

After the boys chopped the leaves, Jaden put them in jars, and I covered them with alcohol and put them in some shallow hot water.  I used the bathtub.

Red-leafed oak, orange-leafed oak, yellow-leafed oak, green-leafed oak, and green-leafed cherry

They had to be swirled, and the hot water changed:

Then I dipped strips of coffee filters--labeled--into the alcohol in each jar and then taped the dry end to the outside of the jars:

The two leaves that still were chlorophyll-filled (green) leaked out the most color, which demonstrated the teaching in the lesson that trees took the chlorophyll to store during the winter, and the various other colors were pigments already in the leaves (like carotene in orange leaves).

I took the dipped ends and placed them on the outside

I'd forgotten about this project so had not mentioned it in my last blog post.  The other things are yet to come.

Until next time...