On the trail of...

...mammals. A trip to the park netted Annie deer tracks, squirrel tracks, and raccoon tracks! And this evening, if the weather cooperates, it will be time for a bat walk!

more on mammals

We're continuing with our mammal unit. Still enjoying David Attenborough's book and series of the same name, The Life of Mammals. Annie gave her power point presentation on the Canadian lynx.


(Please don't kill me for posting this picture, Annie.)

And she did some more small mammal live trapping, though with no success this time.

teeth and potatoes

I've been a bit lax here about getting photos posted...combination of laziness and forgetfulness. Here's a few from last week:

First, we've got Annie doing a mammal skull lab in which she is examining mammal skulls and trying to determine the animal's diet:





No surprise that Annie is really enjoying our mammals unit. We're using David Attenborough's Life of Mammals as our unofficial textbook, and we've been watching the series on DVD as well. And though we've done it before, we'll probably do some live small mammal trapping in the yard, and head out to somewhere to make some plaster casts of mammal tracks. I'm personally looking forward to Annie's power point presentation, where she can teach me a bit about one of her favorite mammals, the Canadian lynx. A field trip the American Museum of Natural History sure would be a fun culminating activity, but I'm not sure if we'll be able to swing it.
















And here she is cooking up a recipe, potato pancakes, for Idaho:



They were quite yummy, but not nearly as much as that apple pie! Annie and I are a tad jealous...we'll soon be moving on to New Mexico, but while we're reading and watching videos and cooking, Jean will actually be there in person! Not a chance we can fit in her luggage either.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that Annie had her first soccer game of the season last night, but her frazzled old mom had forgotten to take the camera.

Science Exploration Day

This event, hosted by St. John Fisher College, has long been a hit with Annie. Gray got his first taste this year, and he definitely agrees with his sister. Each year, area colleges and science-related businesses come together for this event, each setting up some sort of fun science exhibit. Most are hands-on type things.

Rich and a colleague always man the MCC booth in the evening. This year their booth had owl pellets for kids to dissect, pond water to examine for microscopic organisms, and a frog call game.

At other booths, they were able to silver-plate pennies, make a screwdriver, mix concrete, examine a variety of skulls, hunt for shark teeth fossils, see a variety of animals, like coatis and giant millipedes, up close and personal, and numerous other things (there were about 40 booths this year).



(Gray with a model of a real murder victim's skull.)

these glorious spring days

One of the many benefits of homeschooling:



Ahh, who wouldn't love having class outside in this beautiful spring weather, especially with one's trusty beagle at one's side.

In other news, added to the old phys ed column, was an all day archery class last week, and the soccer season officially started last night.

O.K., now we're off to watch another episode of The Life of Mammals.

nature, and lectures, and black bears...oh my

One of our local favorites, Tinker Nature Park, held their Earth Day Celebration this past Saturday. So off the kids and I headed. (Rich couldn't join us because he was off at "soccer coach school".)

















We made sure we were there in time for the Black Bear Presentation. Master Gray has long been a fan of the bear, in all its species forms. However, had I realized how long the presentation was going to be, we probably would have skipped it. It was really aimed more at adults than at young kids. But Gray amazed me...he sat totally captivated for the entire hour! (Even Max did okay, though he got a little squirmy and came up in my lap for a bit.)


Afterwards, we just headed off on a little hike through the park. Always good to blow off a little steam after having your butt planted for so long, right?

on the go

Yesterday was a fun, busy day in Annie's world. Unfortunately one devoid of photos though. Well, photos of Miss A anyway.

Yesterday was another Camp Arrowhead day. The morning was spent in a hiking class, and the afternoon in a calligraphy class...Annie enjoyed both immensely. And she made new friends as well, since she has now moved up to the next age group.

After supper came swimming lessons. Annie is really enjoying diving. Just one class left of this session. She's not sure if she'll be moving up a level or not. But we probably won't get back to swimming lessons until the fall anyway, as soccer is about to start.

And finally, last evening she headed out with Rich to view the annual salamander migration. It was harder to pinpoint "the perfect night" this year as the ideal weather conditions haven't really presented themselves. Yesterday's weather was close, so they headed out to scope things out. And sure enough, they were rewarded for their efforts.



Not sure how easy they are to see, but there are three salamanders in this photo.

They saw three species of salamander this year, fewer than last year (but that is probably because of timing, not because of a change in populations).

for the birds

Yes, we already have a number of bird feeders. But one can always use more, right? And building a new one sounded like a fun little project for Annie's bird unit. It was Annie's job to choose a design...she went with the old coconut feeder.


A simple little feeder, but a mighty cute one.

field trip!

Oh yes, Annie is one lucky girl to have a Daddy who teaches at a community college. It allows her to do some things she probably wouldn't be able to do otherwise. A big for instance:


We've been studying birds this quarter for science. Rich just happened to need to set up a lab practical for his vertebrate zoology class. Hence, Annie got to accompany him up to school Friday afternoon and help him dissect a pigeon. Now one might think that
being a vegetarian and all, that this might bother her. Apparently not. She seemed to be of the opinion that since her dad had to do this for his class anyway, that it wouldn't hurt for her to learn something from it.



While there, she was also able to examine some bird skeletons.




And then, for a change of pace, they also visited the Mercer Gallery there on campus.



Yes, Miss Annie had a very fun, informative afternoon indeed.