Junior Rangers - Great Sand Dunes

While at the sand dunes with our Egypt Camp we learned about the Junior Ranger Program that the National Parks have.  I'd never heard of it before but we stumbled upon Junior Ranger Day.  A special day at the sand dunes where kids could earn a Junior Ranger patch for completing certain activities.  At first I wasn't too thrilled about trying to do that and Egypt Camp (Steve was gone sand-boarding and I had to manage it all) but eventually the call of the rangers was just too enticing :).  We got a little form and started completing the activities.  The boys learned a ton and had a fantastic time doing the activities.  They worked with rangers to learn about the surge of the water and how/why it happens by the sand dunes.  They also learned about 3 types of beetles that are common on the sand dunes: the circus beetle, the tiger beetle and the cricket. 

 They also learned about some of the animals by pretending to be the kangaroo rat.

 They rolled down the hill like the circus beetle and learned all about furs and skull bones of different animals in the area.

 They learned to shoot a spear and earned their badges!  I got them the green vests to hold all their badges (another "Egyptian" had one to show off all her badges and it is so awesome!).  When we get home I'll be putting the badges on so they are ready for their next adventure.

Oh yea, did I say badges (plural)? I sure did. We earned the special badge on Junior Ranger day.  Then we learned that each National Park also has a park badge that you can earn by doing other activities.  The next day we went to the visitors center, got the booklet and completed all the work and learning needed to earn the Sand Dunes patch.  CJ has now declared that when he grows up he'd like to be a ranger.  Sweet.

Beaver Trail

We have a goal set for the summer to learn all about the State Park nearest to us.  We want to know it inside-out by the end of the summer.  We're working on identifying plants, animals and even rocks in the area.  One of the trails is fantastic because it has a self-guided tour pamphlet.  We spent Saturday walking the trail and reading the pamphlet at every stop.  The boys LOVED finding the next stop along the path and CJ was able to practice his reading as we took turns reading the information. 

 We went on another walk of the same trail today.  This time it was a Rock Walk with friends.  We gathered rocks to identify at the end of the trail.  EMan's pants were so full of rocks that he had to hold them up!  We also spotted lots of red-winged black birds and ducks on the lake.  After the walk we talked about the color, size, shape and properties of our favorite 3 rocks.

Butterfly Release

We had a fantastic time today releasing our Butterflies from Insect Lore.  They were fun to watch crawl around as caterpillars, hang upside down as chrysalis and emerge as butterflies.  We watched them for a few days and today was the pre-determined release day.  CJ took control of the release and gave instructions to the preschoolers.  He was the handler of the butterflies and helped everyone get to see one before they flew away. 

 We found the best option for getting the butterflies out was to tip the butterfly garden on its side and use a flower with a long stem for them to crawl on one at a time. Then we could bring it out, observe it and let it climb on our hands if it was calm. Once they flew away it was fun to watch the ones land around the yard and others fly high into the sky.  I think CJ REALLY enjoyed this experience.  He's very nature oriented and has enjoyed reading about the different insects in our area from our trail guide.

Overall, as a homeschool science curriculum I'd have to say this was awesome.  There isn't much preparation, it's a great notebooking experience, and in the end you get to release them and not stress over having another pet to take care of.  Yay!

Earth Day 2014

Happy Earth Day!  We enjoyed learning all about worms this morning.  We talked about all their body parts, what they eat, and why they are good for the garden.  We talked about proper handling of worms to treat them with respect.  Then we had our homeschool group join us for our "Mud!" activity.  It was such a blast!  It was a continued event from our preschool mud and worms morning and boy did we have fun getting dirty.  It seemed they needed a little prompting to get as dirty as possible, but when they figured out that it really was okay to get mud all over they all seemed to really enjoy it. 

Be sure to swing by Facebook Wednesday morning for a quick giveaway!

Insects - A Kindergarten Homeschooling Science Plan

We started in the fall working on kindergarten science activities from the MythBusters Science Fair Books.   They were fantastic for monthly lessons of blowing stuff up, which happens to be what boys love.  Right now we're working our way through 4 months of Lego Simple Machines as our monthly science activity with our group.  

Since we tend to love gardening and plants with our large backyard garden we invested in about 4500 ladybugs to release last summer.  It seemed only natural that this spring we watch how ladybugs grow through their life cycle.  I hopped on InsectLore.com to find some ladybug grub and I was not disappointed.  We already had a ladybug land from last year and a refill of grub was a perfect solution.  I love that they offer the "refill".  Perhaps this will be a yearly activity for us from here on out.  Of course, my eye was also caught by other insects as I was searching the site for more learning experiences.  Our shopping cart ended up containing ladybug grub, caterpillars and a butterfly garden, millworms and a praying mantis egg sack.  This year we are trying again with a praying mantis egg sac (last year we ordered one but it didn't hatch).  In fact, last year we had a most awful time with a different insect company and won't ever use them again, oiy!  Millworms are an interesting addition to our insect collection, particularly since there are chickens around that would benefit from such a tasty snack. Caterpillars was a no-brainer since they are so common. 

So, our homeschool science curriculum for Kindergarten has turned into watching insects on our piano and drawing/taking notes as often as there is anything noteworthy going on (I often scribe notes CJ dictates). It's an experience that's educational to both myself and both boys and it's taken about zero planning time and hardly any time day to day. That's my favorite type of curriculum :).

Having never raised insects through their life cycles I have honestly had moments of, "Oh no! I killed them!" before I realized they were just growing into their pupa stage.  Silly me.  It was very exciting to watch the caterpillars climb to the top to hand upside down like the letter J.  It amazed us that they were there in the morning and still looked just like caterpillars in the afternoon.  Somehow we thought that process would be much faster.  We had to run to the store and left for an hour or so in the evening and came back to the second picture of the caterpillars now mostly in their chrysalis.  It was really cool!  We've been reading a number of books about the insects as we watch them grow.

It is really hard to get pictures of the ladybugs.  I mean - REALLY hard.  They are itty bitty and trying to get a focus on them is just not happening, but trust us that it's really cool.

Nature Walk

We are working on becoming very nature oriented.  Quiet honestly, I LOVE the IDEA of being outside, letting kids climb the trees, finding out the names of local trees, flowers and insects.  So, it's the idea that I love.  Not so much the implementation.  In fact, I believe it's an answer to prayer that I found a great friend who loves the implementation of such activities.  Yay!  This fantastic mom is leading a series of outdoor explorations and I honestly couldn't be more thankful.  We went on our first exploration around our neighborhood.  It was a slightly chilly day, but made for a great walk and day to learn about our favorite climbing trees: Pinyon Pines.

 We walked our friends to our favorite climbing spot and got busy showing them how we climb.  After a bit of exhausting climbing out came the trail guide.  Kids were instructed to find different clues about the trees: a pine cone and some pine needles.  Upon comparison we learned that the needles grow in bunches of 2 and the pine cones were rather short and squat.  We drew pictures of our findings in our notebooks and wrote down the tree's name.

It was an amazing turning point in my children's viewpoint of nature.  Never before had we looked like scientists to determine what was around us.  We could more thoroughly enjoy the trees now.  Going forward, my boys are actively wondering and asking questions about what is around them.  One of our largest goals for this summer is to learn our local state park inside and out.  The names of trees and plants, insects and rocks/minerals.  They are so excited to get out and explore the trails!

Playing in the Mud

It is so lovely to find a nice patch of mud to explore.  I often find the perfectly taken care of park to be a rather boring place to play as it puts constraints on our children's actions.  I wish we could stumble upon mud puddles more often.  How about you?