Rainy Days

The past couple days have been cool and rainy. We've been keeping busy finding things to do indoors, though. Georgia has worked more on the Rainforest lapbook. She's made minibooks on rainforests of the world, Brazil, South America, big cats of the rainforest, and on birds and reptiles of the rainforest.

We haven't been back out to check on the robin's nest. We were hoping to do that today, but there's more rain. We have read in some of their magazines about robins, though. One day, the girls decided to make their own magazine/book. Georgia made one titled "The Robin's Nest". Olivia made one titled "The Fennec Fox Magazine".

They are not finished with them, but when they are, they want me to scan them and put them on here. It's so cute....when they are doing something they'll say, "You want to take a picture and blog it?"



The girls have been learning how to use the camera and have practiced taking pictures. They both want their own camera. I was thinking that it would be a good birthday gift, but their birthdays aren't until September, and there will be so many great opportunities for pictures during the summer. So I need to do some research on the best ones for kids. Some have good reviews, some have bad....



While we can't go out birding, we can watch and identify the birds that come to the feeder. Whenever they see a bird come they get all excited! Today we took some pictures of them.

Georgia and Olivia took the last two photos.

One day this week the girls took out their magnets set and did some experimenting.

They've also looked through the travel magazines some more. Georgia told me about Utah's Salt Lake, and how things can float easier because of the salt. That prompted her to look through our science books and she found some good density activities and experiments to try.

They watched some Brain Pop videos.

They read a lot of books, some library and some of their own. We got a lot of books on China this time, and one of them, The Empty Pot by Demi, is one of Georgia's favorites. It really is a great story. The emperor, a gardening enthusiast, is getting older and decides to choose a successor. He gathers all the children of the village and gives them seeds. He tells them that in a year, the child who brings him the best flower grown from the seeds will be the next emperor. Ping, a child who is already an avid gardener, thinks he'll have no trouble. But the seeds won't sprout. He replants them in richer soil, but they still won't sprout. He tries all he can think of but the seeds will not sprout. After a year, the children are gathered again, bringing their flower pots. All the children have beautiful flowers. Ping has an empty pot. He does not want to go see the emperor but his father tells him that he has done the best he could, and that was good enough. Ping decides to go. The emperor looks at all the children and their flower pots. He frowns. Then he sees Ping and his empty pot and asks, "Why have you come with an empty pot." Ping tells him of all he did and how nothing wouuld sprout. It was then that the emperor told them that he had given them all cooked seeds; none of their flowers should have sprouted. Ping was the only one to be humble and honest, and he was named emperor.

I love that story!

You can read the entire text here.

The girls also had their gymnastics class on Tuesday. Saturday Georgia has a nature class called "Beginning Birders." Beginning? he he he Olivia's class is next Thursday and is called "Let's Get Growing." Saturday there is also a grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony for a new county park!