Other things this month...

Uploading pictures off my camera for the month and have some more I'll share...

Earlier this month the girls took out the shells they collected from the creek in May, as well as shells they collected from Virginia Beach, VA and York Beach and Wells Beach in Maine. They were grouping them, touching them, drawing them, smelling them, listening to them, learning about them.

Georgia, feeling inspired by the movie Imagine That, wanted to know what scones were. We looked up some recipes and realized we had ingredients to make cranberry scones.

Olivia wanted to know who the Queen of England was...also inspired by Imagine That. (same scene as scones...the girls love that scene!)

Georgia went to the Creative Kids Club at the library where they made a tambourine out of paper, paper clips, and bottle caps.

Olivia had her first visit with the dentist.

And added some pictures to her alphabet book. She loves cutting out pictures, words, and letters from magazines and uses them in her alphabet book, or in collages.

Pan starts with a P.

The girls are also participating in the summer reading program at the library, have played soccer, captured bugs, fed the daring jumping spider they captured, watched it make a nest and later found lots of itty bitty spider babies.

Lowe's Build & Grow

We've discovered the Build and Grow Clinics at Lowe's this month. Twice a month they offer a free wooden project for children to build.

The first one we went to they built a putting green

And yesterday they built pirate ships!

The next project will be a treasure chest!

Woodland Survival Camp (updated)

This week Georgia is attending the Woodland Survival camp at our local nature center. She is loving it! They have built shelters, fires, collected water, cooked with a fire, demonstrated first aid, practiced using compasses, and had a blast! On Friday they will have a special demonstation for the parents and we will be able to tour their woodland survival camp. I'll be sure to bring the camera and take some photos to share.

UPDATE: Georgia ate a roasted mealworm! And then they ground the rest up to bake in cookies!! She said the mealworm tasted like peanutbutter. Hmmm, mealworm and jelly sandwich anyone?

Georgia also practiced using a bow and arrow, shooting it at targets.

The camp staff made a disk of pictures they took througout the week to give to the parents, but we were near the end of the line and they ended up running out of disks. Some folks at the front were taking more than one. So we will recieve pictures taken throughout camp in a couple weeks, when we go back to pick up some tincture she made. They used jewelweed to make an herbal tincture for topical application which can be used to relieve mosquito bites, bee and wasp stings, warts, bruises, fungal skin infections, nettle stings, minor burns, cuts, eczema, acne, sores, and poison ivy rash.

So, if you are ever to be stranded in a remote and deserted area...take Georgia with you!!

Here are some pictures of Georgia showing us the shelters on Friday...

Georgia's Team's Shelter

The other team's shelter

The girls with the Long Hunter at his camp

Creek Exploration

Yesterday we walked down to the creek to do some exploring. The girls searched the creek bed for shells, rocks, fish, and other creek life. They even found an old animal bone in there. They followed a set of tracks along the creek as far as they could. Checking the track finder book, it appears that they were that of the mink. The temperature reached 86*F and they had a nice time splashing and cooling off. Eventually the mosquitoes found us and sent us away.

Today, the girls spent some time cleaning the shells they found and sorting them into piles. We found a site called Freshwater Mussels of the Midwest and have had fun looking around on there. It also helped us come up with an idea...we want to make a booklet about the creek. It will be like a field guide or a brochure of the things that can be found in and around the creek.

Chef Livy

If you need something chopped, go to Livy! She's been honing her knife wielding skills.

She made a delicious pasta salad for us!

Wacky Mac

Kidney Beans

Tomatoes

Cucumbers

Green Pepper

Carrots

Broccoli

Zesty Italian Salad Dressing

Volcanoes!

After reading the news about Alaska's Redoubt Volcano on the brink of eruption, we did some further explorations on volcanoes.

We played with a virtual volcano, changing variables and seeing the effect it has on the eruption.

Learned more about volcanoes from FEMA...

and at National Geographic Kids.

And we watched the BrainPop video on volcanoes.

After that, the girls had fun playing with the variables of an avalanche and seeing the results on National Geographic's Unleash an Avalanche.

Shelters!

Inspired by Survivorman and Man v Wild, the girls think of different ways to build shelters in the house.

There's the bunkbed shelter...

The long and low shelter...

the video shelter, where they can watch Survivorman and Man v Wild

and most recently the snow shelter...

I lured them back inside with some hot chocolate...

Winter Woodland Survival

Georgia's December nature class was called Winter Woodland Survival. The local Long Hunter (1790-era interpreter) Chris Supinger taught the kids basic survival skills used in the 1790's. They learned how to find landmarks to navigate through the woods. Mr. Supinger had a fire going and cooked up some tasty snacks for the kids, which included dried apples, beef jerky, and dried corn. He also taught the kids how to build a basic shelter. They split into two teams and worked together to build their shelter. Of course, Georgia LOVED that! Her and Olivia are always building shelters around the house after watching Survivorman or Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel. (Survivorman is her favorite.)

Chris Supinger, Long Hunter
(this was taken at the Maple Syrup Festival in March 2008)

After a week of strong winds and rain, we took a walk through the woods to find the shelters the kids built. I didn't think that they would still be standing...but to my surprise, they looked like they were just built! They did a great job constructing them.

This class is the first of a new quarterly series for Park Pals on surviving and living off the land. We think this is excellent! Soon, Olivia will be joining Georgia in her Park Pals class. She can't wait.

Shelter # 1 Georgia's Team

Shelter # 2 The other team

Fall Hike

We read more about the monkey brains here. We also found a picture at that site of what one looks like when it's sliced open.