Life in the Undergrowth

Two recent documentaries we have watched recently are Life in the Undergrowth with David Attenborough, (just disc one so far) and Microcosmos. Microcosmos is now one of Olivia's favorite movies, and she says we definitely need to buy both of them. She is so fascinated by bugs, and I must say, these documentaries do make them seem less intimidating and much more interesting and beautiful.

They still like to catch grasshoppers and keep them for the day, letting them go in the evening. They have talked about the differences in the types they find, and they have been able to watch them grow from nymphs at the beginning of summer, to the adults with wings they are catching now.

Fireflies in the Skies

It's firefly catching time! Today we got a book from the library about fireflies and read it as we waited for the sun to go down. Then we headed outside with our bug nets and bug barns. The girls only caught a couple each before the the mosquitoes started bothering us. We had fun looking at the blinking bunch before setting them free and hanging up our nets until next time.

Here are some sites on fireflies we want to check out tomorrow.

http://www.firefly.org/
http://iris.biosci.ohio-state.edu/projects/FFiles/
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/firefly.html
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/insects/beetles/Fireflyprintout.shtml
http://www.backyardnature.net/lightbug.htm
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20060614/Feature1.asp

The Boston Museum of Science is asking for volunteers to sign up for Firefly Watch. You can learn more about this citizen scientist opportunity here. They also have a lot of information about fireflies and help in identifying them.

In the Backyard

The girls have been caring for the tomatoes...

and snacking on ones that are ready.

They've been having fun with water guns, cooling each other down or shooting at targets they drew with chalk.

They played soccer with some neighborhood kids, baseball, lacrosse, and tossed a boomerang.

They've watched the daring jumping spider they caught a couple weeks ago make a nest. And we saw lots of little spider babies emerge. They caught another of the same spider type of spider and put the two together to see what would happen. They second spider made a nest on the opposite side of the jar...which makes it tricky to open and feed. The two grown spiders have pretty much left each other alone except for a few sparring matches we witnessed when we put some food in for them.

You can see the nest on the left. The adult spider will hide in there occasionally. You can also see the little spider babies...the little black dots. The second adult spider is under the lid. It has been very fascinating.

Another creature they caught is the black field cricket. We are thinking he may be too big for our spider friends to eat.

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.

Bee Feeding

The girls noticed a bee collecting nectar in a clover patch in the backyard. They really enjoyed watching her...and even held out some clover for her to sip.

Girls talked about how cool bees are...how they make honey, how they pollinate flowers and help in growing food, how our bee was a worker bee which meant she was female, and how they can travel a few miles in search of good nectar...and how they are declining in number.

Our bee was a bumblebee, a gentle kind of bee. The girls were very calm and moved slowly around her. We visit the honeybees at the nature center and have practiced walking calmly and slowly by them, so they knew how they should act. We talked about how it would sting if it felt threatened, and unlike a honeybee, the bumblebee's stinger was not barbed so it did not die after stinging.

They were so fascinated...I loved watching their excitement and wonder.

Learn to Fly Day

Earlier this month the girls went to the Learn to Fly Day sponsored by the local model aeronautics club.

Celery Fun

The girls wanted to put a celery stalk with leaves in colored water again. This time Olivia chose blue and Georgia chose red.

Day One

Day Seven

(wilting from the summer heat!)

I told them we need to find some white flowers next time

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!