Wildflower Walk

We went for a walk to see what new wildflowers have emerged and bloomed since our last visit. We brought along our wildflower ID book, Mark brought his binoculars and bird book, and the girls brought along their stick ponies to go trail riding. Beautiful spring!

My Mother's Day

On Mother's Day, Mark and the girls brought me to the Columbus Zoo. Mark purchased tickets to attend a special Mother's Day elephant talk. Phoebe the Asian elephant had recently given birth. The name of the new baby was to be announced on Mother's Day. The man who works with Phoebe and the new baby gave a special presentation, and Papa John's donated pizza for the event. Money raised from the tickets went towards elephant conservation programs. It was a very interesting presentation where we learned a lot about elephants, and we were shown some exclusive video of the new little one taking it's first steps, learning to swim, playing with mama, it was beautiful to see the two interact.

Afterwards we explored the zoo and had such a fun time. I had a wonderful Mother's Day!

Here are some photos of our day...

And the name of the baby elephant is..........

BECO!!!!

Beco, pronounced BEE-co, is part of the mom's and dad's names put together.

Phoebe + Coco = Beco.

Collage Workshop

Saturday, the girls and I went to a workshop sponsored by the local art guild. We learned some new techniques and met some new people.

The girls painted a background for their collage before adding items, and finally covering it with a layer of modge podge.

Look at her concentration!

The background is done.

Olivia working on her background...

and the finished pieces

Let's Get Cookin'

Some of the creations we have made the past couple weeks...

Hot Dog Spaghetti

We got the idea for this from here, which we heard about from some fellow unschoolers. The girls quartered some hot dogs and inserted dried spaghetti into them. They got pretty creative with this and we ended up with some alien-octopus-human results.

After the spaghetti and hot dogs were boiled, this is what they looked like.

Next time, we'll break the spaghetti in half as it will probably be easier to cook and eat!

Marshmallow Connectors

Olivia used mini colored marshmallows and toothpicks to build some 3-D shapes, buildings, and creatures. (she ate them afterwards, too!)

Juice Popsicles

The girls can't get enough popsicles! And with them running around outside, and with the temperatures rising, I encourage it since it helps keep them hydrated. But we got to thinking about how many popsicles they go through, and all the packaging that is thrown away with each individually wrapped popsicle, as well as the box they come in, not to mention the costs of transportation involved in delivering the pops to the store. We decided we could make them ourselves. This would reduce energy costs, as well as give us more control in what we put into the popsicles as far as nutrition is concerned. So we have been experimenting. We have made popsicles from juice and pudding (fudgcicles). We want to try layering different flavors creating our own type of "bomb pop" some time.

What we found works good for us are the small bathroom cups, and our own collection of popsicle sticks that we saved. We put the cups on an old baking sheet and fill them 3/4 full. After about an hour in the freezer we insert the popsicle sticks. After another hour or so we put all the frozen cups in a gallon freezer bag. Everything can be washed and used again.

KitchenAid Visit

We visited Gramma at KichenAid and checked out the posters with the girls' pictures on them. They were used as a part of a Mother's Day promotion at the store.

Georgia in front of her poster, it is a picture of her making her famous pancakes...

Olivia in front of hers, and a close-up of her poster. Olivia is making zucchini bread in the picture.

And Dad tries to steal the pie that is on another poster...

Rainy Day Cupcakes

On one of the rainy days we've had recently, the girls wanted to make some cupcakes. They both measured and mixed to create the batter. Olivia likes to crack the eggs, and Georgia likes to read the directions and mix it all together.

They frosted and decorated....and then taste-tested!

Dancing in the Rain with Worms and Bubbles

The girls have been playing outside quite a bit lately, enjoying the nice weather we've been having. But yesterday it rained quite a bit. They still got to play outside though. We went out for a bit while it was coming down pretty good. They loved it. We were all dancing in the rain and having a great time!

Later that evening, after the rain had stopped, we went back out to do some exploring. We were first greeted by a bunny hopping through the yard. The girls thought it was neat how the bunny just stood real still, like trying to become invisible so we wouldn't see it. But he eventually hopped away when the girls tried getting closer. He went to the bird feeder and found some treats that the birds had knocked to the ground.

But something else caught the girls' eyes...WORMS! They were crawling out of the rain-soaked grass. The girls couldn't scoop them up fast enough, they just kept coming! It was really interesting to see how they moved, scrunching and stretching their muscles, getting short and fat, then long and thin. They were moving pretty fast.

After studying them for a while, the girls set them free and headed in for a bath. They brought their bubble solution and bubble wands in with them and had fun blowing bubbles and catching them. Olivia thought it was pretty cool that she could catch the bubbles in the bath, but not outside; they would always pop on her hand outside. She decided to try an "experiment". She dried her hands, blew a bubble, and tried to let it land on her hand. Each one she tried popped. She wet her hand and tried again. This time the bubbles didn't pop. Interesting! Georgia thought it was neat that she could put her finger inside the bubble without it popping. Olivia tried it, too.

Here's a slideshow of some of our pictures from the day...

Olivia likes having the worms crawl on her skin. She says it feels weird and neat. She likes feeling different textures. I catch her doing what I do while out shopping, I always need to feel something that looks like it would be interesting to touch, mostly clothing. Last week when she was helping me make banana bread she told me she loves measuring the flour because it was so soft and she loved touching it. She wanted to put her hands inside the flour container. Instead, I put a cup or two of flour into an empty bucket and she went to town with it! I saved it so she can do it again when she feels the need.

Today we searched the internet for some fun worm games and sites. I'll have to post them tomorrow. There are some really good ones. This evening the girls were back outside digging up worms and playing with them. They made a see saw for the worms with popsicle sticks, and a merry-go-round from a spinning bowl. Georgia even had a worm race. Olivia was telling Daddy what worms need to live, what they eat, what environment they like, and what they don't like. Georgia was telling us all about their anatomy. She was telling me how they really need to use their muscles in their esophagus to move the food through their digestive system...because it needs to move sideways and doesn't have gravity helping like we do. I never thought of that before. That was pretty interesting. I also overheard Georgia telling Olivia how to tell which end was the head by finding the citellum, and that worms are both boys and girls.

Later Olivia comes up to me and points to my chest/neck area and tells me she can see all my nipples. What???!!! I look down and say, "What?" She says, "See, the brown dots." I said, "Olivia, you mean my FRECKLES?" Phew!!! I laughed quite a bit on that one!

Ancient Discoveries, the Clepsydra

After watching an Ancient Discoveries episode about ancient technology, Georgia wanted to try to make her own simple water timer like the clepsydras she saw in the show. Clepsydras, like sundials, were probably one of the first time-keeping devices in history. They were used all over the ancient world throughout history, but the name clepsydra comes from the Greeks who used them to time orations made in court so that each side had equal time to state their case. In Greek, Clepsydra means "water thief" or "steal water".

Georgia got out some disposable bowls and straws and went right to work. She used an old cell phone to time how long it took the water to empty into the other bowl.

You can almost see the water dripping out...

We found a site from the History Channel called The Ancient Hobbyist which shows how to recreate and build some ancient inventions. Here's a video that shows how to make a clepsydra as a clock.

And you can download a PDF of step by step instructions on building a clepsydra here.

There are some other interesting projects on the Ancient Hobbyist site that we'll have to try sometime...like a bamboo flute, or a trebuchet!!