Rainbow Fun

I love it when school just happens instead of being initiated by me. This week the kids saw a episode of curious george all about rainbows. They came to me later in the day asking to re-create the experiment they did on the show. Then i remembered there was a Book of Days project about rainbows this month. I had a perfect opportunity to do something fun with them while they learned something. I love it when that happens!!!

We spent a little time thinking and talking about rainbows, and density while we experimented with colored sugar water. Mostly i think they had fun just making the rainbows on the walls with crystal prisms and stirring the sugar water for the project. Thank goodnes it was a sunny afternoon otherwise this would never have worked.

**so, to explain...because of the different amounts of sugar in each glass each layer has a different density. SO when you carefully pour them in the glass one after the other they layer instead of getting all mixed together.**

A Walk in the Woods

I had heard from a friend that lived here recently that there were some fun hiking trails in the woods behind our house. Monday Chris was home from work so it seemed like a great time to try to find where it was. We were in there for hours exploring everything and making lots of wonderful nature finds. I had pockets full when we got home.
Part of this months book of days was animal tracking. We were keeping an eye out and found some deer prints and lots of other evidence of deer as well. We did not have a plaster kit to make a cast of the track but we got this picture and Avery did some sketching of it too.

There were "sunshine towers" spread along the trail. They are about two story high decks built out in the middle of the woods so that you can get a better view. It was really nice up there.

We spotted lots of these little fungus guys on the dead trees out there. I love to watch the kids get really into it and notice, really notice the things around them and on the ground. That is why i ended up with so much treasure in my pockets.

I caught Avery sitting on this old stone wall with her sketching book....drawing the trees and plants around her. She was so intent. She really just loves to be out in the woods and enjoying all that is around her. When we first left she was complaining about having to go on the hike but before long she said to me, "This is way better than being in the house and watching tv"...score!

More Eggy Fun

I was going through some of my recent pictures and found this video that i meant to post with the egg experiment the other day. I love listening to Mitch. He has more enthusiasm than nearly ten other children put together!!! Watch and listen and ignore the dirty dishes!

Catchin' Up on January

The January Book of Days has been so much fun for us. One of the best things so far was the "eggsperiment". We put our egg in the vinegar and just watched and waited... Can you see what happened? By the time we took it out it was all wiggly and jiggly. Avery thought it was disgusting so she refused to even touch it. Mitch thought it was awesome! Figures!

We also made January's recipe,Peanut Butter Snowballs. I think we thought that they would be cookies but in the end they turned out to be candy. Very rich and very tasty. Mitchell rolled and Avery helped me dip them all in chocolate. She said that dipping was much more fun than rolling and that she was enjoying this much more.

They turned out pretty didn't they?

Book of Days

I know that i have mentioned the book of days a few posts ago...we have really been enjoying it. We have not done all of January's activities yet but we have a few more days, right? One of the activities was bird watching and recording what you see in your yard. We had a sick day from school today so things were pretty laid back. It has been a quiet school week anyway. Right after lunch Avery initiated this project. What you can not see is the binoculars on the table with them. They both were watching the Juncos in our yard and began drawing....using almost every bird book we had as a reference. It was a nice time together, and they were both so proud of their drawings. It is fun to see Avery getting better and more detailed at what she draws, and Mitchie's are just plain cute! Everything is big round circles.