Monarch Notes... and the Fate of Butterfly "M"

All the little sheets of paper... so I'm trying to compile my notes here.

I also discovered that the videos I took in real time of caterpillars going into the chrysalis and butterflies hatching out are too long for Blogger's video hosting platform. Instead, I will share these videos which someone else (Jude Adamson) has made. You do need to be there to catch the exact moment of transformation. It's worth all the time you sit around! And easy to miss. As far as the actual amount of time that it takes, from what we watched it is two and a half minutes to go in and two minutes to come out.

There doesn't seem to be any rule as to when they transform into pupae. If you see one hanging upside down in a J there may still be hours to go. Or not. So you may just want to bring a sandwich and stick around and watch it. They will twist their little hook up into the webbing to be sure they are secure before transforming. We saw several mid-morning (11:15 am).

For emerging from the crysalis, this seems to be based on temperature. The chiller it gets, the more likely they are to come out in the late morning (10:30 am), as opposed to waking up in the morning to find you have butterflies! To tell when this is about to happen, you want the chrysalis to be really clear so the butterfly looks quite black but then it will get frosted as the chrysalis begins to pull away from the wet butterfly so it can emerge.

By the way, it takes exactly four sheets of Bounty quick-size paper towels to cover the bottom of our large terrarium. So that's pretty perfect!

Okay, notes on dates.

We started with 6 monarch caterpillars on Sat Aug 29.

We found two more outside and they went into the habitat on milkweed stems on Monday; one more went into the habitat on Tuesday. That's 9.

Wed Sep 2 - chrysalises A, B, C

We woke up to three chrysalises (A, B, C). Those are the three butterflies that emerged Sep 11. Nine days. At that point we think we had 3 chrysalises and 11 caterpillars, but it was starting to be really hard to count. Every time we brought in milkweed we were bringing in caterpillars. They are as tiny as an eyelash when they first hatch.

Sat Sep 5 - chrysalises D, E, F

We woke up to one more chrysalis (D), two caterpillars hanging upside down (which we watched change into E and F), three very fat caterpillars, one medium, and four small. The three chrysalises that formed that day became the three butterflies that emerged Sep 14. Nine days for those as well.

Mon Sep 7 - chrysalises G, H, I

Today we had the 6 chrysalises already formed and three caterpillars hanging upside down (those were the very fat caterpillars from yesterday) and 6 caterpillars. The three chrysalises which formed that day (G, H, I) became the three butterflies that emerged Sep 15. Eight days for those guys.

Tue Sep 8

Today is the day that Zac saw one had fallen (I). And we were down to just 6 caterpillars. By that point, when I was putting stems of old milkweed outside I was putting the caterpillars on them back onto the big plants. And checking to make sure there weren't new caterpillars on the cuttings I was bringing inside.

Thu Sep 10 - chrysalises J, K

Surprising us, two chrysalises formed on the underside of the wooden lid. We didn't discover them until the day I took the lid off because the first set of butterflies had emerged. I was quite careless with the lid. Later I was shocked to find there were two chrysalises on it! From then on, we were much more careful. They emerged on Sep 21. Eleven days.

Fri Sep 11 - chrysalis L; butterflies A, B, C

This morning, we had our first three butterflies emerge (A, B, C). We watched one go into its chrysalis in the morning (L) and then walked it over to Kamma's house as a gift. We had eight chrysalises remaining (D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K). They were all over the place. Two chrysalises on the underside of the wooden lid, one on the rim of the aquarium, four on the milkweed stems, and the one that fell (I). And this morning there was also one caterpillar hanging upside down which later fell, climbed back up, fell, climbed back up, and then successfully attached to the wooden lid at the very end of the day. I put the two remaining caterpillars on the milkweed outside.

Sat Sep 12 - chrysalis M

Our last caterpillar from yesterday, who struggled so much to attach to something, was in a chrysalis when I got up this morning. Hurray!

Mon Sep 14 - butterflies D, E, F

Tue Sep 15 - butterflies G, H, I

Mon Sep 21 - butterflies J, K, L

Tue Sep 22 - butterfly M

M had a tough time. He didn't emerge until 12:45 pm. At 5:45 pm, he still hadn't taken his maiden flight. It was 66 degrees, so it was warm enough. His wings appear to be fully and correctly formed, but when he flaps them and lets go of the milkweed, he just stumbles and has to grab something again. He catches no air. He did have the instinct to climb to the highest place, but that hasn't helped.

5:36 pm

Zac and I watched a video on our options (see below), and decided to put the milkweed stem he was on back into the terrarium and bring it up to the upstairs bathroom, which will be warmer for him than spending the night in the art room / garage. I also put in a dish of Gatorade, even though they don't need to feed on the first day.

Tomorrow I'll carry the milkweed cutting back outside and we will see if a warmer day makes a difference.

Raising Monarchs - When Adults Can't Fly (video)

How to feed Gatorade to butterflies

How to Safely Release Monarch Butterflies
really helpful! also includes tagging program participation info

. . .

Wed Sep 23

All night M sat in the corner and stared out through the glass. All morning long he tried and tried tried to get out of his enclosure. They have the instinct to travel, of course. Today at 3 pm I decided it was warm enough, carried out the terrarium, and set it on the sidewalk. He made a few false starts, so I wasn't sure we would have success. But then he figured it out. And he flew away!

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Insects: House Fly, Periodical Cicada, Ant Lion

I have lots of lovely pictures from our Monarch metamorphosis observations, which I am excited to share. We have four more chrysalises to go!

But this week in Kindergarten we looked at life cycles from other insects (just to make sure I wasn't accidentally giving my child the impression that monarch butterflies are the only thing that go through metamorphosis)!

Monday

• read Animals Upside Down: A Pull, Pop, Lift & Learn Book! by Steve Jenkins & Robin Page

  

• talk about the house fly
• look at the house fly life cycle (PDF - I printed page 2)
• learn that all insects come from eggs; learn that all insects have six legs; count the legs on a newly-hatched monarch butterfly as well as an ant, house fly, and cricket which conveniently happened by

Tuesday

• read Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson (this was in response to yesterday's question, "do butterflies have babies?" which, of course, goes to show that the whole life cycle idea is still pretty abstract)

  

• review the house fly life cycle, the terms larva and pupa, and how adult insects don't look like the babies
• read house fly fact in Just a Second: A Different Way to Look at Time by Steve Jenkins (this is on the page Very Quick)

  

• try to get a sense of how long a second is (I would say "Go!" and he would wait the length of time that he thought was one second and then clap)... and house flies can take off even faster than that when they sense danger (the idea of 1/10 of a second is too abstract)
• find house flies and then each time I would say "Show him some danger" and Zac would move his hand towards the fly and we would marvel at how quickly it took off! he loved doing this over and over

Wednesday

• look carefully at a cicada shed
• watch a beautiful video (skip between 3:40 and 4:30) about the life cycle of the periodical cicada (this is an incomplete metamorphosis)
• read the "The Lion Hunt" chapter, pages 187-194, in The Burgess Book of Nature Lore: Adventures of Tommy, Sue and Sammy with Their Friends of Meadow, Pool, and Forest by Thornton W. Burgess

  

• look at the antlion life cycle (PDF) and compare it to the other insect life cycles we have studied
• walk around the house and looking in the dry sandy soil under the eaves for antlion pits (we found some!)

I had the life cycle pages printed in color on heavy paper and then put them in page protectors so that they would be protected from any dampness on the ground; this also means I can wipe them down as needed. So I think I'll do more things for the Outdoor Classroom this way. It's less expensive than lamination, and after a study of something I can remove the items, put them in a file folder, and put papers for the next topic into the same protectors.

And I am very seriously thinking of setting up an antlion habitat this weekend with Zac, to have in the Art Room for observations. I loved the University of Florida Extension publication Antlions in the Classroom (PDF).

UPDATE: An illustration of the adult antlion in on page 10 of 1000 Animals by Jessica Greenwell.

I am finding the Outdoor Classroom experience rich and inspiring because of all the things we see (like the five-lined skink with his bright blue tail) but I am also finding it tricky. In Early Childhood classrooms, Waldorf teachers do lots of stories that have Nature characters like Jack Frost. We do seasonal stories almost exclusively (along with a few fairy tales) when we teach indoors, because we want to help keep children connected to the natural world. We even have a Nature table in the corner where we keep displays of what is happening outside, and students can add their Nature treasures.

It's funny, right? Now we really ARE way more connected to the natural world, because school is outside, but now there's no time for the old well-loved stories. I feel like we need to do a Nature study, like birds, but then I also miss the little fictional things. And those are important too!

Usually I start the year with The Muddy Farmyard, from Nell Smyth's absolutely lovely book, and we make Chocolate Play Dough.

It's a wonderful story, and good for retelling many times, and we do musical instruments with it too like rainsticks and froggie drums. I can see who can keep following the story as I replace concrete items with more abstract ones, like putting in a glass pebble instead of a little frog. I can see if the children have tactile defensiveness with the dough. If they have patience and they are able to wait, or if they touch the playdough while it's still pretty hot. How strong their hands are when they knead it. How well they understand how to follow a recipe and measure ingredients. And without a kitchen, that kind of familar activity doesn't seem possible.

Plus, I feel like I have to set up a sensory experience or creative play provocation each day, since there aren't as many toys as there would be in a classroom setup. So I feel really fragmented between allowing lots of open outdoor play, preparing and following through with a directed play activity, doing a Circle Time and figuring out how long and complex to make it, having a Nature study topic that relates to what we have observed outside, and then still trying to have a beautiful seasonal story. I guess I will just keep finding my way through it slowly, seeing what works and what doesn't.

I have learned that having paperweights matters too! For windy moments!

Our simple Circle Time for right now is:

• the welcome song from Music Together (saying hello to all of the things in Nature that we want to, as well as each other)
• "Two Little Blackbirds" finger play
• "Rocks to Stones" finger play
  from The Breathing Circle, page 84
• "Looking through the Garden Gate" verse
  from The Breathing Circle, page 94
• "Caleb the Cricket" finger play
  from Move Over, Mother Goose: Finger Plays, Action Verses and Funny Rhymes, page 20

Zac has actually added a new line to "Rocks to Stones," because he wanted something about crystals. So now we do "Rocks to stones..." (hold your arms out in front of you in a huge circle, then make hands into fists), "stones to pebbles..." (touch the pads of your fingers together), "pebbles to crystals"... (wiggle your fingers in a sparkly way), "crystals to sand, soft silky sand, that glides through my hands" (pantomime letting sand slither through your fingertips and catching it in your other hand, then switching).

Our simple Blessing at Snack is:

Earth who gives to us this food,
Sun who makes it ripe and good,
dear Earth, dear Sun, by you we live,
all our thanks to you we give

Of course this week we also enjoyed:

sensory play with plastic containers and whole flaxseed

making tiny worlds (Worm World, Snail World, Bunny World, Dinosaur World, Digger World)

watching our newly-hatched monarchs fly away (9 so far: 3 on Friday, 3 on Monday, 3 on Tuesday)

collecting wild strawberries (should we add some to Worm World? what do worms eat? digging more worms)

freezing and unfreezing each other with magic spells

watching seeds with white fluff go by... trying to catch one... finding the plant in the yard with those special seeds... me being glad I didn't cut down all the weeds in the vegetable garden... joyfully shaking the plants and making it "snow"

adding extra spice packets from our Hello Fresh boxes to the tiny worlds

pumping water to make mud
pumping water to rinse out containers for recycling
pumping water because it's fun

finding a five-lined skink sunning himself on a rock

picking up the rock the skink hid under when we startled him, finding an ant colony underneath, noticing that some of the ants have wings!

playing with large riding toys outside, like the Caravan from Nova Natural

seeing different colors of butterflies in the yard (green, blue/brown, tiny blue, tiny orange, and the black & orange monarch)

seeing some of our monarchs fly past! what a joy!

drawing with sidewalk chalk (pumpkins, aliens, super-duper-duper-long snakes that run all along the sidewalk)

"what is the name of your snake?" "Longer"

discovering that sidewalk chalk also colors on stumps! coloring stumps

experimenting: does chalk draw on grass?

nature sketches of flowers

feeling the softness of lamb's ear

finding sassafras leaves in all three shapes (smooth, mitten, dinosaur track)

seeing that the leaves on the Burning Bush are starting to change color

noticing that the monarchs like our crepe myrtle and our honeysuckle (another reason I'm glad I didn't get rid of all of the weeds)

Adult Note: if children are making tiny worlds, it's a really good time to prune your bushes. The little pieces make wonderful trees in tiny worlds.

One More Thought: If you have older children and you want to do some Citizen Science around insects, consider participating in Ant Picnic.

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

January - Birdie in the Snow

Here are a few notes from our week of Birdie fun!

We continued with our Songs, Verses & Movement for classroom routines.

Circle Time

#1 - "Good Morning, Dear Earth" verse

#2 - "Morning Verse"
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 13

#3 - "We Stretch Right Up to the Star of Our Birth" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 56

#4 - "We Stretch Like Cats, We Stretch Like Tigers" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 57

#5 - "Hippo Song" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 71

#6 - "Brrr It's Cold" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 66

#7 - "Snowy Hill" finger play
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 75

#8 - "We Wrap, Wrap, Wrap Our Little Bundle" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 78

#9 - NEW - "The North Wind Doth Blow" song, three verses
from The Singing Year, page 92, track 78

#10 - "Wintertime"
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 70

Monday

• "The Oriole's Journey" from Tell Me a Story, page 33
• "Monster song" from The Singing Year, page 94, track 80
• Birdseed Ornaments
• "What Do Animals Do in Snow - Birdie in the Snow," page 132
  from Gesture Games for Autumn and Winter by Wilma Ellersiek

We got lots more snow over the weekend so of course we began this morning with plenty of outside play time!

After coming in and warming up, we read "The Oriole's Journey" and talked about birds which migrate and birds which stay here. Each child made a birdseed ornament. Thank you to the family who donated veal tallow from their family farm several years ago. We are still using it in our projects!

Birdseed Ornaments

This takes melted tallow, birdseed, a cookie cutter, toothpicks, wax paper, a baking sheet, and several spoons.

Melt the tallow (we did this in a Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave in 20 second increments) and then mix in the birdseed. We used equal parts of tallow and seed.

Place a piece of wax paper on the baking sheet, pour the ornament mixture into the cookie cutter and put a toothpick in the spot where you'd like to thread the ornament later. Place in the freezer to harden.

Remove the toothpick, then thread a largish needle and slowly push the needle through the toothpick spot and tie the string to form an ornament for hanging outside.

Wash your hands well when you are done and use a paper towel to dry them, not a cloth towel. Fats that aren't washed away thoroughly in the washing machine can catch on fire in your dyer! It's a concentrated source of energy for the birds, which also makes it fuel.

We used all the rest of the leftover birdseed to refill our feeders, then sang "Monster" from The Singing Year. After snack we had our Circle Time. We revisited our wrapping game from earlier in the year, except this time I wrapped the children up in silks and then sang to them. I chose the robin, swallow, and dormouse verses of "The North Wind Doth Blow."

At the end of our Circle we did the movement journey "Birdie in the Snow" from page 132 of Gesture Games for Autumn and Winter by Wilma Ellersiek, and then sat on the sofa and watched the birds visiting the feeder outside. We also kept a sharp eye out for those rascally squirrels!

Tuesday

• Birdseed sensory bin
• "First Snowflake" poem by N.M. Bodecker, page 74
  from Talking Like the Rain: A Read-to-Me Book of Poems
• Snowflake art
• "What Do Animals Do in Snow - Birdie in the Snow," page 132
  from Gesture Games for Autumn and Winter by Wilma Ellersiek
• Project Feederwatch introduction

We were so fortunate to have remaining snow in the yard this morning so, again, we began the day with free play outside. The children built an enormous snowman! When they came in and warmed up we had inside play time. I noticed yesterday during the Birdseed Ornament project that they loved running their fingers through our bowl of seeds, so I promised them we would do a birdseed sensory bin! I set up a large bin with 30 pounds of mixed birdseed (no nuts or fruit) and some spoons, measuring cups, bowls, pots, and a funnel. It was a big hit. They also really enjoyed working with dustpans and whisk brooms, sweeping up the spilled birdseed on the floor.

When it was time to wrap up our morning play time, I read the "First Snowflake" poem. After snack each child did Snowflake art with a blue piece of paper, a cotton swab, and white paint. Our poem suggested a snowflake might be "a cold little / raindrop / in her winter nightgown." We loved this image and the children made their white dots very carefully!

After our Circle Time, I explained to the children that our class will be participating in Project Feederwatch. We looked at the tally sheet (which we will complete on Thursday) and the poster of common birds which they sent us. Then we practiced our bird watching and bird identification. Some children stayed with this for nearly an hour! Each individual family can also sign up to participate. Watch your feeders as much or as little as you want. The requirement is minimal (as little as two consecutive days of bird watching, any length of time) and citizen science is so important! All of the supplies sent to you are free and the tally sheets are submitted online.

Thursday

• "What Do Animals Do in Snow - Birdie in the Snow," page 132
  from Gesture Games for Autumn and Winter by Wilma Ellersiek
• "Timbre - Music Studio - "Mystery Sound Boxes," page 99
  from The Children's Music Studio: A Reggio-Inspired Approach by Wendell Hanna
• Project Feederwatch data collection

Our Mystery Sound Box game was so much fun. The children went around the classroom looking for things which would fit in a small tea tin. We arranged all of them on a towel. Each child took turns filling the tin with something from the towel while the rest of us covered our eyes. When it was time, we were allowed hear the sound as the tin was shaken. We had to listen very carefully. "What do you think might be making the sound inside the box?" With sharp eyes you can also notice what item was misssing from the towel... a useful clue!

We collected our Project Feederwatch data yesterday and today. Our final tally was

Carolina Chickadee - 2
Northern Cardinal - 4
Chipping Sparrow - 1
Dark-Eyed Junco - 1
Male Common Redpoll - 1
White-Breasted Nuthatch - 1

We had to shoo a squirrel away from one of our feeders several times. We put some chestnuts out for him, to try to tempt him away from the birdseed.

And, of course, today was also Stone Soup Day! As always it was delicious and beautiful. The children marveled at how the purple cabbage looked just like a rose! (And Zac loved the purple cabbage and kept eating it raw!)

Here was our list of group contributions to the Stone Soup this week:

onion
celery
carrot
purple cabbage
rotini
fresh cilantro
venison bone broth

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

The Eclipse

So, you may have heard that there's a total solar eclipse happening for much of the continental U.S. this summer?

Here in Southern Illinois we've been hearing about nothing else for two years. We happen to live right by the point of longest duration for totality (when the sky is completely dark) and NASA and Ozzy Osbourne and Neil deGrasse Tyson are all coming here, for various reasons.

It has been hard to be upbeat about the eclipse when we have been hearing about it ad nauseum but Moff has reminded me that it may, in fact, be awe inspiring and that I shouldn't rule that possibility out. And he was so passionate talking about it that it brought tears to my eyes. My mother, my brother, my nephews, and some friends are all coming to my house to watch it. It would be nice if we all got to experience something life changing. And so I am going to open myself up to the possibility, and I hope it is amazing!!!

Given that this will be a great homeschool experience (even if you aren't doing a grade 6 Astronomy MLB), I am making notes on some websites that will be helpful. Here is what I have so far; chime in if you know of others.

Geology and Astronomy
by Charles Kovacs

A friend recommended this amazing TED talk; I do too!

• David Baron: You Owe It to Yourself to Experience a Total Solar Eclipse

Moff shared this great map to see the overall path over the U.S. (and it is really fun to put in the latitude and longitude of your home, or your town name and see exactly how the eclipse will pass over you, including the start and end time of the partial and the total).

• USA 2017 August 21 Total Solar Eclipse - Interactive Google Map - Xavier Jubier

My mom shared this NOAA link, with a countdown clock until totality begins (in Newport OR) and a chance to get your local weather forecast by zip code and double-check when the maximum eclipse will happen for you:

• Weather Forecast Information for the Eclipe - National Weather Service (Weather.gov)
• Solar eclipse weather update: Latest cloud cover map for today's eclipse (AL.com)

• Ready, Set, Eclipse - Nationwide Historical Cloudiness Map

One thing I'd really like to participate in is the "Life Responds: Total Solar Eclipse 2017" citizen science opportunity. We do the Great Backyard Bird Count every year, and this is the same kind of thing. I also like projects for mapping the microbiome, which is a fascinating new field of research.

• iNaturalist.org
• California Academy of Sciences

Two more websites, recommended by our local Science Center:

• Fred Espenak - Mr. Eclipse
• SIU Eclipse - Southern Illinois University

Eye safety during the eclipse is paramount. It is only safe to view totality with the naked eye. Be sure that you have a pair of certified eclipse glasses (purchased through a reputable vendor; the ones from Amazon have been found not to pass inspection)! If you do not, look up directions for making a pinhole camera. Or let nature make some for you.

• Tree Leaves as “Pinhole Cameras” During a Solar Eclipse

A great solar eclipse art/craft project, which also can serve as a momento and a record of which ones you've seen and from which location on Earth! Simply make one each time you see a total solar eclipse:

• Solar Eclipse Art

*NEW*
Here's a fun activity which uses three people. One is the sun, one is the earth, one is the moon.

First, to help children understand the scale of how far the sun is from earth, the sun child walks away from the earth child, pacing out 93 steps. Each step represents a million miles.

Next, to help children understand the scale of how far the moon is from earth, the moon child moves 1/4 of a step away from the earth child.

The moon is 400* times smaller than the sun, but it is also 400* times closer than the sun, which is what makes them appear to be the same size and allows a total solar eclipse to be possible.

*approximately

If you missed my instructions and photos on how to teach the phases of the moon (a lamp, one large foam ball painted to be the Earth, eight smaller foam balls painted to be the moon in various phases arranged around it), the two blog posts are below. You will need paint: we used bright blues and greens for the Earth, and black for the dark side of the Moon, and dull green for the Sun's shadow. We also found it easiest to set the 50/50 white/black balls in a bin of sand to stay upright while drying. The smooth foam balls with the white line around the diameter are easiest to paint, both in texture and in the fact that they are already divided 50/50.

Understanding the relative positions of the sun, moon, and earth for the moon phases is only one short step away from understanding their positions during a solar and/or a lunar eclipse.

• blog post showing the prepping/painting
• blog post showing the final moon phases display



• the complete Astronomy MLB page at waldorfcurriculum.com

This post contains affiliate links to the materials I actually use for homeschooling. I hope you find them helpful. Thank you for your support!

Old Testament Block III: Saul, David, Solomon

Finishing up an exciting week! Becca's Young Poets' Workshop series, led by Saluki Writers Project, came to its conclusion and she had a really nice reading with her poetry group. All the families and the children's librarian had a pizza party on Thursday and we listened to each child share one or two favorite pieces of poetry. This was the one that Becca wrote and shared:

Should I run
Should I be
the president
what would I do?
Cake every day!
Bubble baths
feather pillows

But wait!
what about
politics?

What about
Global Warming?
Mexico?

What to do?

take a bubble
bath read
a book take a nap?

I don't want
to be the
president.

We also had Farm Day Field Trip on Wednesday (a great driving tour of Southern IL history), SWI on Friday (words studied this week were "friend" and "violent"), and a field trip on Sunday to the Trail of Tears State Park, where we visited the visitor center for a long time and then did a short hike to a spot overlooking the Mississippi River.

One of the most profound quotes on display was from an unidentified soldier who wrote years later, "I fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever knew." A lot of the signage in the building was in Cherokee as well as English.

We also walked as a family in the All-Species Puppet Parade on Saturday. It was lightly misting but not too bad. And the variety of puppets was amazing! I was in love with the yellow jacket and the virus (although Leah and I had a lively debate as to whether viruses even count as living beings). Natalie and Leah went to a puppetmaking workshop last week and collaborated on a purple Cat (the girls were excited to be on the workshop's Facebook page). Becca wore her Jellyfish hat and Zac was sporting the Elephant headpiece from his Halloween costume. So fun. It's a great Earth Day event!

We started the first Module of the NVC workbook (The No-Fault Classroom: Tools to Resolve Conflict & Foster Relationship Intelligence). The first Power is The Power to Get to Calm Alert. (Calm Alert is the center point on your Feelings Thermometer and it is the state in which you function best.) We will be doing Mindfulness exercises and learning some Energy Shifters next.

Tadpoles are still going strong. We call the aquarium "baby frog water" for Zac, which he has cheerfully abbreviated to "babee wa." We all love watching them! Every time we get them more plant life we scoop up some lake or pond water, and so we've gotten some other things too. Three snails, a cool diving beetle, larva of some kind of insect... it's fascinating! It would be a good transition to go from here into helping collect data for some kind of study on water health locally. I wish I had my macroinvertebrate identification sheets from the stream study we did at my last school!

One of the fun things we did for Math Homework this week was the Mean, Median, Mode, and Range Easter Egg Activity. This was fun and simple and a great use for those 500 Easter eggs leftover from our Puzzle Piece Egg Hunt. You can easily individualize it by giving each child 30 eggs and 30 slips of paper and letting the kids choose what numbers they want to put in their eggs. Make sure they repeat some numbers or there won't be a mode.

In Main Lesson Books, we added the stories of "Saul and David" and "Solomon."

Saul and David

Beatrice Schenk de Regniers did a beautiful retelling of David and Goliath. Her work is wonderful... but that's the only part of the story she tells. I really needed my students to know all of what happened between Saul and David, so we used Jakob Streit's book, Journey to the Promised Land: The Path of the People of Israel from Abraham's Calling to David's Dream. The story of David concludes this book.

I had wanted to have us make rock slings but I couldn't find the material for the leather pouches (the last time I made one, I used a piece of leather from the side of an old portfolio, but it was too stiff). So Becca just put a drawing of the sling and the directions on how to make one in her MLB as the illustration.

The next day, we read two beautifully illustrated version of Psalm 23 -- one by Tim Ladwig and the other by Barry Moser -- and compared which one resonated most with us. We also looked at the Psalms section of the Bible.

I will also freely admit that I showed Becca the video for a rap song (Gangsta's Paradise) which begins with a line from the twenty-third Psalm. I wanted her to see the context which Tim Ladwig was attempting to portray, and which is so foreign to her. I am only doing this because she's doing this block as a twelve year old. I wouldn't do that if she was actually in third grade. But it did help her to see how powerful the words are.

Solomon

Although Jakob Streit begins his third book with Solomon's story, We Will Build a Temple: The Path of Israel from King Solomon to John the Baptist, I had other preferences. I read my group two stories.

The first was chapter 12 of my favorite book from my childhood, the 1951 edition of A Child's History of the World.

I followed it with "The Wise King and the Little Bee" retold by Rose Dobbs in Once Upon a Time: Twenty Cheerful Tales to Read and Tell.

Tomorrow we will be reviewing the story of Solomon, as Streit tells it, by reading pages 13-17 of his book. Then we will use our beautiful new Derwent Inktense Ink Pencils, 72-Pack and watercolor paper to draw two identical bouquets of flowers. This will be our illustration for the MLB.

This post contains affiliate links to the materials I actually use for homeschooling. I hope you find them helpful. Thank you for your support!

Waseca Biomes Order

I am so excited, waiting for my new $295.00 order from Waseca Biomes! This is a Montessori company that makes beautiful geography materials. Since my students are so interested in animal research right now (here's the link to our animal report template - PDF), it is time to introduce biomes.

Instead of looking at the planet as humans have divided it up (politically and artificially), these maps and materials allow children to explore the world using the much more intuitive categories of desert, grassland, temperate forest, tropical forest, wetland, mountains, polar regions, and ocean.

Here is what will be coming to my house:

Parts of the Biome Jars
Six glass jars, wooden labels, and a wooden carrying case for collecting the parts of the biome: water, soil, air, plants and animals, and an energy jar that has a built-in solar panel with lightbulb that collects the sun's energy.

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** UPDATE **
January 2020

Although as an adult I think the solar jar is the coolest, the favorite jar of the children is definitely the one where they get to collect an animal!

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An Introduction to the Biomes with Curriculum - Elementary
This curriculum is also available as a free download at the link above.

Biome Stamps

Biomes of the World Canvas Mat

Biomes of the World Map Mat Sample Lesson (PDF)

Complete Set of Control Charts for the Biome Puzzles

I already had the Map Legend Stamp for children who want to make their own maps. For each animal I will be asking the children to label their reports with the continent(s) and biomes(s) where their animal can be found, as well as whether it is an invertebrate, bird, fish, amphibian, reptile, or mammal. This is what the wooden stamps are for. There is also a stamp for plants.

These materials are open-ended and can be used to support all kinds of geography learning. The biomes of the world mat comes with three sets of cards giving three levels of specific follow up work as well. The paper control charts (Montessori for "answer key") will serve as our biome maps of each continent until I can afford the wooden puzzle maps. At $25.00 instead of $600.00 they are quite the bargain! You can also find the black line masters of each of these puzzle maps online. I was thinking it would be wonderful to photocopy each onto graph paper and create a pattern for a counted cross-stitch map of each continent, using different colors of embroidery floss to match the colors on the map key! Regardless, the black and white side of the control chart can be photocopied and children can examine the biome maps and then color in on their own copy where each biome is located.

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** UPDATE **
January 2020

PDFs to print a b&w copy of the biome map for each continent, so that you can color them in and keep them, are now available on their website under A-Z PDF Library; click on the name of the continent and choose "Biome Puzzle: Guide to Presentation and Blackline"

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Then, when we can afford all of the three part cards for each continent ($270.00 for the set), the students can learn more about animals from each biome on each continent AND the indigenous peoples from each biome on each continent and how they met their fundamental needs (food, shelter, clothing, transportation, etc.) based on what was around them. It's wonderful to choose one continent and lay it all out and see the variety... or lay out animals or people from the same biome across different continents and look at their similarities!

If you are familiar with the Montessori color coding for the continents, you will see these colors reflected in the borders around each set of cards.

North America - Orange

So, exciting things are on the horizon here!

In the past few days we have enjoyed Farm Day and yoga, continued our read-aloud about time travel to Miocene Maryland (and encountered ancient whales and dolphins, a pelagornis, and a giant great white shark!), done some more complicated form drawing (the top form of the two shown below), had two different levels of lessons on alphabetizing and guide words, and learned about the "Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus" and the perils of using just ONE source when you do your research!

We have also learned SWBS (Somebody... Wanted... But... So...) as a tool for writing summaries of our stories, added our stories to our main lesson books, heard "The Crow and the Pitcher," acted it out using shadow puppetry and joyfully observed the principle of water displacement first-hand, discussed onomatopoeia in this week's poem (burble) and shared our personal favorite examples of onomatopoeia (murmur, squeegee), listened to the beautiful poetry in Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventures in Poetry and Color, wrote poetry in Morning Pages, continued our Philosophy conversations about Nature, and read Galapagos George by Jean Craighead George.

Our newest Handwork choice is weaving potholders.

This has caught on like wildfire and is a very appropriate choice for when there are five or ten minutes before we get together to do the next thing. I ALWAYS emphasize students being responsible, self-aware, and taking control of their learning, which is why they record and color code their work and monitor how balanced their day is, and are expected to make good choices with their "little bits of time." Handwork, reading a chapter book, practicing math facts, and other quick activities are encouraged as choices.

Another value to color coding your work is that it helps make students aware of -- and forces them to articulate -- WHAT they are learning when they are doing something. Is our read aloud History, Geography, Science, or all of the above? Is weaving Art or Handwork or both? Is writing a summary of an Aesop's Fable a language work or a cultural one? Or both? Students love these discussions, and enjoy the challenge of putting as many colors in their daily plan as possible.

Our math facts during circle time focus on mental math and, just like memorizing a poem each week, this helps to strengthen memory and flexible thinking. Friday's mental math was to think of as many math problems as you can which have the answer of 7. Can you think of an addition problem with an answer of 7? Subtraction? Multiplication? Division? How about a math problem that uses fractions? You can have multiple addends (3+3+1=7) or combine operations (3+3+3-2=7). How big can your numbers get (3+3+1+1,000,000-1,000,000=7)? What is the most beautiful way to make 7? All of these questions review math facts but in a fun and lively way. And this is a great game to play with your child in the car!

For more Philosophy-Science-Nature (that's an orange dot and a green dot, by the way) at home with your child, consider joining Nature's Notebook and becoming a Citizen Scientist in your own backyard!