Week Three Recap

I had enough "demo-skipping" when I was in school.

We are using AmblesideOnline curriculum, Years 4 and 6.

Dad brought home a super-fancy little scale home from work that would measure in grams so that Peanut could do one of her science demonstrations. The demonstration did not work out as planned, I think maybe the scale was too sensitive. She actually has had a few demonstrations this year. We try to always do anything mentioned in our book. I had enough "demonstration skipping" when I was in school. I am sure we did less than 10 hands-on projects in science, and that counts watching something the teacher did, at least up until high school.

We got an audiobook of Robinson Crusoe. It is better that way, I don't have to stumble over words, etc.

We did some nature study at the local park. Each kid picked a tree. We took samples of the leaves home for identification, then by the time we all got time to look ours up, the samples had deteriorated quite a bit. Ooops. Guess we'll repeat next week. We did see a ground squirrel sticking his head up out of his little hole, so that was fun. I am not a fan of ground squirrels and moles, but this one was at the park, so I can live with that.

This is not the one we saw, it's just a picture off the ol' Internets. We couldn't get to our camera quickly.

Burgess Books Online

Here is a list I have compiled of all the Thornton Burgess books I could find that are available for free online.

If you have read any of the Burgess stories, I know you have fallen in love with the little characters. We always look forward to hearing about nosy Peter Cottontail, mischievous Sammy Jay, and wise Grandfather Frog. For me, the best thing about them is reading them aloud. The dialog is charming, and I love doing the different voices.

I know that Ambleside Online curriculum recommends some of them, as do other homeschool curricula. They are wonderful stories which teach morals and values while exploring the world of wildlife.

The majority of the Burgess books that you can find online are at Gutenberg.org. There are a few more out there, however, that are not included on Gutenberg. Most of these are not available in text format, because they are scanned images. They do include the color illustrations by Harrison Cady.

Burgess books on Gutenberg.org
Bugess Bedtime Stories from an old calendar.
The Adventures of Peter Rabbit
Bobby Coon’s Mistake
A Great Joke on Jimmy Skunk
The Neatness of Bobby Coon
A Merry Coasting Pary
Paddy’s Surprise Visitor
The Three Bears
Reddy Fox’s Sudden Engagement
Grandfather Frog Stays in the Smiling Pool
A Robber Meets His Match
Peter Rabbit Proves a Friend
Young Flash the Deer

Additional Link: Podcast of Old Mother West Wind by Lori K. Brooke. There are audio versions of some of the Burgess books available at Gutenberg.org and Librivox.org, but I wanted to share these because they are different, and not as easy to find. The woman reading them has a grandmotherly, sweet voice, and there is background music added which gaves them a relaxing, bedtime feel.

Seeds in Space

Here is a project that your homeschooler might like: NASA Lunar Plant Growth Chamber

When you sign up, NASA will send you two packets of cinnamon basil seeds. One package has flown in space in the space shuttle Endeavor. The other package is a control package that has not been in space. Students K-12th grade may design a lunar plant grown chamber to and test it by growing seeds in it. There are teacher guides for the different age groups. Students can work individually or in groups.

The Gerbils

Even though my camera is not cooperating, I finally got a couple of pics of the little gerbils. I am "babysitting" them today since Peanut has gone to her Grandma's. She was looking forward to the trip, but not looking forward to being separated from the little animals. So I promised I would play with them, which I did. They slept most of the afternoon, but when I went in to see them about 5PM, they were running around the cage, so I scooped them out and let them play in a deep plastic storage box. That way they had more room to run around. I made it a point to hold both of them for a while. They still are not used to being held. They were nice and did not try to bite me. I think they are starting to like it. They are very mouse-like to me, so playing with them is actually an act of motherly-love (for my daughter, not for the gerbils!) But I have not gotten so much as a tear in my eye. Maybe it is good therapy for me.


This one is Princie. She is the biggest one, and the most friendly. She spends most of her time on her hind legs, looking around. She is very curious.

Here is Pastell. She is a little younger. She is still pretty small. She is more of a shy girl, and a hider. I couldn't get a picture of her for the longest time because she doesn't like being out in the open. She runs from hiding place to hiding place.

They ran around in the box for about an hour. They seemed to like it, and I put them back in the cage when they started slowing down and acting tired. They have an exercise wheel, but they don't use it. One of the first things they did was to move their bedding into the wheel, and that is where they sleep. I guess it is cozy for them.

Now that everything is cleaned up, Mr. B and I are going to get some Chinese food! Yum! And probably rent a movie from the store.

Baby birds

We have baby birds in our backyard birdhouse again this year. This time has been better, as they are sparrows and no other birds have decided to mess with them.

There was some worry on Saturday as the mama and daddy did not show up for a long time, and we wondered if something had happened to them. The babies were still alive when we got home from church Sunday, so I thought that was a good sign. I sat at the kitchen table for a long time Sunday, and in about an hour and a half, the mama came back for like 5 seconds, but I guess that is long enough to feed baby birds. You know, I try not to pass judgement on other parents who are hopefully doing their best, but still...

But on Monday, the mama and daddy both were very busy coming by to feed them just every few minutes, and yesterday was much the same. The babies are much louder now. You can hear them all over the yard, they are very cute. Peanut has figured out how to hush them, I didn't know you could do that. She just makes a long "shush" sound and they hush right up.

There are at least three and maybe even four, it's hard to tell. I tried to get a picture, but it is impossible, the little camera can't get it.

The picture is from All Posters

We have a butterfly

We let our butterfly go Saturday. Yes, out of five caterpillars, we got one butterfly. Pretty expensive deal. Hmmmm. I did get one picture that was decent.





Tomorrow night is the last night of Awanas for the year. They are having a little program for the parents. That should be fun. Peanut is sad about it being the last night. She really liked it. But before you know it, it will be time to start back again.

More bird stuff...

We watched our wrens today. I don't know if this is the mama, but I'll just say it is:


She spends a lot of time there now. Peanut saw one of them go in with a bug in their mouth, she wondered if they were feeding babies. They are either feeding babies or the daddy is bringing food to the mama. After explaining this, I had to make up voices for them and what they were saying which the kids enjoyed immensely.

The chrysalids are doing well. We are keeping them out of Junior's reach, so they will stay safe. He dropped the cup the other day. I pulled two fallen ones out of the bottom of the cup and put them on a paper towel in the bottom of our little "cage" thing. The website actually had info on what to do if any of them fell off the lid, so I guess we are not the first people to have this problem!

Update on the caterpillars

When we got home last night, we discovered that our caterpillars had started changing. I was able to get a pretty good picture this time when I tried. I think the key is that I opened the kitchen windows to let in plenty of light. I will try to remember that next time.
Here is what we have as of noon today:


The one in the middle is a chrysalis, and on the left is a caterpillar that has attached himself to the underside of the lid and is curling up getting ready. The one on the right is holding out. He is just crawling around very slowly, but he hasn’t quite made it to the lid yet. They ate a huge amount while we were gone. It looks like they almost finished up their food supply. When they are butterflies we are supposed to feed them sugar water sprinkled on fresh flowers.

Caterpillars that we ordered

I wish I could get a picture of our caterpillars, but my camera is not that good. We got these in the mail last Friday in a little plastic cup with a lid. The cup has about a half inch of some kind of solid agar stuff for them to eat. You do not open the cup at all until they are pupa. They have tripled their size in the past week, it is just amazing.

The cup thing is really gross now. Since you don't open the cup and clean it out...well. And the caterpillars spin silk to crawl around on. I think it would be more educational to raise them where you can just feed them with leaves, etc. It has been interesting to see them grow so much, but you don't get a picture of how much they eat. I wonder how hard it is to find their eggs? I'm sure this cup method is better for classrooms so you don't need to take care of them every day.

We are waiting for them to climb to the top of the cup and turn into chrysalids. Hope it is not while we are gone to Grandma's!

We'll keep updated and maybe I can at least get a picture of a butterfly. I looked online for a unit study on butterflies and I guess I will have to make my own. There are some available for purchase, but how hard can it be to make your own, especially for a Kindergarten/1st grader. I'll bet I can do better than representing the life stages with different shapes of pasta. Yeah, that was actually an idea. Ooookay.

Stuff we've learned about our birds...

We have Bewick’s wrens. They are not migrating birds. They usually build nests near the ground. The male wren usually builds several nests rather quickly. Then he takes his mate from nest to nest so she can pick the one she likes best. Then she helps him fix it up a little better, and she lines the nest herself. She will lay 5-7 pink or white speckled eggs, one egg each day. She will brood the eggs herself. It takes 13-15 days to hatch the eggs. Both parents feed the babies. The babies will fledge after 12-18 days. Even after they start to fly, the parents will feed them sometimes for two more weeks. If the female is ready to nest again, the male takes over parenting by himself. They will usually have two broods each summer. Sometimes even three.

They eat primarily insects, but they may be attracted to peanut butter, sunflower seed, and suet.

They usually stay hidden in hedges and shrubs. Ours must be a little more brave because we see them several times a day, and the house is out in the open near our back door.

Birds in the backyard

Peanut and I are excited. Last fall she and her daddy made a birdhouse. They hung it on the lamppost on the back patio. I told her not to get her hopes up too much, sometimes it takes a long time for birds to find a birdhouse and it might sit empty for a while. Well, they have found it! A chickadee couple checked it out and they apparently think it is a good place to raise a family. Last night she peeked in and it is full of grass, cotton, etc. We can't tell about any eggs, but they were going in and out this morning, so it looks hopeful. I think it helped that we started using the top of the old sandbox as a bird feeder. The birds seem to like that bigger area.

Little brother has amazed me once again. He can count to 100 using our number chart! I would have never thought he could do that. He used to try to count, but he would get mixed up because when you say "thirty" and "forty" the same way, it is confusing. Then he would skip some of the higher numbers, like all the 70s or all the 80s. But a couple of days ago, he grabbed up the number chart when sis was through with it, and started reading it. Yesterday I tried to really pay attention to him while he did it, and everything fell apart. He was trying to be funny, of course. So I guess he will do better if I pretend to ignore him.