Nature study jackpot

What do wildflowers, a lizard, and tadpoles have in common?   Joy in learning!  They brought excitement and smiles to Hunter's and Solomon's face yesterday.  And we found all three of them, in only about 15 minutes.

Once a week we head outside for "nature study."  This spring, the boys have mainly wanted to look for new wildflowers that appear in our yard or along the road each week.  We pick a bunch and then bring them in and identify them.  The boys and I all have vases we put our weekly bouquets in.  It gives me that little thrill as their homeschool teacher and mama to hear them be able to identify all the flowers they have in their vases.

Hunter's collection:  bluets, purple and yellow sorrel, dandelion

 

 

Solomon's vase also has bluets, purple and yellow sorrel, dandelion

mine: Atamasco lily and yellow sorrel (the boys always give the lilies to me when they find them)

Yesterday when we first walked out onto our front porch, we saw a lizard.  Yipee!  Unexpected nature surprise.  The lizard had stripes and a blue tail.  We got out "critter catcher" and got Mr. Lizard inside.  We tossed in a clump of weeds for him to hide in if he wanted.  A later internet search identified this type of lizard as a young Southeastern Five-Lined Skink.

the skink and Solomon watched each other as Solomon ate lunch

When we walked behind the chicken coop, we peered into the old kettle.

We saw a lot of teeny tiny tadpoles and globs of frog eggs.  I decided we should take some inside for observation.  So we scooped some out.  One scoopful gave us an awful lot.  And we also ended up with the jelly like masses full of frog eggs on our hands.  That felt interesting.

We set up the tadpoles in the dining room and I put a magnifying glass by the little tank.  I also printed out a frog life cycle picture and hung it up next to the tank.  (Hunter likes studying diagrams of any kind - no surprise.)  The boys have been running back in to "check on" the tadpoles frequently.  Yay!

(Ugh - the blurry pictures.  Found out the refurbished camera I bought last summer is broken.  :(  I thought I was just didn't know how to use it properly, but when Tabby tried using it for her photography elective, we found out the lens is broken. Soooo sad.)

I joked with the boys that if all the frog eggs hatched and the tadpoles survived, it would be like the Egyptian plague of the frogs around here!  We had fun imagining that.

On a still school related but different subject note, I am in possession of a super cool book for geography from the swap shop at the dump.  We don't have trash pickup where we are, so we take our trash to the dump, a couple miles away.  There is a "swap shop" there where people leave "nicer" stuff for free.  A lot of the stuff that comes home from the dump is just junk, in my opinion.  Though of course treasure in the eye of the beholder.  ;)  But Frank recently brought home a stack of books and one in particular was a real gem.  True Stories About Children of All Nations, published in 1906! 

I thought about selling the book because it is worth something, but it is just too good to part with.  A perfect "living book" to use for geography lessons. (One of my favorite things about homeschooling is that I get to learn, right along with my kids.) 

Aren't you glad there is so much to learn in life?  :)

"Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere." - Chinese proverb