Corn

Our Cottage Co-op is doing fall crops this term for our nature study. Unfortunately, Olivia had a cold and so we could not attend the first meeting. The fall crop was corn. We read a book (Corn is Maize), a poem, and then went in search of a corn field to do some observation. Olivia added an entry to her nature journal and Gabe drew a picture with my help as he told me what colors to use and what he wanted to draw.  

The corn we saw was primarily dried so it was likely that some would be used as animal feed and some for seed for next year's crop.

Ezra even tried a little coloring but wasn't really interested in connecting his picture with the corn.

Olivia is walking through the rows and using her senses to make some observations to add to her nature journal back home. 

We looked at some ears of sweet corn back at home and then cooked them to eat with our lunch.

The second meeting featured apples. Olivia's biggest take-aways were that, when cut, you could see a star inside the apple with its five seeds. The other one was that it takes about 50 leaves to give one apple nutrition to grow. Gabe's take-away was that apples come in many different colors.

In addition to our nature study topic, here are our other subjects:

 Hymn: Take My Life and Let It Be
 Composer: Claude Debussy

 Artist/Picture Study: Pierre-Auguste Renoir

 Folk Song: If I Had A Hammer
Habit: Truthfulness
Poetry: each week one parent will share a poem and then the kids each share/recite a poem of choice

 Swedish Drill and PE 

Butterfly Week

We spent the week learning about Butterflies. All the kids like them. Ezra is probably the most enthusiastic to point out butterflies anytime he sees them.

We started with some good books:

We visited All-a-Flutter Butterfly Farm:

They gave a great interactive presentation to learn about butterflies. And then it was off to the butterfly house.

There were around 250 Monarch butterflies in the house. They were very friendly.

We finished out with a craft that I copied from a friend:

Zoo Trip

My Aunt Kelly came up for a visit and spent a couple of nights with us. We took the opportunity to take a trip to the zoo. It was lots of fun for all. I do admit to counting it as a field trip day for school too since it fits in well with our school curriculum, animals and ecosystems, right? :)

Aquarium Visit

It seemed fitting to take a trip to an aquarium considering Olivia's recent science focus of the ecosystems of rivers, lakes, swamps, estuaries, oceans, beaches. It was encouraging to hear Olivia use the vocabulary she has learned and have a better understanding of what she was seeing because of her studies. We will be doing coral reefs coming up. And of course this was great fun for all 3 of the big kids.

Rivers:

Identifying scales and fish skins with the ones in the tank. Olivia had no trouble with this. Ezra was reaching for my camera. He is very hard to get a picture of because he just wants to come get the camera from me. He is into buttons and loves taking things apart and messing with them. :)

Swamps:

This was Olivia's second favorite animal of the visit. She was standing there watching him when it snapped at her and totally freaked her out. Gabe thought that was quite funny too and enjoyed telling people that the crocodile had snapped at his sister. :)

Waves and Sand:

Oceans:

Gabe and Ezra loved this part of the aquarium because they were "in the water with the fish" in Gabe's words.

Olivia thought she wanted to touch the rays but quickly changed her mind. She did say this was her favorite animal of the day.

Gabe was the one that caught on to what was happening in these displays. I thought that was funny. He said right away, "Look that Turtle is laying it's eggs in the sand. And the babies are coming out." :)

turtle nursery

Once we got home we watched, Turtle, The Incredible Journey, which is a documentary about the sea turtle and how it survives incredible odds.

Outside observing the Bay:

Sometimes I look back at pictures and wonder what i caught them doing at that moment. Their body language and facial expressions are too funny. I am not so good at posed shots if you haven't figured that out. ;)

Jets flying over. A big hit with the kids. Very loud though too.

Trying hard to convince me that he must have the camera. He likes to say, "I need it" or "mine"(in a very matter-o-fact way).

And Finally:

It was an exciting (and tiring) visit. She didn't have a lot to say about it (well, at this moment anyway). :)