Another Garden Update

Just wanted to show you an update on our garden. Can't wait to try that cantaloupe. Those little tomatoes are yellow and they are just about ready. Little salad yellow tomatoes that are tasty. I'm planting some more seeds of corn because these are almost ready. That zucchini is almost ready to eat.



Hope it rains today so I don't have to water but probably have to go out there with the hose. I can still hope for rain, right? Don't forget to click on the pictures to see them better.

Frogs, Frogs and more Frogs

If you all don't know let me tell you that here in my part of Texas we are in a drought. Big time drought. We need rain to have frogs. There is this project that I wanted to do with the boys but didn't have the frogs to see so we went to the zoo. Of course, there is nothing better than a field trip to brighten up our day. This went along great with a new book that is at our library. It's called...what else but Face to Face with Frogs.

That was an awesome book. The pictures were great and the info was wonderful. We saw pictures of different colored frogs from different parts of the world.

One interesting fact we learned was that some of these frogs get their poison from eating ants. Interesting!! We got in my bed to read the book. Of course we didn't read it all at once. I had to make it last at least two times. We all love reading while laying in my bed together. More bonding time. I just love it.

Our lessons are not always just reading great books and field trips but adding a fun project to go with it. I ordered the Hearts and Trees Spring Kit and it went perfect with what we had done already.

The boys got to draw a picture of a frogs life cycle and we attached it to the lapbook. There was coloring going on and putting it all together. There is still more to do with the spring kit but that is for another time.

The boys enjoyed all the time we spent doing this and as soon as our drought ends we will be looking for frogs in our backyard.

We are slowly inching our way towards more of a CM family and enjoying it.

Nature Explorers

A new site has opened up and has some freebies to kick off their site. Are you interested in nature and want to have it all put together for you to use? This is the site to go to then. Can't wait to have one of these little creations in my hands. Make sure to visit their new site to join in on the fun. It's called Shining Dawn Books.

A Work in Progress

I thought I would share some pictures of our garden. It is just growing and growing. Soon we will eat us some corn and cucumbers. Today I'm making some green beans. I planted pole and bush but I also found some purple green beans. The purple green beans are supposed to turn green when you cook them. It should be interesting to see how they taste.

We will soon have bell peppers too. The tomato plants have a ton of tomatoes but still have to mature. YUM!! Just thinking about it all is making me hungry.

Enjoy the pictures of the progress of our garden.

Math the Fun Way

Today we did math outside. How is this considered math? Well, let me tell you. We did measurements. We only had a 25ft measuring tape and needed something way bigger than that.

While at the homeschool convention this past week I was able to find a little time to sneak away from my booth to go looking around. I found this neat thing that I just knew would be a hit with my boys. It is called Blaster. It says it can launch a water balloon 150 yards. Now what kid would not enjoy this? We launched several from out in front of our house to our neighbors house which happens to be my brother and sister-in-laws. So I called her and told her to come out and look our direction. We launched several balloons at them. She preferred that I launch them in the direction of their garden. LOL

After the launchings we set out on foot to see what the distance was. We shot the farthest about 300 feet. That was awesome to see and it was a fun way for them to learn that you can count feet by counting the steps. We saw the measuring tape to see how far to step. Then came the steps and counting. I'm looking for something fun to do with fractions next.

My pictures didn't come out that great but you get the idea of what we did. It's hard to have my camera and an umbrella to shield me from the sun at the same time. At least I didn't have my cane with me or it would be really hard. Fun was had by all to be outside despite the 90+ degree weather.

Oh, I'm so sensitive!

This is called mimosa pudica. My little one hadn't ever seen this plant and thought it was so neat how when you touch it the leaves close. I actually hadn't seen it in a long while but found some in our backyard. He had fun touching it and watching it close. Here is a site that I found some interesting information on this plant.

We had fun outside and had fun playing with this plant. One more nature day checked off.

What I've Been Doing?

If you went to Fort Worth to the homeschool convention then you saw me there. It was a couple of fun days showing off lapbooking and showing off some of my boys samples.

Now I am slowly recuperating from the two days of fun. A friend and I went and had a blast there. Then I met another friend who came to surprise me at the booth. All in all it was fun.

Now back to our regular programming......

Ending to our Nature Lesson

Last year at the end of October and beginning of November we found some caterpillars eating our lemon tree leaves. So like any good homeschool mom would do I brought them inside for us to observe. Our lemon tree grew bare as we tried to feed their voracious appetite.

What happened was that they started their metamorphosis. We had two and one went from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly in less than a month and left the nest. The other decided to wait out the Texas winter. We were just talking about it last night since I have his little hotel next to my desk and the kids and I were thinking it was not going to come out.

Well, we were wrong. This morning my middle son came and saw it in its little hotel with its wing all spread out.

We still can't believe how something all squirmy becomes a chrysalis that looks like a piece of a branch then becomes something so beautiful. We are so grateful to our creator for such a beautiful creature to look at.

I posted about it in November where I have more pictures. We'll be talking about this all day. We were all excited to finally have our baby grow it's wings but sort of sad to see him go. Our nature books are coming out today and we are adding a drawing of today's butterfly to it. My little one wanted me to take a picture of the underside of the butterfly which "the colors are better" as he said.

Texas Wildflowers

We went out this morning and hubby decided to take us to see if there were any wildflowers yet. Since there has been such a big drought around here the wildflowers are not like they were last year but we found a few. It's nice to just look at the wildflowers and then try to identify them when we get home. My little one enjoys a challenge.

This first one is called Texas Vervain or Texas Verbena(Verbena halei). This was used as a medicinal herb.

The next one we identified as Spotted Bee Balm(Monarda punctata). If you click on the picture it is just starting to flower. We learned this plant contains the antiseptic drug thymol.

Then there is the Texas Thistle(Cirsium texanum). We read a little on this one and we'd like to get some of this one. This one attracts butterflies and we found out that goldfinches eat the seeds of this flower and they also use the silky fluff of the ripened seeds to line their nests. This year was the first year that we had goldfinches so this would make a great wildflower to have and maybe they will come back.

We had a nice time just driving through the back roads and looking for flowers. We'll have to do this again in a few weeks and see what else we find.

We used this site and these books to identify our flowers.