Making Clay

Our nearby county park has a wonderful Nature Center which runs free educational programs on the weekends. They also host the Homeschool Nature Class that Mikro attends. Today, we went to this:

THE CLAY OF CROTON

Details: Native American residents of Croton Point made pots from the abundant clay beds of Croton Point. Follow in their footsteps by learning about Native American pottery traditions.

We started off by harvesting fragments of oyster shells near the river.



Then we ground them into powder with a rock.



Next, we ground lumps of clay into powder. (It was too cold today to go dig it out, unfortunately... so we used some that Scott had on hand.)



Then we mixed the powdered clay and shells with some Hudson River sand, added water, and made clay. Messy, but so much fun!

We got to make something with our clay-- Kev did a pinch pot, and I did a little bird, which park naturalist Scott tells me looks like a whippoorwill. Mikro Mr. Sensory chose to watch rather than get his hands all goopy.





Next Thursday is our last Homeschool Nature Class until mid-January, and the kids are going to get to do this clay project. Hopefully Mikro will be more willing to participate then, since he seems bound and determined to keep up with the other kids...

Crows

Lots of crows up at The Meadow (as the County Parks Department now refers to the capped landfill, which has become a wonderful habitat for local wildlife). The former dump is a great place for bug collecting when the weather is warmer.

I've heard there is a species of small owls that just migrated here, which Mikro and I will have to go looking for soon.

Another Bird Project-- Owl Pellets

Some of our recent homeschool fun-- dissecting owl pellets. Owls can't pass the bones of the small critters they eat, so they spit them up in balls of fur, bone and goo. Which you can then tear apart with probe and forceps to figure out what was on the menu... Dissecting them dry takes much longer, but dunking them in water to soften them up and speed the process has one very definite downside-- it vastly magnifies the smell...



We bought a kit, which included a bone identification booklet. Mikro doesn't really have the fine motor skills for this one, but like any kid, he finds the somewhat gross somewhat appealing. He gleefully watched mama do the poking and prodding, while daddy did the identifying of the bits and pieces. We did three pellets, and came up with skulls from a small bird, a rat and a mole, as well as a bunch of smaller bones including vertebrae, tibias, femurs, ribs, etc.

Bugging Out

I thought the recent snowfall would surely signal an end to our entomological endeavors for the year, but we have made a couple of recent finds:

First, this mantis egg case appeared on one of our rose bushes:



And then, we found a shield bug (aka a stink bug) which tried to escape the oncoming winter by coming inside the house. This is the first time we've ever seen one of these guys! He's a bit lighter in color and more green than you can tell from the flash photos, and is missing one rear leg, but he's now safely ensconced in a bug jar.

Feeding the Birds

We're moving on to studying birds this winter. I thought it would be fun to put together some treats to attract birds to our yard. So Mikro and I started with this:



And created these:




A fun and easy complement to our current reading list, which includes The Bird Alphabet, How Do Birds Find Their Way, Backyard Birds in Winter, and several others my caffeine deprived brain cannot recall...

First Trip to the Theater

Mikro saw his first live performance at the Paramount Center for the Arts in Peekskill. They have a special educational series for kids, featuring short, child friendly programming. Our local homeschool group attended a live action/puppetry performance of The Velveteen Rabbit. I was very impressed with the show, and pleased that Mikro was attentive for most of it, only getting a bit squirmy towards the end. The performers took questions from the kids after the show, and we got to see the inner workings of one of the larger, more complex puppets. Interesting and fun!

Live Butterflies at AMNH

Mikro and I joined one of my oldest, dearest friends at the American Museum of Natural History for their annual live butterfly exhibit. You enter a sauna-like plant filled room and see hundreds of them fluttering about. This year they had a glass case full of chyrsalises, and we actually witnessed a monarch butterfly emerging from one!



Mikro was in awe. And soon, so were the elderly museum docents, whom he insisted on lecturing at length about metamorphosis and butterfly feeding habits and anatomy. They were very surprised at how much a child of four could understand and explain! People are always surprised by his vocabulary and his love of all things natural and scientific.





















It was also the first day to see the origami tree, which my photos do not begin to do justice.

Linky Love

Downloadable science and nature songs

Gardening Projects & Activities for Kids

Storynory Kids Stories Podcast

Keith Haring Interactive Coloring Book

Dover Children's Book Sampler- Printables

Great craft supplies, active play items, etc. for kids of all ages! Discount School Supply

New York Metro Parents-- Stuff for Families to Do in & around NYC

Homeschooling Heaven -- the Library Book Sale!

This is Mikro, excited about the local library book & bake sale (though because of his gluten allergy, no baked goods for us. Sigh.)



And here he is with our loot.



At this point, Kev was looking decidedly less happy about where we're going to house these new volumes... And that *is* a quandry, but the books were too good to pass up, even though the prices went up this year.

Nature Study: Ladybug Lifecycle

We're still on our nature study kick, and one of our recent projects was studying the ladybug life cycle. Now, I am 42 years old, and up till now, I never knew ladybugs went through stages in any form but egg and ladybug... Well, they actually undergo metamorphosis!



We got our ladybug larvae in the mail on October 5th, from Insect Lore. They are odd looking critters, and very active.



On October 10th, we saw our first chrysalis.



This is the underside:



And finally, on October 15th, our first adult ladybugs emerged: