This week we started our mini bee unit study (a mini unit study on bees, not a unit study on mini bees 😉). At first Raeca was wondering why would study bees if we weren’t going to have them as pets – ha, I guess only potential pets are worth learning about. But, it turns out bees are quite interesting! For instance, did you know that killer bees are actually bees that escaped from a science experiment in South America? It’s like the Rats of NIHM come to life! (But they are bees, not rats.) Killer bees have been known to chase people up to a quarter of a mile.…
Taking Things Apart
While it’s disappointing when a fun toy breaks, being able to take it apart makes it less sad! Some time was spent taking apart this remote control car today. Ephraim got a few tools for Christmas and he’s been using them to take apart a number of different things. Now if we could just figure out how to make a new creation out of all these random parts we have . . .
Nature Time, Here We Come!
The kids are both excited to have their own nature journals! These are both from Twig and Moth though we got them through the Early Learning Bundle and Intentional Homeschooling Bundle earlier this year. We spent part of the afternoon out with some new friends in a new-to-us location and the kids are excited to fill in their first entries.
Rock Discovery
Thanks to Nature Anatomy the kids figured out the name of this rock we collected in Mexico last year. I love the Nature Anatomy book (it’s beautiful and has a lot of great information in it) and plan on using it more intentionally this spring and summer. I currently don’t have a specific idea on how we will use the book but will share more when I do.
Gadget Inventions
The kids spent the better part of the morning creating a variety of machines from this book – some straight out of it, some from their imagination. The one below was from their own imagination, many edits took place, the linking cubes were added as weight to make the pencil line darker. Lots of other tweaks were made as well.