Connor recently found this living in his Language Lessons workbook:
Yep, Connor opened the book up and this little guy was basically living inside it. Now, I’m fairly certain that we read last year in his Nature Reader that bookworms don’t actually eat books. However, I’m not so sure that was accurate, as this guy was working his way through the current page, as evidenced in the following photo:
And, yes, I do think that’s worm poop
Last week Connor read about marsupials in his science book. He was especially intrigued by opossums. The author recounted a story of having a opossum as a pet and showed a photo of a baby opossum.
It was pretty cute.
However, growing up in the country as I did, you learn quickly that opossums are not cute. They are pretty nasty creatures.
So, when Connor asked me if he could have a opossum as a pet, you can bet I said, “no way.” He proceeded to explain to me why it would be a good idea. How they were pretty much immune to any diseases, could eat poisonous plants and not get sick, how they played dead and emitted foul smells-pretty cool traits to an eight year old, I’m sure. I still said, “no way.”
Fast forward a couple of days.
It had finally rained! There were snails all over the front walk. Connor asked for a jar to catch one. Being the good homeschooling mom that I am, I obliged him. Then he asked if he could bring it in the house to watch it. I said, “No way.” He said he wanted to keep it as a pet. I said, “No way.” He said he either wanted an opossum or a snail for a pet.
I said, “Bring on the snail.”
I took the opportunity on Wednesday to snap some pics of the boys at their nature study class. They weren’t exactly thrilled, but I managed to sneak a few in.
Connor decided to act just a little goofy for the camera.
Their subject this week was a Burr Oak Acorn. Their teacher, who is a friend of mine, also, has a backyard full of them, so she brought a few in for an up close and personal study.
We have found these on our walks around the neighborhood, but never knew what they were. They kind of look like regular acorns on steroids.
Here are their sketches.
Connor Blake
Next week is the final week of class. The co-op is considering either a leather working class or a writing class using Story Starters by Karen Andreola. Either one would suit us just fine!
Hi, everyone! I am still around…..just not enough time in the day to keep up with everything it seems! I can’t believe it’s been over a month since I last posted. I’ve changed Connor’s age on the sidebar-he’s had a birthday and is a whole 8 years old now!
Well, we have been exploring around our area quite a bit and I wanted to share some of our goings and doings with you all.
I’ve become friends with another homeschooling mom in the area that has 2 boys close in age to mine, so we get together every couple of weeks and do something fun. These photos are from our day at Lost Maples State Park.
The drive to the park was beautiful in itself. It took a little over an hour and part way we drove alongside the Guadalupe River, which snakes back and forth in this area.
The trees in the park usually turn colors mid-October to early November, depending on how cold it has been. On the day we visited, we hadn’t had a real cold spell yet, so they were just starting to change colors.
Here is a shot of a large limestone rock the rises above the river on one side.
As we hiked through the park, we stopped to observe some minnows in the creek.
Here is a shot of one of the trees that had started to change colors already.
We stopped to rest and play on a large limestone rock that had a shelf to climb and walk on and an outcropping over it. In the pictures it looks like we standing in an ice cave!
A view back up the creek on our hike back.
The boys discovered if they moved a few rocks, the water was running directly under us. They liked the idea that we were “walking on water.”
This little guy dropped out a tree, almost directly onto the boys. We had never seen anything like him, but I’ve been unable to identify him. If any readers out there know what he’s called-please let me know!
I’m going to try to post some more of our adventures and stay caught up!
I know I’ve been missing in action for a while now, but I don’t want to totally ignore my blogging friends! It seems like my life has been much busier now that we’ve moved, than it was back in California! We’ve become involved with a home group at church and the kids are in AWANA and youth group, so along with still discovering things in our town, we’re running to and from these activities, also. But it is definitely a satisfying busy; not a crazy busy.
One thing we did today was take a walk up to the top of Cross Mountain. These links offer a little bit of information about the history of Cross Mountain:
One thing we did notice was the abundance of poison oak on the mountain.
Here’s some photos from our trip to the top:
The Cross and the kiddos in front of it.
Laina took a minute to sketch the cross. Blake did a sketch of it, also.
Here is the view from the top. It was absolutely magnificent. There was also several different types of butterflies playing around in the flowers.
I have several other trips I’d like to share with all of you! Please be patient, I may get to them yet!
A couple of days ago we found our first Texas bug to identify. My husband was outside working and called for me to “Come out and see this.” I wasn’t sure what “this” was going to turn out to be. It turned out to be-this:
Handsome guy, isn’t he? I think he looks kind of like a stinkbug on steroids.
We called the boys out to take a look and they were pretty impressed. I went online and discovered this is commonly known as a Leaf Footed Bug, from the True Bug family. They have thick thighs with spikes on them and make a loud noise when they fly and can emit an odor when bothered. I’m glad we didn’t bother him, other than to snap his photo.
Not a bad way to start off our nature study for the year!
Gladiolas.
This is called a kafir lily from South Africa.
A pomegranate flower.
Bird of Paradise in full bloom.
African daisy.
There were so many more it was difficult to capture all of them. I'm planning on posting our field trip details soon.
We didn't find many new things today, but the boys did have fun throwing pine cones into the canal and following along the bank with them as they floated down the canal. (The pine cones, not the boys.)
At one point we stopped for a moment and enjoyed the sweet smell of lilac as it drifted through the air.
Lovely spring.
I managed to snap a photo of this little guy, who the kids informed me was called a true bug, before he scuttled away.
I believe this is a Mule's Ear, part of the sunflower family.
We spotted a very large frog sitting on a rock in the canal; however, it jumped into the water before I could take a picture. Blakester and I went back later to see if he was out again, but the only thing we spotted was this tadpole. It has to be the biggest tadpole I've ever seen.
Til tomorrow~
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