Insects, Plants and More!

The weather has just been absolutely beautiful. I believe we have seen the last of cool days until October or so. Sigh. Although it's warming up rather quickly the mornings and evenings are perfect so we have done our best to take advantage of that time now! Several mornings we have gone over to the park and I made sure to include some PE fun.

Tiny Tots: 

And this is what he looks like after!

Movies in the Park: 

Here's a random picture of Carsten working on his name! He's doing so well with learning how to spell it (and he even knows most of his colors now! WHOO HOO!)

INSECTS AND MORE: 

Our theme for the month of April was all about Insects. The boys have really enjoyed this. To be honest, they really haven't been too interested in insects until after we started this unit. It's been fun to watch the "boy" in them come out. T was even quick enough to catch his very first lizard. They were very excited. 

Some of the things we discussed: 

• Insects have:
• 3 body parts: head, thorax and abdomen
• 6 legs
• 2 antennae
• An exoskeleton
• Insects are:
• invertebrates
• cold blooded (We did an experiment to show how when it's cold insects move a lot slower by placing one in the refrigerator for several hours. After it warmed up, it was moving around well again.)
• Life cycles of Insects: 
• egg, larvae, pupa, adult
• Social Insects
• Ants:
• their different job titles and duties
• how they communicate with each other
• how they pass food to on another
• Bees: 
• their different job titles and duties
• how they help the growth of our plants
• Beetles/Ladybugs:
• their two sets of wings
• how ladybugs help our plants
• Caterpillars/Butterflies:
• Seeds/Plants:
• how every seed has a baby plant inside (did an experiment for this as well)
• parts of a flower

During our insect studies, K found a grasshopper in which we caught. He was so excited that he finally had a bigger bug to put inside his bug house. He named it "Cud" and talked about how much he liked it and how he wanted to keep it forever. We found rocks, sticks, leaves and added a bit of water to make it feel at home and comfortable, but apparently it was not enough and by the end of the day the poor guy wasn't doing well. I had to break the news to K that we had to let it go. He was devastated! The poor guy went to bed in tears. The next morning he was ok with it until a few hours later than the tears started up again. It was a tough lesson for we all have to learn.

We bought them their bug houses and they chose to use their own money for the nets.  They have used them non-stop ever since. The "boy" in them has really shown these past weeks.

We found some really tiny bugs at the park.

Looking intently to make sure his little bug hadn't escaped.

This poor bug went through a lot during our experiments.

Lazarus Experiment

"Drowning our bug" to see that it will actually come back to "life" because it closes  an organ to keep themselves from drowning.

Daddy covered it with salt to help it "Resurrect" quickly.

Looked dead! 

Aaah...it's alive. 

We also placed the bug in the refrigerator a few hours to see how slow it moved when we pulled him out. This was to help them understand that they are cold blooded.

Enjoying an insect snack.

Thanks pinterest!

Putting together our Insect Book

  

Another Fun Little Snack!

Our Bean and Plant Experiments:

Soaked beans and rocks to see if any changes had occurred.

Then we Watched Our beans daily to see the changes that occurred.

Thankfully, our experiment worked and they were able to see a tiny plant grow. (I , in no way, have a green thumb! So, I'm glad this worked out for them.)

Dissecting a flower to find all its parts.

We ended our studies with a little puppet play. :)

A few extras from the month that I really want to remember!

The boys were given a 10 min warning to turn off their game of Minecraft. Before the 10 min were up, a fight broke out over something so I was forced to shut it down more quickly. K was not happy with me at all. He headed upstairs to pout and came down with this letter. I was completely blessed by how sweet it was, but I was unable to allow him to play again. The consequence has already been made, but because he had been sweet enough to "make it right" with me, he was allowed to put 4 beads in our kindness jar in which we are working towards an ice cream trip. 

K, in an attempt to receive beads of his own, made his own letter. haha

I was impressed with K's art work here.