showeredwithgrace

 

We spent the day at the Children's Museum of Phoenix on Saturday.  Rose Red had fun trying to ride this with her pappy's help.

Unplugged Project:  Water

 

I would recommend this book, A Drop of Water by Walter Wick ~ awesome.  We explored water a bit today. . .

   

floating and sinking

 

making water worms on wax paper (connecting the water drops)

 

painting with water

 

the absence of water under this bridge

 

painting with frozen water/paint (acrylic mixed with water)

 

her "ocean".

Discovering pond life.

 

   

    

 

The new aquarium at our Wildlife World Zoo was lots of fun.  We were able to pet the sting rays, starfish, sea urchins and horseshoe crabs.  The penguins too, were great fun to watch ~ and the fish were beautiful!

 

There was of course much more but these fish were my favorite. 

Just a little hummingbird fun.

 

 

 

sipping nectar like a hummingbird

"hummingbirds burp when they drink nectar"

~Rose Red

 

We spied this little momma sitting on her eggs in her tiny nest up high in the mesquite tree.

Trivia:  Did you know that hummingbirds can't actually walk with their legs?

 

I had a great post for this with lots of pictures to share but lost it so I'm just posting this short post  now on our last trip to our botanical gardens.  We learned about the prickley pear cactus and the cochineal bug that is found on the cacti and harvested for it's red juice which is used in dyes and food coloring (FDA approved). 

We learned that there are many different species of prickley pear with some even growing into trees ~ their green pads actually morphing into a bark!

 

 

   

 

We participated in a fun interactive flipbook about the prickley pear and the cochineal bug, lots of arts and crafts and a nature walk to view the different species and examine the cochineal bugs ~ smashing a few to release their red juices.

 

We were back to our Botanical Garden.  Our subject of interest this time was trees.

 

In particular, the Cottonwood tree.  Found only by the water here in our desert.  The kids enjoyed laying on a blanket and listening to the wind blowing through the Cottonwood trees.  They also had an opportunity to touch pots of dry soil and moist soil to discover the difference. 

We spied some of our native trees showing a bit of autumn gold as well.  This tree below is a Mesquite tree.  Our Palo Verde trees and our Ocotillo were also sporting gold.

The children were sent on a quest to match leaves they were given to leaves of trees in the Garden.

Snack was of course an edible tree!

We made leaf rubbings . . .

Log rings . . .

And fun leaf-glitter trees with paint, eyedroppers, straws, and crushed leaves.

We also saw an adorable puppet show and had many 'tree' books to look through in our book nook.

This book was great! I'll be looking to pick up a copy at the library and will definitely be on the search for more Claire Llewellyn books.

And in conclusion, I'll leave you with this picture of one of the beautiful glass art sculptures now in place in our Botanical Garden.

On our most recent trip out and about to our Desert Botanical Garden we were introduced to our local Pinacate Beetle  ~ known also as the 'stink bug' and 'clown of the beetle world' for it's funny way of standing on his head when threatened and emitting a stinky spray from it's rear.  This beetle stays active in cooler weather because of their black bodies which act as a solar collector, absorbing 25% more solar radiation than white beetles, warming them on cold days.  Pretty interesting stuff!

   

 

The snack above was a mini bagel (cut side down) with cream cheese, blueberries and a grape for the head and black licorice for the antennae ~ very cute.

My favorite part of the day was when the 'Pinacate Beetle' sock puppet read us a poem about himself ~ chock full of lots of fun facts!  Here he is . . .

She took him off her hand for this part of the show where she was demonstrating how the mice held the Pinacate when they wanted to eat one up.  Rear down so they wouldn't encounter his stinky spray and then eating just the head and thorax of the beetle, leaving the abdomen behind.  Pretty smart mice, don't you think?

A beetle booklist:

Beetle Bop by Denise Fleming

Beetle Boy by Lawrence David

The Boll Weevil Ball by Kelly Murphy

The Buggliest Bug by Carol Diggory Shields

The Very Clumsy Click Beetle by Eric Carle

The Beetle Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta

Bugs are Insects by Anne Rockwell

Bugs, Beetles, and Butterflies by Harriet Ziefert

The Beautiful Beetle Book by Sue Unstead

Beetles: The Most Common Insects by Sara Swan Miller

Mr. Beetle by Satoshi Tada

Bettle Bedlam by Vlasta Van Kampen

We had breakfast with the Giraffes this morning at the zoo.  Gorgeous creatures.  We learned many interesting things about these graceful animals too.  The most exciting part was being invited to their barn to feed them carrots (through the gate).   The experience of coming so close to them within close quarters was breathtaking ~ everyone including the wee ones were in silent awe.

Giant floor puzzle ~ we discovered that each giraffe has unique spots just as we have unique fingerprints! 

Pretending to be zoo keeper ( I think the leaves were actually supposed to be the stuff in the bucket).  Did you know that giraffes are the tallest mammal?

Creating texture rubbings.

Creating a habitat mural (grassy savannah).

We discovered that giraffes gather their food with their long sticky tongues (18 inches long!) ~ and that their tongues are purple!

The purple color helps protect their tongue from sunburn while gathering leaves from the tall acacia tree tops.  Rose Red's favorite activity was creating a purple tongue for herself with dry purple jello and then looking at herself in the mirror.

Our breakfasts at the zoo have been great!  So far we have come to know our reptile and amphibian friends and now we'll be moving on to mammals.  Picking up where our zoo lets off and running with it ~ through books and stories and toys and jokes and songs. 

Life has been less than quiet here at Quiet Hollow.  Finding a moment or a thought to blog a post has been hard to come by!  We are having a great time with many exciting things.  We've finally begun our fall Botanical Garden class which is wonderful.  Our first week looked at the Monarch butterfly through stories, crafts, snack, and wonderful activity centers.  Best of all though was the trip to the butterfly pavillion!

peering through a magnifying glass

This week's class was all about seeds.  This was great fun as our nature walks have been all about seeds (and animal homes) lately.  We planted seeds, discovered seeds and their plants throughout the garden, snacked on seeds (this was lots of fun! skewered fruit and veggies all filled with seeds ~ cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, kiwi, strawberries, etc., etc.).  There were books and learning centers and storytime with the feltboard.

We continue on with our monthly breakfast at the zoo with the animals.  Last month we visited the amphibians and learned about our frog friends and saw many different types of frogs, toads, some salamanders and newts!

Our nature walks continue but the camera never seems to make it with us for one reason or another but we have been discovering many animal homes and seeds, seeds, seeds and coming to know our desert foilage a bit.  We are very aware of fall this year and notice signs of it everywhere (even in our desert climate!).

After our Big Red Hen study we tried to move onto something else but Rose Red keeps pulling us into Cinderella instead (which she is passionate about just as she was with the Little Red Hen).  I'm following her lead instead ~ but sticking to my guns about avoiding the Disney~fied Cinderella and reading her an older version of the story where we can pick up on the virtues Cinderella exhibits of kindness, humility, gentleness and forgiveness.  All of which are in sore need over here ~ so perhaps we have been properly lead!

Our alphabet studies continue but not with any true enthusiasm due to mommy's distractions.  We have an alphabet shelf which we keep the weekly (or so) letter (tactile letter, letter puzzle, picture books of  the alphabet; Metropolitan Museum of Art and a Waldorf.   I have yet to incorporate our chalk letters (for walking the shape of each letter) or some of the other things I had in mind ~ but soon, soon, soon.

There is more we are doing ~ patterning, counting, music, etc. as our whims dictate ~ and of course we are reading, reading, reading.  The library is our great friend.  Nature and the seasons, our animal friends, counting, and more are all coming alive for us through our books!

Back to mommy's distractions ~ we are moving again!  This time we purchased a home of our own.  We hope to move in by Thanksgiving.  My dh's company just had their grand opening this past week so he has been busier than ever even into the evenings and weekends lately.  Between revonating the new house and getting his company up and running and boy scouts with our nephew and bible study at the church the poor guy has not come up for air in several months.  Oh ~ and his father has moved in with us as of September (I think temporarily).  He is sleeping in the loft.  All fun and crazy stuff.

Hope all is well with all of you!   

   

We had our first 'breakfast at the zoo' today.  Our date was with the tortoises.  Rose Red was able to pet and feed these giant reptiles.  She was a bit slow to warm up to the idea and a bit frightened of them but came around and petted them at the end.  She had lots of fun after in the activity zone pretending to be a tortoise and asking for carrots.

We went to the museum today.

We met Rose Red's godmother at our Arizona Museum for Youth.  The museum was hosting this exhibit 'Table Manners' which was lots of fun and tied in nicely with our focus on 'family' this year.

"(Table Manners). . .celebrates decades of artists transforming kitchen devices into objects of beauty, whimsy and wit. Although the dinner table is often a place where families gather to talk about their days and share a good meal, for many artists, it serves as a source of inspiration. It leads them to create work that examines the evolution of kitchen-related objects, food consumption, and preparation"

These were a few of Rose Red's favorite exhibits.  There was also a lot of creative artworks to appreciate and great looking picture books that we'll have to be sure to read! 

 

We will begin our preschool year with 'The Little Red Hen'.  Our Arizona Puppet Theatre was conveniently presenting this story for the last several weeks.  So of course we had to go!  Rose Red loves the theatre.  They did a wonderful job with this story, singing lots of well-known kids tunes throughout and sticking rather nicely to the classic tale (not too many modern deviations!).

They spent some time after the performance showing the kids how the puppets worked. 

We'll be eating breakfast with the animals at our local zoo this year.  Once a month our zoo offers this fun activity for preschoolers where we'll be able to visit and learn more about our animal friends.  I think that this will tie in nicely with our introduction to zoology this year!

Rose Red and I will be taking a class together at our Desert Botanical Garden this fall.  If you haven't yet checked out what your local Botanical Garden offers for kids it might be fun to see!