our volcanco

While most craft activities are supervised by me, Brian seems to spearhead the science experiments. Nana and Grandpop gave Sarah a volcano for Christmas, and the three of them painted it, made it active, and watched it erupt. Next time, Eric plans to surround it with dinosaurs.

worm composting

After taking a class at the botanical garden and making our own worm bin, we now have one thousand new pets. Instead of taking our food scraps out to the compost bin, we now feed our worms instead. I have learned that I am not a good composter - I never turn the outside bin, never add brown matter, and therefore never get to add any of it to the garden. When I saw this class, I decided that having worms do the work would not only benefit our garden, but could provide hours of entertainment for the kids. So far, they're happy to help feed the worms and they like the idea of having so many little pets.

owl pellet

I love that my kids weren't grossed out when dissecting an owl pellet. Because really, there's a very good chance that at least one of them would have been. (I have to admit, I was half-fascinated, half-grossed out myself. I decided that they should take off their sweatshirts and pull up their sleeves after seeing all the "dust" that appeared when they started to pull it apart. And, I questioned the use of the kitchen table for this project. Oh well, too late.)

At first, they were concerned that they may not find any bones, and then, they screeched each time they found something. We printed out a bone identification guide and learned that we had found rib bones, hip bones, femur bones, jaw bones, and best of all, a skull. Sarah took the bones for show and tell the next day along with the guide that we highlighted to show which ones she was sharing.

Gotta love it.