Wet Pants...

So, why did I jump into the pool tonight and get wet pants??? To go after our luna moth.


Yes, our luna moth emerged last night. I heard him wiggling around, which usually only happens in the morning. Too bad I didn't go and check on him. I was on the phone for about 20 minutes, and when I came back into the living room, I saw him sitting on the side of the butterfly hut!


This evening, we decided to let "him" free. We took him out in the backyard and opened up the hut and Alexandra tried to let him crawl on her. He ended up getting out of the hut and flapping around on the ground. Next thing we knew, he was headed for the pool and we couldn't stop him. He fluttered into the pool and landed on the water. I jumped in past my knees and reached gently under him and picked him up and put him back in his hut.

Tonight, we have him sitting in his hut, but with the door opened - and not in the yard with the pool but in a separate fenced in area. Our hope is that if he can fly, he'll fly away during the night.

We were hoping to get photos of us holding him, but that just didn't work out. But, he is beautiful and we were so happy to have this experience.

From the Top at Carnegie Hall

A few months ago, we happened to catch "From the Top at Carnegie Hall" on the radio. And, we learned that it's also a TV show. This show is about kids, ages 8 to 18, who excel at music. They are amazing!!!

Season 2 started earlier this month and I now have my DVR set to record them. I should have my first episode to watch today! But, even if you can't record them, you can watch them online HERE. They have videos of all of season 1 and the start of season 2 there. And, they also have a "for teacher's" page with activities and additional links to videos, etc. So, enjoy some music!!! Maybe your child, or you, will be inspired to create some music of their own... or at least to practice the piano a little more. :-)

The Four Seasons... and Memorial Day

(Above video: "Winter" from "The Four Seasons" - I know I'm more familiar with "Spring", but this piece is lovely! And, I love the pan flute! What a seldom-seen instrument.)

I love what Melissa at In the Sparrow's Nest is doing for spring and the four seasons. She is using the book Nature's Paintbox which depicts each of the four seasons in a different medium. She is using those mediums to make their own pieces of art. They did a GREAT job with spring!

Along with that, she mentioned Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons." I commented on her blog that we might start studying Vivaldi & The Four Seasons. We have a piano book I picked up a month or so ago called Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons in an easy arrangement for piano. But, it isn't "that" easy. :-) My daughter's been playing since August and she couldn't play it. But, I've played for about many years, and I'll do just fine. It has pictures and poems and the piano music.

After listening to a sample at Amazon, we requested Classical Kids "Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery" from the library. We also requested "I, Vivaldi" by Shefelman. And, we plan on using The Four Seasons at Classics for Kids, which Melissa also recommended.

I also have Beethoven's Wig 2 which has the "Spring" piece from The Four Seasons. I hear it and in my head I hear, "It's spring, let us sing, Vivaldi!" OK, we really need to get that CD out tomorrow. (Oh, and I just saw that they have Beethoven's Wig 3!!!)

We might wait and do this study in the summer, but I wanted to post it here so I have everything in one spot.
And, on a different "note", I just bought a Memorial Day set of 12 minibooks to make a lapbook from Lilliput Station. This is actually a project her daughter helped her create. (See May 21st post) So, we'll probably be working on that during the next few days.

Patricia Polacco Part 2

We are continuing our study of author/illustrator Patricia Polacco which we are doing with Author Fiesta. Today, we read 4 more of her books, though 2 of them were for "little" kids. (I didn't know she had books for different ages. We also watched Reading Rainbow's Rechenka's Eggs. This was a great video where you actually got to "meet" Patricia Polacco and watch her make some Pysanky eggs!

We've also read a biography, Firetalking, which is really good. But, so many of her stories tell us about her and her life! I am LOVING her books, and I can't believe it's taken me this long to find them.

Today we filled out an "author research form" which Cay Gibson at Author Fiesta created. Alexandra said her favorite books (we added that line) were Chicken Sunday and John Phillip Duck. Chicken Sunday is about Patricia when she was little. Her and 2 friends end up making some pysanky eggs to give to an elderly shopkeeper who ends up letting the kids sell them in his store. I REALLY want to get a pysanky kit.

 

Online, I found these 2 videos: the first one is about the history of pysanky eggs and the second one shows you how to make the eggs!

 

Alexandra's other favorite Polacco book, John Philip Duck, was about the ducks at Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. My husband and I went to that museum on a school trip the summer before my senior year. At the hotel, the ducks are trained to spend the night on the roof and then they ride down the elevator and march into the water fountain to spend the day. They march to John Philip Souza. Polacco's books is "loosely based on actualy events." I was glad to find a video (thought not a very good one) of the ducks marching to Souza. Maybe we need to do a little Souza study???

My favorite book (so far) has been Thank You, Mr. Falker. This is another true story from Polacco's childhood. In this story, she tells about how much trouble she had learning to read and how stupid she felt at school, but she always loved to draw. But, a special teacher helped her during her 5th grade year... and now she's a famous author AND illustrator! Of course, this is one of the books that made me cry. How wonderful it is to have great people touch a life. And, each of us can touch a life in a very positive way! (Especially our own children!)

Next week, I plan on doing a free lapbook from homeschoolshare about one of Polacco's books, Mrs. Mack. We haven't read the book yet, but it looks like it's about horses, which I know Alexandra will enjoy.



Photography

I LOVE photography. (Have you noticed?) And, Alexandra has definitely gotten bitten by the photo-bug, too. She took several hundred pictures this week. (And, I'm planning on having her blog her own photos soon!) But, my husband was actually the first photographer in our family. He even took a class in college and he has his photos from the class - they're great! He took over the camera for a few minutes this week and captured some GREAT shots. (And, all of my photos are unedited as I don't have any software on this computer. I plan on fixing that soon!)



Here's our little chihuahua who turned 3 on the day my nephew was born. She always has yellow eyes when I photographer her. I just love this photo!


And, he took this great shot of his grandfather who was out on the deck watching for hummingbirds.

And, here's my shot of one of the hummingbirds! It needs cropped, so you might just enlarge it for now. We LOVED watching the hummingbirds. And, I picked up some books about them today to do a little study. I want some hummingbird feeders now, too!

And, a photo of my precious daughter's hands holding her little cousin. My sister-in-law has an incredible photo "spot" right by a window - the lighting is incredible! And, isn't he a precious little boy???

Family On Bikes

Lapaz Home Learning posted about "the coolest homeschooling family EVER". This family includes mom, dad, and twin boys her are 10. Oh, and their dog! They will soon be starting about a 2.5 year bike ride along the Pan-American Highway and will earn a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest people to bike the whole highway.

They will be blogging about their adventures from the tip of Alaska to the bottom tip of South America. They are hoping for this to be a very education experience not only for their own kids, but for students anywhere... including homeschoolers! I think we'll be using this for some geography studies... starting with Alaska!!!

Just the 3 of Us...

Oh, we had SO MUCH FUN yesterday on our 5 hour nature... um.... experience. (We actually were in the car most of the time and then just walked around a little bit so I can hardly call it a "hike")

I thought I'd start with some of the photos my husband's aunt. She's a professional photographer in that she sells some of her work and has even had at least one show. What amazed me most as I looked through her photos, besides how good they were, is that she often only takes one shot of something! If I want to make sure I'm going to get a good shot, I might take a dozen. I'll have to ask her how she knows she's got "the" shot.

This first photos is of some water striders. I remember one of you studied these lately, and I'd love to have a link to your post! I was amazed at how well this photo turned out because we were up on a pretty high bridge.

There is actually graffiti on these rocks, but the formations were so beautiful. And, I actually studied geology once and yet I'm not sure what these rocks are... maybe we'll study some rocks this summer.

We all took turns taking photos through the whole in the side of this hill. I know you don't see photos of me very often, so yep! That's me!

I grew up in Oklahoma and had no idea we had waterfalls like this there! This waterfall is 77 feet tall! Kind of reminds us of Hawaii...

One of our coolest "finds"... we found TONS of tadpoles in various pools of water, and then came upon these 2 toads... There was a string of eggs behind them and I remembered how Robin at martinzoo had recently posted about the difference between frog & toad eggs. If we lived closer, I would have scooped some up to watch.

I actually went to college near here and during our geology class, we took a field trip out here. I couldn't remember how to get here, so I was glad "my" aunt was familiar with it and asked if we wanted to go see it! There are little pools of water etched into the hard rock. And, the water just flows lightly over the country road you drive on. My geology teacher told me the pools were created by rocks that somehow got "stuck" and swirled round and round and etched these pools. This is where we found the tadpoles & toads.

The first site when we drove up to the small pools of water were LOTS of these blue butterflies! Probably 40-50. They were sitting in groups and I love the photo my aunt took of this one near Alexandra's foot.

My aunt noticed Alexandra in the rearview mirror and took this cute shot. As we drove slowly along the country road, Alexandra kept yelling "stop!" whenever she saw something she wanted to photograph. And, yes, that is partly why our trip ended up lasting 5 GREAT hours.

Now, some photos by me.... here are TONS of tadpoles in one of the pools!

Here's my close up shot of the toads. I like how the toads are in view, but think my aunt's are more artistic.

I loved how these turkey vultures seemed to be playing king of the hill.

This is one of Alexandra's best finds... she actually saw this lizard as we were driving down the country road! It was about 10 inches long. I'm still working on an ID.

Here's Alexandra taking photos of the tadpoles.

Here are some of the small "waterfalls" where the pools of water formed. I wish I would have taken a shot where you could see where the road runs.

After our 2 hikes (the pools of water and the waterfall), we let Alexandra play at a park in the state park. Then, we went and got some lunch at 3:30 pm. (We had eaten some snacks.) We stopped at a little pizza place and got to play air hockey and fuz ball. And, the pizza was delicious! What a great day. :-)

Nature in Oklahoma

What a day! We went on a 5 hour nature drive with my husband's aunt. We kept stopping the car and getting out to take photos. I let Alexandra use one of my cameras and between the 3 of us we have about 300 photos. So, maybe later tonight I'll try to post some of them. We had some amazing finds!!! I'm really enjoying my time out in the country and loved this spider web shot I took late this morning with the dew still on it.

And, we'd appreciate prayers for little Baby H - my new nephew who is almost 5 days old. He got put back in the hospital this afternoon. It's nothing too serious - he is jaundice and also had lost some weight. Hopefully, they'll release him again tomorrow. Thanks for your prayers!

Nephew :-)

Well, we're here in Oklahoma and got to see my nephew for the first time yesterday afternoon. So, please indulge me as I post a few photos over the next few days. Tonight, I'll try to post some photos of Alexandra holding her little cousin.

Above is a photo of great-grandma with her only great-grandson... Alexandra is her only great-granddaughter. Also, my sister-in-law and her little family live out in the country, and I'm having a terrible time downloading photos. It took me about 20 minutes to get this one photo, so I'll try to post more later.

Alexandra and I went on a nature hike with our dog yesterday. And, today, we're going to go see a waterfall and other things! We're going out with my husband's aunt who is more of a photographer than I am. So, hopefully we'll get some good shots and maybe I'll learn a thing or two.

Oh, and I enjoyed pulling some middle-of-the-night duty last night and putting my little nephew to sleep. So sweet! And, so far I'm not too tired... lets see what I'm like in a few more days...

I have a new....

NEPHEW!!! Our families are both fairly small, so this is my first nephew, and I only have 1 niece. So, we are very excited! Alexandra's "girl cousin" (we've been discussing the fact that most terms have a girl/boy version... aunt/uncle... niece/nephew... grandma/grandpa... but cousin doesn't!) is 10 years old, so this time Alexandra is the BIG cousin. :-) We can't wait to go see him. I did get one photo today, but it is on the other computer where Alexandra is sleeping so I'll be posting it ASAP.


Woohoo!!! :-)

Wednesday Update: Here's the photo! It's the only one I've seen. It's from a cell phone, so not great quality... but, we get to go see him tomorrow! And, you know I'll post some more photos.