Changed By Love

Let’s Study Metamorphosis – Day 4

Jun.28,2013

It is so cool that we are getting to see this happen first-hand!

I wonder if our frogs will be this little when they develop legs or if they will be bigger…

Here is what I was able to capture in photos today:

I noticed a bunch of the tadpoles all lined up along the side of a lettuce leaf. Shawn said they looked like musical notes.

I got a few good pictures of the spiral on their bellies today.

Here you can see the beginning of a lumpy, frog-shaped body.

These two look like twins doing synchronized swimming!

The moss starting reaching upward. I told Emma that it was rising up to tickle the tadpoles’ tummies. She thought that was funny.

Feels like home.

We got a good start on our Amphibian lapbook today. The twins are working on this.

Fiona did the top booklet and Garrett did the bottom one.

Our lapbook is from A Journey Through Learning.

We did quite a bit of research on the Internet today about Frogs and Toads and Salamanders. And even Caecilians. Big worm-like amphibians that look like earthworms but are as big as snakes. It was giving me the willies, but I looked them up, anyway. I can stand looking at photos of them, but I hope I never see them in person. The chances are slim, because they are only found in South America, Central America and Southeast Asia. And they stay underground most of the time.

We have already learned quite a bit about amphibians, but we will be learning lots more about frogs as our little tadpoles continue to develop and change during these next several weeks.

Let’s Study Metamorphosis – Day 3

Jun.27,2013

The tadpoles are being very social today, hanging out together on their lettuce leaf flotilla.

Let’s Study Metamorphosis – Day 2

Jun.27,2013

We have learned some things about tadpoles that we didn’t realize before. They like to eat stuff that is floating at the top of the water. I have been experimenting with boiling lettuce. I found that if I overcooked it, the lettuce sank to the bottom. If I barely cooked it, the lettuce floated, and the tadpoles gathered around it and on it and were very happy with their little “lily pads”.

They like to eat things that are floating at the top of the water. They’re not interested in eating anything that’s down at the bottom of the water. I even put some lettuce in that wasn’t cooked at all. It floated really well, and they have all been hanging out on it like it’s a big flotilla.

But I’m not sure that they’re eating the lettuce. I don’t know if it’s too hard for them to eat, but when I soften it, the lettuce sinks. So I’m considering having Anna go get some moss to put in my beautiful, clear-ish water aquarium.

You can enlarge each of the photos by clicking on them. Then you will be able to see more details of our cute, developing tadpoles.

I had a harder time getting pictures of the swirls on their bellies today. They have been hanging from the lettuce most of the time instead of swimming around or looking out the sides of the tank. And my camera has a hard time figuring out how to focus in at the angle that they are hanging and being right at the surface of the water instead of swimming in it.

This picture shows that their bodies are developing and starting to look more lumpy and frog-shaped.

Abby wanted to paint, so I told her to paint a picture of tadpoles. I thought it came out pretty nice. She even painted smiles on their faces. Very colorful tadpoles, aren’t they?

Let’s Study Metamorphosis – Translation: Let’s Watch Our Tadpoles Change Into Frogs!

Jun.25,2013

You know how I love Nature Study. Well, I told the kids to be on the lookout for tadpoles. We live in a subdivision, and the only ponds here have alligators in them (!), but I was hopeful that somehow they would find tadpoles for me. I had read a blog post last year at In Lieu of Preschool about how they raised tadpoles.

One day, Shawn and Anna returned from a walk and said that they had seen a bunch of tadpoles in some muddy water-filled ruts. I got excited and asked them to bring me some. Yesterday, they were headed out for a walk, so I gave them an old container and asked them to bring me some tadpoles. They did!

I raised tadpoles when I taught first grade in public school when I still lived at home. I was able to get fresh pond water and moss for them regularly. I just kept them in a big bucket of my dad’s. We watched them develop all the way into frogs that hopped around all over the place. My class loved it!

Here I wasn’t sure how much moss or pond water I would be able to get, so I did what Genny at In Lieu of Preschool did. I went to the pet store and got supplies and asked a few questions.

We went to Petco and got an aquarium called a Pet Keeper and some rocks and water conditioner to make tap water safe. We added some of our pretty blue glass beads and some seashells. Then I put them all together, put the water conditioner in and put the tadpoles in their new home.

We have 8 tadpoles!

From Genny’s post I found out that they can eat boiled lettuce, so that is what we’ve been feeding them.

They seem to like to eat upside down!

When I first saw this guy belly-up I was afraid that he was dead. But then I found out that he likes to eat that way.

One unusual thing that we noticed about our tadpoles is that they have a spiral on their bellies.

You can see this one’s spiral tummy and his mouth.

On some of them you can see the beginning of back legs. They just look like little nubs right now.

They like to swim together.

The whole family is enjoying watching the tadpoles swim around. It will get even more exciting as we see them develop legs and change into frogs. We have a lid for our Pet Keeper so that when they do get their hopping legs, we will be able to keep them contained for a little while before we release them.

I also have a lapbook about Amphibians from A Journey Through Learning that we are going to be working through in the next few weeks.

I can feel a great unit study coming on!

What’s Happening?

Jun.14,2013

Family Schooling!!!

Take a peek at what happened here in the last few hours. I call this Family Schooling.

Kelsey determined that she would make dinner for all of us tonight. She kept the menu a secret so that it would be a surprise. She wanted to celebrate a couple of different things, which I will expound on later in this post. She enlisted the help of the twins. They made noodles for our dinner. They followed the directions in the cookbook and made the dough for the noodles. Then Kelsey rolled out the dough and cut up the noodles.

Kelsey cut potatoes for mashed potatoes.

Abby worked on her My Little Pony worksheets that I printed from 1+1+1=1.

Anna did her Math on Khan Academy online.

Brotherly love

Morgan eating overnight oats that Kelsey prepared for him the night before. She makes these for several of us. She customizes them to our tastes. Morgan’s was Chocolate Peanut Crunch. He says it was heavenly.

Mine was Chocolate, Banana, Peanut Butter with sliced Walnut. It was delicious, and the texture was divine.

I read a story by George MacDonald to the older kids. It was called “Little Daylight”. It was a very interesting, intriguing fairy tale that kept our attention and made us all ponder the value of compassion and the rewards of good character and integrity. It also reinforced the concept that good always triumphs over evil.

The story came from this book by George MacDonald:

And now it’s dinner time! Here is Kelsey’s surprise dinner.

By faith, we are celebrating Gary’s new job. We are seeing some movement with more recruiters calling about better positions than he has been considered for before. And he has been getting some divine inspiration and guidance to help him in his job search.

My only contribution to the dinner – Hot Fudge Pudding Cake – one of my specialties!

The other thing that we are celebrating – the thing that is near and dear to Kelsey’s heart – is that she was able to afford an exclusive 3DS XL that will only be produced once. And she got it during a time of “financial famine” for us.

We are so grateful for Kelsey and the way that she blesses our family. We are rejoicing with her over the acquisition of this special item that was the desire of her heart.

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into today’s adventure in Family Schooling.

This post was shared with the Weekly Wrap-up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.