Lightning, thunder, hail, and torrential rain: a beautiful afternoon to sit snuggled together inside our warm, dry house as we watch the storm pass by.
The lightning is beautiful as it arches and flashes through the sky. It’s also close enough that it’s making our house shake.
As we watched it from inside (this is not the weather for being outside), I reminded my boys how to calculate our distance from a lightning strike. … Continue reading
We are fortunate to have fantastic resources for learning within our local community. Not only do my boys (and I!) have opportunities to learn about all sorts of topics, we get to learn in fun, hands-on ways.
Last week we attended a workshop at our local library that allowed everyone to build and launch whatever type of object we could imagine (using the provided materials, of course). … Continue reading
The other day as I was cooking dinner, I heard my 6-year-old call, “Mama, you have to come out here right now. We found the biggest worm EVER, and we need to save it.”
That is a call that cannot go unanswered, so I turned off the stove and headed outside. I saw both of my boys leaning over the strip of cement that runs along our retaining wall.… Continue reading
We’ve definitely had hot summertime weather for the last few weeks. We don’t have an air conditioner in our house, so in the afternoons things can get pretty warm. When the temperature creeps up, we frequently head outside for some water play.
Sometimes my boys pull out the hose and it hook up to a sprinkler. Often we fill water squirters with water and spray them into the air to make our own rain showers.… Continue reading
For the second year in a row, we’ve decided to participate in a local Citizen Science project. Scientists at our local university are running a project called The Bees Needs. In this study, they’re examining the native bees and wasps in the greater Boulder, Colorado area.
Participating has been a fun way for us to learn more our local pollinators, as well as to teach my boys some of the basic principles of conducting a scientific experiment.… Continue reading
The first time we ordered caterpillars with the intent of studying their metamorphosis, I was almost at the end of my second pregnancy (we used a kit like THIS). I ordered them within a day or two of moving into our new home, and they arrived about a week later. It seemed a wonderful way to celebrate the beginning of life in our new house.… Continue reading
Today it is cold and very, very snowy. In spite of the lovely weather we had last week, spring feels a long time off.
This made today a great day to examine flower petals, with our hands, our minds, and our imaginations.
We engaged all of our senses as we looked at the various petals. We looked at them first with our naked eyes, and then with a magnifying glass.… Continue reading
Once a month, our local Natural History Museum puts on a Family Day. Each family day consists of several hands-on experiments, activities, and art projects that all center on the day’s particular focus. Today’s focus was Dogs.
Today my boys watched a demonstration of dog agility put on by the local Humane Society. They learned about how dogs use body language to communicate, and made their own dog ears and tail so that they too could communicate like a dog.… Continue reading