Welcome Spring!!

Spring has sprung here in North Carolina. Pollen covers every surface, creating a world of green itchiness. What a perfect time to begin learning about plants! I spent the weekend weeding some of my garden beds and will spend this next weekend further preparing the sites for planting. In the meantime, however, we have been busy talking about plants and planting a pot full of carrot seeds. Ben is in charge of making sure that the pot is well watered everyday. He has already learned that plants need sun, water, and soil to survive. He also understands that we are growing these things to eat. He keeps telling me that he is growing carrots for rabbits and that he wants to pretend to be a rabbit...at least he gets it :-)

Carrots are SPROUTING!

Benjamin has an observation journal that we have been using throughout the year for science. I am going to be having him draw pictures as the plants grow to show the changes in them. My husband is also going to attempt to build a planter with plexi-glass sides so that Ben can see the root structure and the progress that seeds make. Another goal for this year's science is to observe and understand the differences and changes in seasons and to be able to identify activities relative to the seasons. This is easily achieved with all of our activities.

We have also begun talking about birds. This has been an easy transition considering we just finished our penguin unit. I recently refilled our bird feeder in our backyard so that we can start looking for different birds that are native to this area. Since I am not originally from here, I am amazed to see all of the beautiful colors on birds. I am so glad that my kids get to grow up seeing these things.

There is a park nearby that has geese and ducks. We spent an entire afternoon at the park playing, going on nature walks, and then feeding the geese and ducks. Benjamin learned how to tell if a duck is a male or female, the difference between geese and ducks, and then took a peak at the feet of these birds to see that they are webbed. I asked Benjamin why he thinks that they have webbed feet and he answered correctly: that it helps them to swim.

On a nature walk. Ben was very learning to climb on rocks.

Overall, spring is going to be an awesome time to learn about science/nature and to work on gross motor skills outside. My only problem is that I seem to want to spend all of our extra time outside and am somewhat putting our other work (like math) on the back burner.  BAD Mommy! BAD Mommy! Admitting this downfall will hopefully give me an incentive to be really creative and sneak math into the nature and outdoor activities we are doing.

Happy Spring everybody!