Aug. 28, 2008 - Make your own bird feeders

I didn't think until we were done that I should've taken pictures throughout the process - so no pictures, but I wanted to share what we did.

We are doing Apologia's Zoology 1 book - the study of flying creatures.  The first half of the book is the study of birds.  We made 2 bird feeders today to attract different birds to our yard to study.  The first feeder we made was for regular bird seed with a jug.  We used bamboo skewers for perches and wire to hang it by the tree.

The second one was making suet for a suet basket.  The book said sunflower seeds will attract songbirds and birds that usually eat insects prefer suet.  It says woodpeckers will flock to this "Smart Suet".  Okay, so here's what you need:

small ziploc bags (we used the sandwich size.  The quart size looked too large for our suet basket.  If you have a large suet basket, I think the quart would work well.)
a suet basket or mesh bag
stove
pot
stirring spoon
freezer
2 cups crunchy peanut butter
2 cups lard (not shortening)
4 cups rolled oats (not quick oats)
4 cups cornmeal
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup raisins
1 cup bird seed (you can also add whole wheat kernels or other unprocessed grains.)

1.  Melt the lard and peanut butter ina pot over low heat.  (We used a 2 quart saucepan and it was very hard to stir everything in at the end.  I suggest using a large saucepan.)

2.  Stir in the rest of the ingredients.

3.  Scoop the mixture into the small plastic ziploc bags.  (We were able to get 5 sandwich sized suet bags)

4.  Place the bags in the freezer so that the suet will harden.

After the suet is hardened:

5.  Remove the suet from one of the bags and place it in the suet basket.

6.  Hang it on a tree.

7.  Wait, watch and enjoy.

I will try to take pictures of the birds that visit these feeders to post, but birds are hard to get good pictures of.

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Aug. 26, 2008 - Olympic lapbook.

This has been an ongoing project.  We began this in July before the Olympics started to gain some history before they came on.  We worked on it during the Olympics and now that they are over, we finished it up.

This is the inside of the lapbook and the Bible verse.  We studied China, different events of the Summer Olympics, talked about the Olympic flag, the route of the Olympic torch for this year, designed their own flags, chose a team to watch and graphed the medals won by that team.  We had planned on holding our own family Olympics, but our schedules didn't allow it.  Most of the pictures are from Nicolas's lapbook unless they each did something unique.

Below is our study of China.  Each boy wrote their own name in Chinese.  The left is Nicolas and the right is Alex.

Below, the boys designed their own flag for the Olympics.  The left is Nicolas's, the right is Alex's.

The boys each picked their teams.  Nicolas picked the United States who ended up with 38 golds, 36 silver and 38 bronze medals.  The number of medals was off the charts so he wrote the number at the top of his graph (but you can't see it in the picture.)

Alex picked Great Britain.  The total medals were 19 gold, 13 silver, and 15 bronze.  I wish they each would've chosen a lesser know team, but they had fun looking each morning to see how many medals their team had gotten while they were asleep.

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Aug. 26, 2008 - Update on our chrysallis

If you look very closely, you can see the wings.  I don't think it will be long before we see the butterfly.

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Aug. 25, 2008 - Birds field trip

To go along with our study of cardinals, we attended a field trip at Minnetrista in Muncie about birds.  After listening to bird calls, the kids disected an owl pellet.  Owl's eat live animals like rodents and such.  However, their bodies cannot digest all the animal they eat, so after the meat is consumed, they upchuck (for lack of a better word) the bones and fur of the animal.  this is called an owl pellet.  Now, it may sound disgusting (and for those of you who know Nicolas, he has a strong gag reflect and I was concerned), but she explained that the pellets were cleaned to get rid of germs and they were very dry.  Here are pictures of the boys disecting.

And here is what we found.  To the far left is the top part of the skull.  Aiming toward the bottom left are the long front teeth.  Next in line are the bottom parts of the jaw - you can also see the long teeth there.  Then the next pile is just miscellaneous bones.  She let them bring the bones home.

Then we talked about beaks of different birds and how they are used.  The first was a Robin and that their beaks are long to fint down into the ground for worms.  Here the boys are digging for 'worms' in oatmeal with chopsticks.

Then there was the birds that crack open nuts, like the Cardinal.  Here the boys are using a nutcracker.

Then there are birds that use their beaks to peck insects off of trees, like the woodpecker.  The boys used tweezers to pick rice off a log.

And finally there are hummingbirds that use their long beaks to get nectar out of flowers.  The boys used straws to get water out of a vase.

What a great learning experience.  This field trip went along great with our science also - Zoology, the study of flying creatures.  We were already discussing bird calls and field markings.

To finish the field trip, they kids walked around outside to listen for and look for birds.  We didn't see many, but it was a nice walk.

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Aug. 22, 2008 - Indiana history trip to Mounds St. Park

Our 4th graders all visited Mounds State Park in Anderson today to see the Indian mounds.  We learned that they used the mounds to help them know what time of the year it is - or for their calendars.  Many people believe that they are burial grounds, and some are, but most where used for ceremonial purposes.  They would have "church" on the mounds.  Also, they built the mounds so that at the spring and winter equinoxes, the sun would set directly behind a smaller mound letting them know it was time to hunt in the spring or gather food in the winter.  It was very interesting.

Here is a picture of the great mound.  It looks like a hill and a ditch.  The Adena indians dug them themselves using bone and baskets.  Because of erosion, the mounds aren't near as tall as they were originally built, and the ditches used to be much deeper.  Indians today still consider these mounds sacred structures.

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