Lego Task Cards

My kids (well my son anyway) would do Legos 24/7 if we let him. Does anyone have a source for Lego task cards?  A book? A link?  If you do, please let me know.  We would love it!

Great Backyard Bird Count

Today we went to a local wildlife sanctuary to count birds for the Great American Backyard Bird Count. Wow, this was so much more difficult than I would have thought. The place where we went was a 1/2 mile plus board walk over water. We were with a group that was also counting birds. We thought it would be pretty easy but, I guess I didn’t think the plan completely through. We had counted birds a couple days here at the house before we went out to the sanctuary and this was easy because we just sat in one place. This is a better idea. Out there in a huge bird sanctuary, the birds are moving around a lot more, nesting, and all sorts of stuff. We were moving, the birds were moving, it was quiet confusing. We wanted to be useful scientists but this proved very difficult! We did the best we could and if we had any question at all about the type of bird or if we might be counting the same bird twice we simply didn’t count that bird. This is also what it said to do on the GBBC’s website. I think, over all, we did a pretty good job. I hope to do it again next year as well. Next time I plan to stay in one place and let the birds come to me each time I count. Here are some of the birds we spotted on our adventure.

Anhinga nest - Mama and babies

Great Blue Heron on nest

Ducks

Not a bird but still photo worthy, don't ya think?

Not sure if this is the male or female coming back to the nest with nest fixings

Anhinga (snake bird) in the water

My spotters

Anhinga nest - Mama and babies

Pie Billed Grebe

Tri-Colored Heron

Red-Headed Wood Pecker

Boxes

It is amazing how much fun a box can be to kids.  We recently installed cabinets in our home office and let the kids have at it with the two boxes.  A week of fun followed.  It would have lasted even longer but the sprinklers got the boxes and made the too soggy, they never recovered.

The said cabinets from Home Depot. I'll post photos of our office another time. 🙂

The Tiara

Beluga putting together this craft.

I never thought Beluga would stick with this project very long but she sat there and finished the whole thing!

While she was doing this, the boys were playing chess. It was a nice after dinner project.

Our Happy 7 Year Old!

I can’t believe that my baby is now 7 years old. It seems like only yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital.

Great Backyard Bird Count

Today we went to a local wildlife sanctuary to count birds for the Great American Backyard Bird Count. Wow, this was so much more difficult than I would have thought. The place where we went was a 1/2 mile plus board walk over water. We were with a group that was also counting birds. We thought it would be pretty easy but, I guess I didn’t think the plan completely through. We had counted birds a couple days here at the house before we went out to the sanctuary and this was easy because we just sat in one place. This is a better idea. Out there in a huge bird sanctuary, the birds are moving around a lot more, nesting, and all sorts of stuff. We were moving, the birds were moving, it was quiet confusing. We wanted to be useful scientists but this proved very difficult! We did the best we could and if we had any question at all about the type of bird or if we might be counting the same bird twice we simply didn’t count that bird. This is also what it said to do on the GBBC’s website. I think, over all, we did a pretty good job. I hope to do it again next year as well. Next time I plan to stay in one place and let the birds come to me each time I count. Here are some of the birds we spotted on our adventure.

Anhinga nest - Mama and babies

Great Blue Heron on nest

Ducks

Not a bird but still photo worthy, don't ya think?

Not sure if this is the male or female coming back to the nest with nest fixings

Anhinga (snake bird) in the water

My spotters

Anhinga nest - Mama and babies

Pie Billed Grebe

Tri-Colored Heron

Red-Headed Wood Pecker

4-H and Food4-H

This year in 4-H we are studying food, and cooking.  The kids have been helping out in the kitchen more this year  as well.  Today, Indie made his own breakfast.  He doesn’t like a lot of traditional breakfast foods, like cereal or oatmeal, he also doesn’t like eggs.  Many mornings he eats toast. Lately, his favorite toast topping, is cheese!

Science Lab: Living and Non-Living

This week for science we did a lab learning about living and non-living things. We placed a string in the yard. Yes, it should have been an area that is a little more “wild” but we just winged it and found lots of living things and some not so living. There was even a tiny spider’s web that was perfectly shaped. They had a good time.

Inspecting the area for anything alive.

Logging what they found and making a sketch on one living and one non-living thing found in the area.

After we did our lab, we moved the the back yard to check out our garden. Things look much different though a microscope!