Snails? Snails!

Okay so you may think I am crazy, but we recently got some little, baby snails and they are so cute! 

And so easy to keep too! A lady at my husband's work has a little snail habitat on her desk at the office. They recently hatched out some little baby snails and she shared with us.

 Talk about a fun and easy science project! These are just simple garden variety snails. 

You need a small container with a lid to keep them in (We got a little plexiglass container from petco).

You will also need some soil or mulch-- also easy to find at the pet store. 

Then add whatever decorations you want. We picked up some cheap aquarium decorations, but a big rock would work just as well.
For upkeep you just need to drop in some lettuce or other leafy green every day. The lady we got these snails from also keeps the cage slightly moist and puts little calcium blocks in there to help them build strong shells (you could break up a cuddlebone for this I would think). We've gotten mixed answers about whether that is really necessary. Another friend says that his mom (a kindergarten teacher) did this a lot and just dropped in lettuce and left them alone. So do whatever you think. We are giving them calcium, but I have't been spraying them. They seem happy enough.
Thing-one and thing-two are also happy. We have had a fun time checking up on our little pets every day. We talk about what they are doing (usually hiding under the lettuce) and why they would be doing that ("Maybe it's comfy?" says thing-one. "Maybe they are trying to hide from birds?" says Mommy. "I see it!" says thing-two. 
I am excited to watch them grow too. their shells were totally transparent when we got them, but now they have darkened up a lot and are getting bigger. Is it nerdy that I am excited about this? Probably.
Go have some fun with your kids.

Potted Gardens!

We love plants at our house. Thing-one seems to have a natural green thumb and thing-two loves to eat our fresh vegetables. I love watching my kids grabbing lettuce and spinach from out garden and cramming it into their mouths. Victory! Talk about a great way to teach and reinforce good nutrition. We have conversations about how healthy those vegetables are and so yummy too. 
A vegetable garden is also a great science lesson. In fact we have been focusing a lot on Botany lately because thing 1 and thing 2 have become so fascinated by it all. A garden is a great way to teach that! They learn all about the different parts of the plant-- planting seeds, harvesting (which part of the plant are we eating?), watching it grow (the pea plant grows differently and looks differently from the broccoli plant), and even when they accidentally uproot a plant while trying to pick off something yummy. They also learn about the things a plant needs to grow. You can slip in a very simple  lesson on photosynthesis here- the plant uses the sunshine to make energy so that it can grow. Just like food helps you to grow. 
The best part is, you don't even have to have a yard. or even know that much about gardening to make this a project with your kids. Our "garden" consists of a few pots on the back patio of our apartment. So far we have successfully grown spinach, lettuce, and broccoli. Our pea plant is growing well, but we'll see if it ever produces anything. 
The one thing I have found from personal experience is that vegetables don't grow well without sun. So if you don't have a sunny spot you might want to try a different type of plant. Maybe a pot of flowers. There are several types of flowers that are edible so you could look into that too.
Go have some fun with your kids!
 

Animal Homes

I have been thinking alot about what to do with this blog, and I have decided to turn it into a place to write down my ideas and lesson plans for teaching my kids. I plan to put in successful projects, not so successful projects (along with notes for improvement), product reviews, and ideas. That way I have a place to store ideas, and you have a place to find them. Comments and suggestions are always welcome.................................................................................
Today's project is all about animal homes and I must admit that it was mostly thing 1's idea. I was watching her play on the playground and noticed that she kept bringing little sticks and leaves to her spot under the slide. So I went over to see what she was working on:

she was building a nest

This project really has almost endless possibilities.
First we talked about soft vs. hard and worked a little bit on vocabulary. The sticks were hard, and poky. Rough.  What can we find that is soft, smooth etc.? Those things will make it more comfortable for the baby birds. 
You could take this farther into a lesson on shapes: What shape are eggs? can you find anything that is round like an egg so that we can put them in our nest? (we used some acorn seeds)
Building a nest led naturally into curiosity about  other kinds of animal homes, and could we find a real birds nest? So we went exploring and it turned into a great biology lesson.  You don't have to go anyplace fancy for this lesson. You wouldn't believe all of the animal homes we found in just our little apartment complex. 
The first home we found was some type of little burrow:

Ask questions about whatever animal homes you find. This is a great way to practice critical thinking. What kind of animal might live here? Is it a big animal or a little animal? Can we see any tracks? Why would an animal build this kind of home? What would it be like to live in this home? And if you're up for it you can always try to build the homes you see. My kids wanted to dig their own burrow. So I let them try. It was great because even little toddling thing 2 could participate!

They learned that it is quite a bit harder than it looks. Hands really hard to dig with. So they tried sticks. A little better, but still hard. We didn't spend very long on out burrow making attempt. This led to a short lesson on animal anatomy. How does that animal dig holes? It must have strong paws! Animals are different than people. Do you think a bird could dig a hole like this? How about a fish? Why? How?
Just continue your walk. Follow your child's lead. They'll pay much better attention if you're talking about what interests them. Thing 1 was excited when we saw the swimming pool. Fish live in the water, mom! Well there aren't really fish in the swimming pool, but whatever. :)

The point is, just be creative and let them get excited about things. We turned over rocks to find bugs, looked at spiderwebs in dark corners, we even found some snails and talked about how they carry their homes on their backs. Like I said, this one has endless possibilities, we even ended up talking about how in some countries they eat snails. Eww! Mommy that's so yucky!  Cultural diversity?? Maybe not.
Now go have some fun!