We have Found a FROG!!!

He is a green and grey, squirrel tree frog. A one-time contributor to Wikipedia made his sole entry states that yes, these cute little critters are indeed poisonous. Glad we know better than that! He's not poisonous at all.

He eats crickets, moths, and whatever else he can find that has crawled into his lair.

Pictures coming soon.

Here's a video of another frog that we found. He's very tiny!

Groundhog Skeleton - NOT for the Squeamish!

I found out about a groundhog skeleton that had pretty much gotten to the point it was free of the soft tissue, and went to go get it for our homeschool. I then soaked it in bleach solution for two and a half days. I brushed it off with an old toothbrush, and let it dry. It's not complete, but most is present, and it's beautiful!

Since we used bleach, the connective tissue in the oral areas disintegrated, and the teeth are removable, including the larger ones. they slide out very nicely, and it's amazing to see just how long the teeth, from tip to root end, really are.

I didn't realize until later, I thought it was just debris from the grass where I picked this up at, but the brains came out in the bleach solution. The brains looked weird, kind of hard to describe, and I am really disappointed I lost a teaching opportunity. MrBaby is very interested in brains, because I told him they are the computers of the body. But they came out in two pieces, and looked like clumps of mildew, almost black in color. I know they were decomposing before the bleach solution got to them, and I would have had to crack the skull open to get them out intact, and that they still would have only been good for a quick lesson, but knowing I flushed them without pointing them out to my eager learner, kind of disappoints me.

We're planning on wiring it together soon, after I find some suitable wire in adequate amounts. I'll post pics soon.

Biology - Skeletons

Interactive game here. Put the skeleton back together to see and hear him clap his hands. Or maybe it was a girl skeleton! One of the other links at the website has a tutorial on what the bones do. The link leads to not only the skeleton unit, but also to the brain, heart, and digestive tract pages for their website. It is available in English and Spanish.

We also pointed out different bones on the glow in the dark skeleton.

Science with Water

We worked with a tub half filled with water tonight. He placed the whistle tube in it and found that it makes music when the ends of the 'U' shape are alternately pulled up and down. Then we learned about buoyancy by using a clear plastic case (it was originally for a pair of his water sandals) that has unequal sides (the opening, from top to bottom), and then the buoyancy of different balls. Cute video of it except he decided that he was going to have to go potty in the middle and he kept holding himself during the video we were shooting.

Botany Discussion

I found a maple tree that had just sprouted, and the seed pod was still attached. He thought the roots felt funny. Here are some pictures of our discussion.
















We found a maple leaf, much larger, though, that had had an insect egg laid on it, that had later hatched. Here are a couple of pictures of that.

Gears!

We learned about gears yesterday and today. There are lots of things to know about gears, and they are used all over the house. Even the popcorn maker has gears! They are used to turn the mixing arms that keep the popcorn kernels from sitting in one place too long.
We watched videos of gears on YouTube. They are very short, but most are very interesting. We watched how windmills work. They have lots of gears, and they have right angles, too.
I am thinking that we will try to make some gears out of clay, and see if we can learn even more. He likes to play with the popcorn maker, but it is used mainly too cook Bear. Poor Bear......

Reflection or Ghost?

MrBaby told me that the 'ghosts' I was 'scared' of were really reflections from the car lights at the gas station shinning in through our windows. Good job figuring it out! I explained about the skewing of the window to make the shape, and that it was caused by the angle of the car lights. I tried to get it on video, but I couldn't pick up the 'ghosts' flying across the ceiling.

This is what it looks like after being stretched in Paint, and looks very similar to what was 'flying' across the ceiling.

The second picture is the actual window.

Update on Aquarium

Been dosing it with hydrogen peroxide and it worked wonders. It kinda hurt the plants, but I'm sure they'll recover ok. However, we are back down to only three fish. Maybe that is the healthy max for this tank.

We had the three parent fish, then four babies, then another baby, which died shortly after I placed him in the snail tank. Just before he was born, I placed a bunch of pennies in the tank, to get rid of the hydra. That killed the hydra, but also killed our favorite snail, plus all the other ones. It killed off all the aquatic life we had in there except the planaria. After that, we had a bite on the nice mommy fish, and she died. I lowered the temp a bit. Then we ended up with black mold all over everything in the tank, and the mean mommy fish died, and about two weeks later, we lost daddy fish. One of the baby fish also died. That is when I looked it up about the h2o2. Down to three again. Still waiting to see what their sexes are.

MrBaby learned About Friction Today

We took one of those opportunities that life throws at you and learned about friction. MrBaby kept grabbing onto my shirt, and I asked him if he wanted me to pull him, and he said YES. Well, that isn't good for my clothes, so I got him a lid from his play doh to sit on. That worked a bit, then we made ski handles from carboard tubes, tape, and clothesline. Then we tried it with MrBaby sitting on top of the rectangular sheepskin. That didn't work too well. We tried it with MrBaby sitting on top of the upside down smaller dish drainer rack, with the sheepskin on that. That was a lot better. I pointed out that plastic bottles are very smooth and have very little traction, the wooden bookshelf has a bit more friction to it, and the floor has even more. We talked aobut how the carpet is smooth when MrBaby pulls his toys on the rack over the carpet, but that when it has more weight, it presses down into the carpet, and that keeps it from moving easily. I asked if the foam mat would be good to pull on, or would the wire of the upside down dish rack dig into the foam too much, and MrBaby's eyes lit up, and said it would dig in and not pull across. Very smart little boy.