New Use for Shape Sorters

Trace the shapes onto paper, and have your child match the shapes up with the outlines on the paper. We have more than one set, but the second set is only partial. Here are some pics.

This helps with pre-reading skills, eye-hand coordination, fine motor development, and shape and color recognition.

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.

Mean Mama Fish Died Today

The planaria were hard at work, cleaning up. We are wondering what the skeleton will look like. We'd have a funeral, like we have with the others, but I think it is time to see what is inside the fish, if possible. I'm not sure how dense the skeleton is in a fish this small, so MrBaby and I will learn something together.

You can see one of the planaria climbing up on the front of the aquarium in three of the pictures. The other one shows Mean Mama Fish, plus some of the planaria around her.