Happy Earth Day! To celebrate, I thought I would write about a project we've been working on for over a year. My older son has always had a special interest in plants. When he was little, he became obsessed with seeds for awhile. Then he had his carnivorous plant project, and we still grow the … Continue reading Project-based Homeschooling: Plant Project
Today the weather finally feels like spring. We've had other spring-like days this winter, but I think we were too busy to notice. But today it's Sunday, and we took advantage of this warmer, cloudy day to go bird watching at Ft. Yargo State Park. There were very few people there since the forecast predicted … Continue reading March
January has been a quiet month around here. It has offered some very cold days -- at least cold to us Southerners -- so it's been a good time to stay inside and get some work done. The boys and I have been doing a lot of birdwatching out our windows, and we finally started … Continue reading January
This post concludes my series of day trips that we took this summer, which also concludes our 2017-2018 school year. Day trips are some of our most educational and fun activities we can do as homeschoolers. I will try to write about some of the places we go this year too. My son picked the … Continue reading Atlanta Botanical Garden
We have been to the Georgia Aquarium several times (mostly when the boys were smaller), but I realize I have never written a newspaper column or blog post about this amazing aquarium. It used to be the largest aquarium in the world until it was surpassed by an aquarium built in Singapore in 2012. Go … Continue reading Georgia Aquarium
After finding some black swallowtail caterpillars in our garden earlier this summer, we were very surprised to find giant swallowtail caterpillars too. We were even more surprised because these caterpillars looked like bird poop! That is how my son identified them. He typed "caterpillars that look like bird poop" into a Google search engine, and … Continue reading Raising Giant Swallowtail Butterflies
Earlier this summer, we saw a monarch butterfly laying eggs on our milkweed plant, but when the caterpillars were very tiny, they disappeared. We believe a wasp preyed upon them. That was disappointing, but soon after, we found some other interesting caterpillars in our yard. We identified these as black swallowtails. There were seven. We didn't take … Continue reading Raising Black Swallowtail Butterflies
I have been gardening with my boys since they were very young, and though I'm sure that my love of gardening has influenced them, it hasn't taken much effort on my part to get them to enjoy it. I think all children are drawn toward nature and plants when they have the opportunity to explore … Continue reading The Family Project: Our Yard
Last week my boys went to bug camp, and they had a blast. This camp is facilitated by faculty and grad students at the UGA Entomology department, and it's offered twice during the summer. They also do a spring break camp, and last week I heard that they may do a fall break camp, if … Continue reading UGA Bug Camp
Mississippi gave us a great opportunity to give some time and attention to our eight-year-old's biggest interest, so we made a point to do some serious birding on our trip. One unexpected perk of having a hotel room on the 5th floor was that we had a great "bird hide." The boys sat at that window … Continue reading Pascagoula River Audubon Center
