The second week found us with magnifying glasses and buckets, headed to the pond to hunt for tadpoles.

We are lucky enough to have a pond, which is full of tiny tadpoles each spring.  Want to hunt tadpoles?  Check out a local pond (maybe one at a park?), lake, or creek near you.

Usually we just enjoy watching the tadpoles there at the pond, collecting bucketfuls of the wiggling creatures and using magnifying glasses to check out tiny legs.

This year, however, we came across a huge bullfrog tadpole and decided to bring it home for a few days to observe more closely.

After getting our tadpole set up in his temporary home, we got out a ruler to see how big he was.  Measuring a wiggly tadpole isn’t easy!  We discovered our tadpole is a little longer than three inches.

Then we got out colored pencils and carefully sketched the tadpole in our school journals.  Do you see all those black spots?  I loved watching the kids carefully duplicate those dots on their drawings.

If you choose to bring home a tadpole, here are some helpful tips:

• Choose a clear container to put your tadpoles in so you can see them from all angles.
• Bring home enough of the pond or creek water for your tadpoles to swim in.  Tap water should not be used since it contains chemicals that may harm the amphibian.
• Tadpoles will eat boiled lettuce leaves.  Just boil the leaves for 8-10 minutes and let cool before adding them to the container.  We discovered our bullfrog tadpole really likes boiled spinach leaves from the garden.
• You can use a turkey baster to clean the waste out of the tank every couple days.  (Just be careful not to suck up an tiny tadpoles!)
• As tadpoles develop front legs they also start to develop lungs.  They will need a rock or something else to climb up on when that happens.
• Keep in mind that it takes tadpoles a while to change into frogs, anywhere from 2 months to almost 2 years for a bullfrog tadpole.  If you decide you don’t want to keep the tadpole that long, try to release it in the same place you found it.  Ours will be swimming back in the pond soon; two years is a long time to take care of a tadpole!

Not sure you want to bring home the tadpoles?

Bring the magnifying glasses and observe them in their natural habitat!

You can find tadpoles and frogs in all sizes and shapes!

My daughter was thrilled to find this tiny frog.  If you look closely, you can see his tail is still there.

(She also found a tiny snail.  You never know what you may find!)

Materials that may be helpful:

This is our favorite magnifying glass (very durable) and the plastic aquarium is perfect for even the youngest scientist.

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Be sure to check out last week’s ant observation.

You may also like this DIY Butterfly Feeder.

The post Nature Study: Tadpoles first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

You know how those last couple weeks of school the kids just seem to catch spring fever?

Well, this homeschooling momma caught it, too!

So we decided to switch things up a bit and explore the great outdoors.  We’ve been having so much fun that we plan to continue it through the summer, and we will be sharing what we do in our new Nature Study series.

This week:  get ready to go on an ant observation.

And if your kids love insects, try making a DIY Butterfly Feeder, too. 

Our observation actually started with a fallen Goldfish cracker.

It didn’t take long before an ant found it.  And when it left, another ant came, and another, and another…

I asked the kids what they thought ants would prefer, something slightly salty and crunchy like the cracker, or something sweet.

We were all leaning towards something sweet.  (I mean, who doesn’t like a little bit of sugar, right?)

While they were watching the ants, I popped into the kitchen and got a tiny piece of leftover cake so we could test our hypothesis.

After setting out the cake, we took a little break from watching ants.  We returned about 15 minutes later to see what was happening.

We were surprised that there were way more ants on the cracker than on the cake!

The kids were also surprised by how strong ants are!

A quick Google check let us know that ants can carry objects 50 times their own body weight!

Of course no ant observation would be complete without getting out the magnifying glasses!

Closely observing the ants led us to a further discussion on what makes an insect.  Under the magnifying glasses it was easy to see all the things that make an ant an insect.  We counted 6 legs.  We observed all three of the body parts:  head, abdomen, and thorax.   And we were also able to see their antennae.  So fun!

After watching the ants a little longer, we decided to try one more type of food.  This time we poured a small amount of Kool-Aid (flavored sugar water) into a lid.  We wanted to see if the ants would like this more than the cake.

It took a while, but pretty soon our sugar water was pretty busy!

Now it’s your turn!

Grab your materials and get outside to watch some ants!  (By the way, here’s our favorite magnifying glass, perfect for little hands!

Want to take your ant observation a little further?

Have your kids figure out how much they’d be able to carry if they were an ant!  (If your child is too young to multiply, you can use a calculator together to determine what 50 times their body weight is.)

Create your very own egg carton ants.

See if you can follow the ants back to their home.  Want to really explore ants?  You could dig up the ground at the entrance to their nest and see what happens.  (Remember, ants do bite!  But watching as they swarm to defend their home is pretty exciting to kids.)

Or, flip over some big rocks and see if you can spot part of an ant colony that way.  We were excited to find an ant nursery when we tried this!  (Okay, the kids were excited… Me?  I am not crazy about ants.  But I did it for the kids and the learning involved.)

And, of course, there are tons of great ant books just waiting to be explored!  We really liked National Geographic Readers: Ants.

The post Nature Study: Ant Observation first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

We have been blessed with some beautiful weather lately!  This past week I just couldn’t keep them cooped up inside, so we moved the learning outdoors with this simple sidewalk chalk outdoor reading game!

The game is very simple.

While they were running off some energy, chasing the puppy, I used sidewalk chalk to write a variety of CVC words (think 3 letter words with a vowel in the middle) all over the driveway.

Ways to Play the Reading Game:

We played our reading game several different ways over the next few days.

Game 1:  The first time around I guided them by hand to different words and they took turns sounding out each CVC word.

Game 2:  The second time we played we used a rock.  They took turns tossing a small rock onto the words and then reading whichever word the rock landed on.

Game 3:  Then we played a version where I called out a word and they raced to find it to stand on the word.

Game 4:  Finally, they got out the squirt guns and after they read a word they got to squirt it.  (This, by far, was their favorite version!)

With a bit of sidewalk chalk this outdoor reading game is a simple way to work on early reading skills. 

More fun ways to learn at home:

• 15 Fun Ways to Practice Sight Words at Home
• Nerf Gun Math
• Kinesthetic Math Game

The post Sidewalk Chalk Reading Game first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

“The wheels on the wagon go round and round….”

That’s right… It’s time for the letter W in our vehicle alphabet series!

And when it comes to activities for the letter W, we just had to do W is for Wagon!

With the beautiful weather we had, I planned for all outdoor activities for the letter W, although many of them could be modified and done indoors if needed.

For our first activity I drew an upper and lower-case W with sidewalk chalk.  (You could use painter’s tape if you are doing it indoors.)

Then I asked the kids to use objects they found in nature to form the letters.  They decided to use rocks from our driveway to form the upper-case W and handfuls of clover flowers to form the lower-case W.

Once they were finished they wanted to count the rocks and flowers.  We went slowly so the preschooler could work on his one to one correspondence.  They were surprised by how many more flowers the little W had versus the rocks in the big W!

After writing their own W’s with sidewalk chalk (all over the front porch), it was time for some hop-scotch!

Sometimes kids just have to move!

They had fun jumping with two feet when there were two W’s and one foot when there was just one W.  (The newly 5 year-old just learned how to jump on one foot and he LOVES to show off this skill!)

My next activity for them was also physical.

They took turns pulling each other in a clothes basket.

It was hard work!

Then we got out the little red wagon.  Before I knew it they were zipping each other all over the place.  We talked about why it was easier to pull each other in the wagon (wheels), and what wagons could be used for.

Finally, it was time to fill that wagon up with things that start with the letter W.

I had a basket of objects from the house, some that start with W and some that don’t.

They took turns pulling out each object, saying what it was, and deciding if it belonged in the wagon or not.

Looking for ideas of things you might have around the house that start with W?

We had: a wig, walrus, wand, whistle, washcloth, piece of white chalk, wings, and a piece of wood.

We had a wonderful time with our activities for the letter W.

Can you guess what we will be doing for the letter X?

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If you liked our letter W activities, you may want to check out some of our other vehicle activities:

• Learning Activities with Cars
• D Is for Digger and Dumper
• F Is for Firetruck
• M Is for Monster Truck

The post W Is for Wagon first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.