Posted By Melissa on July 30, 2010

Recently, over at my business site Shining Dawn Books, I posted a glowing review for nature music CD’s from Global Journey Music.  In addition to the CD’s related to nature I also was given the pleasure to review four children’s music CD’s and three classical music CD’s.  Below are the selections I was given:

What a wonderful blessing it has been to get the opportunity to have these!  You can click on any of the above icons to find more information on and to listen to a sample of each CD.

First of all, I will talk about the children’s CD’s.  On a recent three hour car trip, my four year old refused to allow us to listen to anything BUT these CD’s!  She was particularly fond of the Travel Songs CD as was evidenced by the third time listening through it.  Usually by the end of a long car trip we would have a cranky preschooler, but not this time!  The songs are upbeat and cheerful, just what you’d expect for children.

Now, on to MY favorites, the classical music CD’s.  After listening to these, I’m planning to thoroughly use them this coming school year.  I especially love the Classics The Masters CD.  It’s a wonderful compilation of works from a variety of composers.  That will come in handy as we study various composers throughout the year.

I give a huge thumbs up on all of the above CD’s and look forward to continuing to enjoy them in the future!

Category: Art and Music, Reviews, Uncategorized | No Comments »
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Posted By Melissa on July 27, 2010

God has given all creatures a line of defense, something to give them a better chance of survival.  And lately I’ve become intrigued by seeing evidence of this on our nature walks.

For instance below you will see a picture I took at our last Nature Club meeting.  Notice the tiny red and black bugs.

But especially notice below the bugs, the silver metallic spiky round objects.  Let me zoom in…

I was very intrigued by what these were so I sent the photo in to an Entomologist at the University of Kentucky and received the following response:

Hello Melissa,

The silver things are eggs and the bugs have hatched from them.  They should be some sort of stick bug.

Cheers,
Bill

I suppose the eggs are protected/guarded by those spikes on them.  Whether or not they are just “for show” or could actually do damage to a predator, I don’t know.  But they are intimidating at least.

And then there’s the fake stinger on the end of this Snowberry Clearwing Moth Caterpillar.  It is just a harmless hair, but predators don’t know that.  In fact, at first, I was a bit concerned about it!  I guess I would be looked upon as a predator!

Other defense mechanisms include camouflage, yucky smell (think skunk), poison glands (toad, etc.), bright colors (associated with being poisonous, frogs, etc.), protective shells (as in turtles), prickly spikes (hedgehogs, porcupines), and SO many more!

Category: Butterflies and Moths, Insects, Nature Study, Nature in Summer, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Tags: animal defense mechanisms, clearwing hummingbird moth

Posted By Melissa on July 26, 2010

I’m Back!  I’m happy to report the calendar commitments have settled down quite a bit here.  We will be starting up our school year next Monday (8-2) and it seems the month prior to that is always filled with things to do before the end of summer break.

Anyways, I’d like to post something here a little different.  I know my posts are almost always nature-y, but with the beginning of a new school year I’ll be breaking out of that mold just a bit from now on.

My 13 yo daughter has always been into to art.  She’s the creative type, with either her pencil to paper drawing or her nose stuck in a Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings novel, the latest has been Inkheart.  Her drawings have always had a  “cartoon” flair to them.  Well, lately she’s been taking to working on the computer with her art.  In the past I’ve thought art traditionally involved a piece of paper and pencil (or other traditional art medium).  But these days, I’ve realized that’s not all.  It involves a computer and mouse too.  She’s been using the Paint program on our computer to create these fun masterpieces (I had to beg for her to allow me to share them!).

"Good Morning"

"Hoot"

"Lemonade"

"Melt"

"Fly Away"

I think my favorite it the last one because I can clearly see a story in it.  It tells of a balloon who after living a pretty rough life has broken free to fly away.

Drawing with a mouse requires quite a bit of hand control, thus I’ve been letting my Kindergartner work with it too to help improve her handwriting.  It works!

So this year our art studies will not only include a piece of paper and traditional art materials, but also a computer and mouse.

Category: Art and Music | 6 Comments »
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Posted By Melissa on July 16, 2010

Obviously I’ve been missing around blog-land lately.  The tough demands of this summer have overwhelmed me and I had to make hard decisions to let certain things go for a while!  I have been posting periodically over at Shining Dawn Books though.  I hope to be back busy here on my blog very soon.  I have lots of things written down here on a post-it note to share with you!   If you are still coming back to visit me, thank you!  In the meantime I’ll share a picture of a wildflower I recently took on one of our park visits.

"Heal-All" Wildflower

Category: Blog, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
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Posted By Melissa on June 23, 2010

Jamie, from See Jamie Blog, is so wonderful to be hosting a series of adoption stories on her blog.  She has blessed us to be able to share our personal story involving the adoption of our daughter Gabriella from China.  She has posted our story today, so if you are interested head on over there to check it out by clicking on the button below!

Category: Family | 4 Comments »
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Posted By Melissa on June 22, 2010

Look what Hannah found growing down by our creek.

Now, I know mushrooms grow a lot bigger than this, but this is the biggest mushroom we’ve ever had in our yard.  It measured 11″ across the cap and about 3″ across the stalk!  I guess they like all this hot steamy and wet weather we’ve been having.

Category: Fungi, Nature in Spring | 6 Comments »
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