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!

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!

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.

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.

June, the heat of summer has set in! Not that periodically we cannot get a cool day, but most days are hopping in the pool to cool off days around here.  Much of God’s creation loves the warmer weather as well, and many things are bursting forth in full, lush green life.

Throughout this post I’m going to share with you some photos that I’ve taken this last couple of weeks.

• A few butterflies have been coming out for a while now, but finally most varieties are showing themselves quite frequently. This is a great time to get out in a field of clover on a hot, sunny day and sit quietly with a camera. Butterflies cannot resist the sweet nectar of wildflowers and if you sit still long enough they’ll give you a great view of them.

This is a lovely Pearl Crescent butterfly. They are very friendly.

• Speaking of wildflowers , summer varieties are blooming, Vetch being one of them. Don’t forget to keep looking because this time of year different species of wildflowers are popping up every week.

I still find beauty in all the varieties of Clover.

• If you are having any significant rainfall, along with hot, sticky days, fungi are all over the place! Keep your eyes out for some amazing varieties that you might not see other times of the year.

A super neat fungi found down by a large creek.

• Frogs and toads are ALL over the place! Toads are probably hoping around under your feet, and visit a small creek area to find lots of frogs. You can still find tadpoles/eggs to hatch raise.

I posted about this previously; my son's largest Bullfrog catch, ever!

• It’s a wonderful time to visit a pond! Visit a pond to see dragonflies, amphibians of all sorts, turtles, water birds, etc. Have a pond-side picnic! 

• Around our area birds are very abundant this year. Lots of varieties have visited us. Just yesterday I saw one that I had never seen with my own eyes before…the Prairie Warbler. They are only in Kentucky in the summer time! Take a bird watching trip. Go to an area that has different habitats such as water, woods and open prairie to see the largest variety.

• June can still drop a monster thunderstorm, as was evidenced in our city recently. It rained so hard the lower area of our yard (by the creek) flooded! That’s never happened before. The stormy season is a wonderful time to study about weather and complications of weather such as severe lightning and floods.

I've never seen our creek flood like this! Good thing our house is up on the hill!

• After a June thunderstorm you can view some pretty fantastic sunsets with the clouds! We saw this one after the storm that caused our lower yard to flood.

The kids thought this was so cool! Looks like a dragon!

• Here are some applicable NaturExplorers units for summer:  Butterflies Flutter By, Wonderful Wildflowers, Remarkable Rain, Frogs and Toads, Beautiful Birds, Animal Signs,, Peaceful Ponds, A Fungus Among Us. Visit the Shining Dawn Books website to find out more information about these units and see samples of each!

Enjoy the gorgeous summertime!

Look at the size of those webbed feet!

BUT, when our neighbor spotted this baby mole, all was forgiven of these cute creatures. I mean after all they are just doing what they do, and that’s dig. Maybe they’ve just gotten a bad wrap.

The little creature was alive, but I’m not sure where it’s momma was. Hannah, as usual, was willing to assume the role, but after I explained that we couldn’t bring it home she proceeded to cover it up with a leaf and say a little prayer that it’s family would find it.

Quiet and peaceful, or wild and raging – rain comes in many forms.  This NaturExplorers unit sets out to examine rain in all its beauty, observe its effects and make you look forward to the next rainy day!

Remarkable Rain will encourage you to observe the details of an approaching rain system through such things as the five senses and art journaling.  You’ll actually get outside in the rain (when the weather is safe) to examine, experiment and make notes about a variety of topics including erosion, run-off, plant and animal behaviors and much more!  And, you’ll get outside soon after the rain for many more activities such as photography, soil discoveries, and witnessing the water cycle to name just a few.

Inside, continue your discoveries through hands-on experiments and demonstrations that will help you understand more about the hows and whys of rain.  As usual, we’ve also included several art ideas.  In the Hands-On and Writing & Research sections, learn about the water cycle, weather fronts, erosion, pollution, storms, rainbows, plant and animal adaptations, rain forests, deserts  – the list goes on and on.  Eighteen notebooking pages are included, too!

No matter the season, rain is a sight to behold.  We should embrace those gray, dingy days and turn them into praises to God for His life-giving supply of rain!

And don’t forget, right now thanks to our Nurturing Nature Spring and Summer Sale, you can get this jam packed, brand new unit, for ONLY $9.00!