Bees and Beeswax Candles

Recently we were able to take a trip to a little farm that raises various animals including bees!  All the kids were excited to see the donkey who came up to be petted. They could see goats and pigs keeping cool in the shade, and there were numerous birds: emus, chickens, ducks, geese, and peacocks!

After a tour to look at the animals the owners of the farm gave us a little lesson in bees. We got to look inside their hive and see where they were storing up honey. We also learned more about bees including why they die when they sting you.

Then we got to make a beeswax candle! These were super simple to make too!  You start with a sheet of beeswax and a wick. Lay the wick across the top of the beeswax and press it in gently (just so it sticks).

Fold over the the part with the wick in it to secure the wick. Then using only your fingers, gently (yet firmly) roll the candle down.

Be careful with your candle as the beeswax is soft and gets smushed very easily! (As you can see ours got smushed a bit by little hands.) Always light your candle in a candle holder and blow it out if you aren't in the room with it.

Want to make some candles, but no bee farm nearby? Check your local craft store for beeswax or a complete kit complete with instructions!

They all enjoyed some honey ice cream after their candles were made and their lunch was eaten. It was a sweet end to their fun trip to the bee farm!

Caterpillar Pack

Today I am pleased to introduce the Caterpillar Early Learning Pack! This is a collaboration between myself and the amazing Jill over at Enchanted Homeschooling Mom! This pack includes handwriting practice, upper and lower case matching puzzles, counting, calendar work, butterfly life cycle, and more!

We had just released our butterflies, so these worksheets were prefect! The girls had a good time cutting and pasting and they even enjoyed writing thanks to the adorable pictures!  here are a few of the pages in action! 

Working on a Calender page.

Counting and Writing numbers.

Working on a Butterfly Life Cycle.

Healthy vs Unhealthy food sheet. I was really happy to see that they knew the difference! 

And now your kids can do some Caterpillar Learning too! Just follow the link below!

Caterpillar Learning Pack

*By downloading this material you are agreeing to all the terms of use that can be found HERE.

Clip art by:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ClipArtCorner

http://www.etsy.com/shop/The3AMTeacher

http://www.jessicaweible.com/

Acorn Weevil Adventure

Bria has been collecting acorns for a month or so to feed to the squirrels.  She has been quite insistent that she will feed them to the squirrels even going so far as building a squirrel house out of legos complete with a dryer lint nest and acorn storage!

This morning she had the acorns out and they spilled all over the dining room floor.  While cleaning them up Nadia found a little white worm!  Being the creepy, crawly lover she is, she immediately picked it up and wanted to keep it.  Looking at it, my first instinct was "Cuterebra, get it away from my cats!" (More info on cuterebras here if you want it.)  I let her put it in a jar until we could figure out what it really was, and on to google we went.

I found this page from the Iowa State University identifying it as an acorn weevil.  The larvae of a brown beetle that lays eggs in acorns (or other nuts) which then hatches and bores holes in the nuts to fall to the ground where it can mature.  In two years it emerges as a brown beetle!  The beetles cause no harm to people, animals, or trees, just the nuts.  The nuts affected by the larvae are useless (I have a feeling the squirrels aren't going to want Bria's acorns).

Upon learning this I had the girls look at the acorns for holes.  They actually found several! Now I wonder where the other weevils went!

I told the girls the weevil needs dirt to survive, so Nadia willingly put him our under a tree.

Just a little learning adventure this morning; you never know what these kids will find!

Colored Ants

This morning I saw a couple ants in my kitchen.  I was surprised since I haven't seen any for a few months.  This time I decided to take advantage of them for a little experiment based on this picture (Colored Ants) before getting rid of them.  I mixed up sugar and water in blue, red, and yellow.  Then I put little drips on the counter top where I saw the ants.  It took a little while for them to come to the sugar, and even longer for an significant number of them to arrive.  My ants seemed particularly attracted to the blue for some reason. A few went to the red, but I never saw any go to the yellow.  Maybe I didn't get as much sugar in those colors.  It didn't really matter since you could plainly see the blue in the ant after they ate it! The girls were really excited about the blue ants! After watching the blue bellied ants for a while I mixed up a new batch of sugar, borax, and water, so I could get rid of them all together.  The borax does kill them, but make sure to clean the area well after as it is toxic!

Look closely at the pictures.  I don't have a macro lens, so it may be a little hard to see, but you can see the color in their abdomen!

Egg Carton Ladybugs and Fireflies

I had been planning on making a version of these ladybugs I had seen on GoGreen, but hadn't got around to it.  Then last weeks story time was about fireflies which gave me the idea to make fireflies as well!  To make these you need a cardboard egg carton, scissors, paint, pipe cleaners,  medium pom poms, glue (we used hot glue), and  glow paint.

I started by cutting up my egg carton into what would become 12 individual bugs.  I saved the top to use as a paint tray.

Then I had the girls each paint 6 bugs. Bria only wanted to do 4, so I got to make 2.   I did end up cutting more off the bottom of them, so they would lay flat on the table.  

After letting them dry we started putting spots on them.  I had the girls use Q-tips to do this.  I tried adding the glow paint to mine, but decided it would be better to do it at the very end since it takes a while to dry.

I cut the pipe cleaners in half, folded the halves in half, and hot glued them to the egg carton.

Then I glued a pom pom on top of that for the head.

I curled the pipe cleaner anntenae, and had the girls paint the glow in the dark glue on their fireflies.

And we had bugs!

Ladybugs (watch out for that baby)

Fireflies

I tried to get a picture of one glowing, but they really don't photograph well (especially in the girls closet).