I saw this on Gift of Curiosity over the weekend and I couldn’t believe we didn’t already have them. They are water beads that most people use for flower arrangements and watering plants. You soak about one tablespoon in 10 cups of water overnight. I added a few drops of food coloring so these would have a blue tint. I laid down a plastic table cloth, some towels, assorted containers and spoons and let the girls have at it. (It lasted about 5 minutes before they decided they needed more items of their choice to scoop and fill)
It didn’t take long for me to be offered blueberry ice cream, blueberry soup and blueberry shakes prepared by the girls. Amelie kept saying, “Don’t really eat it Mama.”
This was really fun for the girls. Nadia liked how they felt wet when you put your hands in, but she didn’t get all wet playing with them. She also did several experiments to see how high they would bounce (pretty much like a rubber bouncy ball) and how many times you could bounce them before they came apart. Amelie had a lot of fun pretending they were various foods, but ended up trying to destroy the entire batch to feel them squish between her hands.
These can be messy, but they are fun and I give them a thumbs up. We will definitely be playing with them again because I didn’t even have a chance to do the math games I wanted to try with them.
I enjoy reading blogs and getting ideas for new ideas to try with the girls. The Imagination Tree gave me this idea to try and teach Amelie patterns. I have tried various other things with her, but it hasn’t really clicked. All along the answer was in jewelry creation đŸ™‚ Nadia wanted to join in and I told her she could just create whatever she wanted, but Amelie had to follow whatever I was calling out.
These would be the “another photo?” faces. HA!
We ended up with come cool stuff, but my favorite was the “crown” Nadia made me for “being a good mom.”
This happened about a week ago and today I tried some more patterns on paper with Amelie and she was so proud to “get it” right away. A wonderful thing about homeschooling is that you can tailor things to each child and Amelie clearly needs things repeated more and to do more hands on activities.
I had a hard time narrowing it down so there are a lot of photos đŸ™‚
Groupon sent an email about Sharkarosa Wildlife Ranch and it looked really cool to me. I checked their website and saw they were about 65 miles from us and as I continued to check it out I saw that they were having a homeschool day in just a few days. I cancelled everything else and registered us. I decided to keep it a secret from the girls and told them to bring some stuff in the car to keep them busy for a long drive. We were about half a mile away when Nadia saw a sign for the ranch with a picture of a kangaroo on it and she said, “Kangaroos? It would be cool to see kangaroo’s today.” By the time we parked and the girls could see they started getting really excited.
We started out by going to a presentation on kangaroo’s and heard some amazing facts. Then we saw this little Joey who lost his mom so they made him his own pouch. So cute!
After the kangaroos we got on the safari tram and if you ever go, I suggest you get on the narrow green one, not the one white one because you can stand right up and pet the animals. Also go on the tram when you first get there because the lines get long and the animals are excited about the food buckets. We first met some horses and Zorses which they told us were safe to pet. We continued on to another area and saw zebras and we were told NOT to touch them.
Mom named Spot and baby Dot.
This is a type of deer from China that is now extinct in China and this guy is one of the few left in the world.
Then we went to see the Camels and they were really friendly. Nadia and I had a good time petting all the ones that came near to us. Amelie was TOTALLY freaked out by the camels and she stayed in her seat. I was scratching the neck of a camel and he practically tried to kiss me. That made Nadia start laughing and Amelie screamed out, “He’s going to eat Mommy!”
We moved on to the petting zoo area and I bought a cup of feed. This made me realize how much Nadia has grown up because she was so happy to feed a sheep, goats and even a pig – it was really precious.
This guy kept running up and head butting my hips trying to knock the food cup I was holding out of his reach. It made me laugh every time he did it.
Amelie was willing to pet the animals, but did not want to feed them.
This is a photo from the barrel train ride on the ranch. It would be an understatement to say the girls LOVED this. They rode it 5 times by the end of our day and I joined them a couple of times which really made them laugh.
I love lemurs!
And then I got to PET a lemur. She even grabbed at Nadia’s bow and my jacket. So cute.
I35 came to a complete stop for about 10 minutes so I snapped this photo of my very tired children. What a great day we had! I am so blessed to be able to stay with my girls all day and homeschool them!
*An additional note to any locals who head over there. We stopped and ate lunch in their new restaurant “The Bears Den” which features oven fired pizza. The 3 of us split a cheese pizza and Nadia declared it the best pizza of her entire life. It was on thin crust with Parmesan cheese on the crust. The server told us they are open for dinner every night.
*The ranch only has port a potties for public use, so be prepared. I had read that on Trip Adviser and stopped at a convenience store about half a mile from the ranch. They do have restrooms inside the Bears Den if you eat there.
*It had rained a lot the day before, so be prepared for mud if you head out there. You have to remember it’s a working animal rescue and ranch.
As our regular readers know we love Unit Studies around here. After the Tiger unit Nadia wanted to Dolphins and I was excited about that. She has often heard me tell the story of when my friend Jessica and I swam with dolphins in Cancun, Mexico. This study came from Amanda Bennett’s site.
Nadia did more of the reading and writing on this study than the past since her skills are getting stronger each day. She had a lot of fun matching up the definitions to the words and to make it harder there were way more words to choose from than we used.
It would be an understatement to say the girls LOVED all the Dolphin videos we watched during this unit. Nadia declared the dolphin stampede her favorite.
We learned so many cool things about dolphins in this unit. One of the suggested books was a real life story of a man who saved a baby dolphin who had a hook stuck in it. While he was under water with the baby, the mother and father dolphin fought off a shark to protect the man and baby. Once I started reading Nadia begged me to finish the entire book in one night. She said, “It doesn’t matter how late I am up, I NEED to know how it ends.”
Once again this was a great unit with a lot of learning and fun. Next up we are planning on studying the Brain. When Nadia heard that a new unit was available she said, “Please buy it mom! I want to find out if there is water on my brain.”
