Dance Recital

The girls had their dress rehearsal today for their baton class.

(Thank you, Ms. Maureen, for putting my girls together for the photo op.) :)

Ode to the Skink

(I thought you might enjoy the poem our family composed while excitedly overwhelming Daddy with the details of their discovery yesterday. Our family has this corny habit of rhyming silly thoughts. Each person makes their unique contribution. Enjoy!)

We found a skink.
We named her Tink.
Her tail had a kink.
She dressed in pink mink
At the skating rink.

She caused a stink!
And crawled into a sink.
We saw her shrink!
We heard kerrrplink!
That was the end of our pink skink.

:)

Our newest creature...

It's a skink! Woohoo! I've never seen one before. I had no idea what this thing was...but thanks to the knowledgeable people at eNature, I'll always seem highly intelligent to my kids. ;) At first I thought it was a salamander, or maybe a gecko, or just plain ugly. Nope, it's a skink--you can tell by the slender claws, just like a lizard.

(Disclaimer: my lizard lovers didn't inherit their outdoor zeal from me. I spent my childhood reading, writing, violining and letting the other kids handle these villians.)

I didn't take this picture; if I did, it would have looked exactly like what you see now. This particular beast is a broadheaded skink which resides among the leaves on the forest floor, but hangs out on the tree tops while waiting to gulp down insects and wasp delicacies. Who knew?

Our lonely skink lost it's way to somewhere because it took an unfortunate detour to our front porch. Lucky for the skink, the dog was playing in the neighbor's creek at the time.

The kids are sad that I wouldn't let them keep this skink as another pet. Tomorrow they plan on scouting out another skink, in hopes that I'll let them raise a skink family. Don't you think it's time to divert their attention with some new fish for the tank? Off to Petsmart in the morning...

Here's a shock for you...

We found another lizard!

I think this makes lizard #4052 (I think...I lost count after the 2nd one they found this spring) since March 31. She is named Lilly and she now lives in a shoebox with lots of green leaves. She is apparently special because she has a "blue neck," as K said; meaning it has a bluish collar around the neck. (While riding her bike the other day, she smashed into a large concrete column--but give her a lizard and she observes minute details my eyes don't register.)

My kids are either bored or incredibly enamored by these creatures. We have thousands of dollars invested in dolls, toys, books, playground equipment, a baby brother...but it's the natural creatures that obsesses their minds.

As long as they keep their interests in lizards, butterflies/moths, ladybugs or an occasional spider, I'm fine. If they start bringing home snakes...we're moving far, far out of these woods!

I did note today that catching small beasts is a good physical activity, too. You should have seen K scurry to snag this sucker! She can be stealthy and swift when she wants. Now if being quiet is a necessity--you know, at the library or at bedtime--oh no, she'd be as loud and clumsy as possible! ;)

Strawberry Ink

We're continuing our study of American history with The Hatmaker's Sign and Paul Revere's Ride for K and M; CG is still working on Betsy Ross. And we made the Declaration of Independence come alive!

Using and activity from Visual Manna's American History Through Art, we made ink from berries, much like people would have done hundreds of years ago. Well, sort of like they did--I did have the luxury of electricity and a stove; but unlike them, I didn't have fields of fresh berries to pick and I only had strawberries to work with. And not just any strawberries, the overly-ripest 4 you have ever seen. The 4 that were hidden inside a cup, in the fridge, suspended between Monday night's leftovers and a new gallon of milk.

Not sure why the girls thought to hide strawberries from their picking day, but I'm glad they did since we had no other berries for this activity.

So I cut up the four I had and prayed for the best:

To these chopped 'berries, I added 1/2cup of water and brought to a boil. The 'berries didn't give a bold color so I added a tea bag (Celestial Seasonings Strawberry, nonetheless) to the water. It simmered until the color was dark enough to use (2-3 minutes?, not long).

I drained the concoction into our inkwell: a lovely ice cream dish. :) And added in 1/4t each of salt and vinegar. I'm not sure why, but the recipe called for it--I suppose it strengthens the color somehow?

Anticipating this project, I already had faux feathers from AC Moore on hand to use as quills. I simply cut the ends at an angle so the quill part would soak up and hold some of the "ink." (By the way, do your kids sit on the table when doing schoolwork?)

Anyway, they experimented with quills by writing as fancy as they could. During colonial times, people coveted beautiful scripted handwriting. They even toted around autograph books to show off their friends' signatures. That's why the Declaration is so flourishing fancy.

Here's M's attempt:

Here M gives up and pretends to write Constitutional-style with her fanciful scribbles!

At least the kids have an appreciation for handwriting practice!