A farm park trip out

During school half term we ventured out in the rain to our local farm park - Cotswold Farm park it is a fantastic place about an hours drive from where we live. The weather certainly kept most visitors at home, so we nearly had the place to ourselves. Henry and i went with one of his friends from school.

Henry loves animals, and so the touch and

cuddle area was a BIG hit!

Henry started with a very fluffy bunny....then moved onto a very small yellow cheeping chick!

He thendecided that the pen full of ducks looked like they needed some loving, so he asked if he could hold one. Judging by the assistant's response it was obviously not a regular request! But she managed to catch a very large duckling/small duck......and Henry loved it. Fascinated by its webbed feet and the fact it had small claws on the webs.

During the rest of our trip Henry fed a VERY LARGE lamb by bottle! Chased piglets,fed goats and drove electric tractors for about an hour! We also checked out the nature trail in the wood, and took a trip round the farm by tractor and trailer.

Altogether, a FANTASTIC day out!

A ride in a combine harvester

Henry is in love with John Deere tractors!....Well anything John Deere actually. When back in Chicago, we drove over to Moline in IL (over 3 hrs drive) just to visit the JD tractor museum for the day! At the museum, Henry got to climb in and out of full size tractors and harvesters of all sorts, which he thought was just great. However, his god mother Debbie totally topped this, getting him a ride in a combine harvester, actually harvesting the crop.

Henry is in the combine harvester in all these pictures, some you can spot him, others not.

The anticipation you could feel coming from Henry as he watched the combine harvest around the field was completely exceeded as it turned towards us and we told he he was about to get a ride in it.

With a bit of help to get up the steps, he and William took seats in the cab and began their trip around the field harvesting the barley crop. On the way round the combine was working to cut the crop, but the boys also got to see the tank emptied into the tractor and trailer travelling along side.

Tractors and combine are fitted with satellite guided harvesting equipment, so the driver has to do very little steering except around the corners and changing direction, so the boys were fascinated to watch the computer screen and harvesting details.

Paul, the driver was so patient with the boys, that they actually circled the field twice and cut the headlands a fair bit, spending about an hour out in the combine. Needless to say he asked if either of them ever stopped talking...ever!

Henry had a fantastic opportunity to experience something i have never done, and I'm sure he will have sweet dreams about it for many a long summer evening to come!

Outdoor Hour Challege - Ladybugs/Ladybirds

After a couple of weeks off the challenges with our move, we managed to complete on this week - our first in the UK.

This week we tackled Challenge #26 - Ladybugs and aphids.
At this point just let me explain that in the UK we call these little red & black bugs "ladybirds". In an attempt to have Henry speaking English again we used the English terminology for this challenge!!!!!!

Having noticed literally hundreds of lady birds flying around the garden, i looked at the list of challenges and was delighted to find one on ladybirds. However, on the day we did our challenge, the wind was blowing hard and i think we were rather short changed on our bug availability!

However, we went on an explore of my parents gorgeous garden in Suffolk, England. My parents have a great veggie patch, wild blackberries, apple trees and just so many flowers it is amazing. After about 5 minutes; no ladybirds. Armed with a magnifying glass and a pot to put a bug or two into, Henry had been pretty enthusiastic, but that started to dwindle as we found no lady birds. We did however find flies, and huge bumble bees.

Our eagle adult eyes however soon spotted the first lady bird, and after that another 8. I had Henry keep a tally on a piece of paper of every bug we found, then add them up at the end.

We caught a few for closer examination, and also had some crawl onto our arms for fun. Henry overcame his fear and even had one on his arm. Henry had a lot of fun using the magnifying glass when the bugs stayed still long enough.

Back in the house (after about half an hour outside) we journaled our experience. We discussed number of legs, spots, colours, how they moved and where they lived.

Henry drew around a cup and saucer to create the outline of the bug and then painted a great lady bird.

An couple of extra fun activities were:

Finger painting lady birds - where we put splodges of red paint on paper using our fingertips, then when dry we added legs, spots, heads, eyes, antennae etc.

Face painting - I found a face painting kit in a draw never used and Henry agreed to let me turn him into a lady bird - red face with black spots.......in return he painted my face as a tiger!

This challenge was a lot of fun for us.

Sunflowers up date

About 2 months after we planted our sunflowers, the time spent looking at their growth has rather reduced! We originally started the sunflowers as part of an Outdoor Hour challenge. However, with our move back to the UK imminent, i thought we should record their growth one last time.

Henry decided which wasthe tallest sunflower of the group we have.

He then used the tape measure to see how high it was. A massive 24"! Last time we measured we took a reading of 37cm (a month ago). We have changed into inches as i did not have enough squares on my graph paper to continue in cm!!!

After measuring, we counted the leaves. There were 18 leaves.

I asked Henry to draw what he saw & make a record of what the plant looked like. He started off really well with two sets of leaves on the stem & one set at the top....i then asked where the other 12 should go; they then got placed all the way down the stem wherever they could be fitted in, hence the great drawing of the sunflower plant.

I then removed a leave from the plant, Henry traced around it. we then discussed what he could see on the leaf. He could see "lines" - i explained these were veins, and showed him my veins and we found his in his arm. We discussed how blood moves in our veins and how the veins in a leave moved the food and water to help the plant grow. Henry then had a go at drawing the veins in the leaf.

We are very sad to leave our sunflowers before they have flowers, but they are going to a great home with one of Henry's friend's who has promised to update us with lots of photos when they flower.

Outdoor Hour - Challenge # 27 - Bees

This week's Outdoor Hour challenge for us is Challenge #27 - Bees

This week, Henry has been at camp at the Botanic gardens. Yesterday the class spent the morning studying bees and discussing bees and their activities. I thought I'd jump on Henry's enthusiasm and we could do this outdoor hour challenge with his new found knowledge.

I checked out the bee's in the Botanic garden today and found out some interesting facts and snapped a couple of good pictures.After much discussion on the subject, I thought we would start with a craft. A bee!

Using tissue paper (in balls and cut into squares), we designed our bee. I drew the basic body, head and wing shapes which Henry cut out.

I then tore tissue paper up and Henry helped me screw it into little balls; very good for developing strength and co-ordination with the hands. He drew stripes on the bee's body, the proceeded to stick the tissue paper on in stripes.

With the head, we used a more mosaic approach, using little squares of tissue paper. I offered Henry one eye or two - he chose two. For the wings, i was going to have him use tissue paper, but he announced that he would like feathers! Good thing i carry such stock!

We put the bee together, and it looks great.

After the art, we did a little writing practice and made our journal entries.

With a little help Henry drew the bee honeycomb shapes and practiced his letter b and B writing, and described bees a little.

Peggy Notebart Nature Museum - Trip Out

One of our favourite museums in Chicago is the Peggy Notebart Nature Museum. Packed full of kid friendly exhibits and experiences it is a real treat.

Today we struck lucky and had an amazing visit.

The butterfly house was great, and Henry was far more relaxed as they fluttered by in close proximity. We went hunting for Henry's butterflies friends the painted ladies, but saw so many more. Check out the great slide show of some that i caught on camera at the bottom of this entry.

Although the butterflies are the main draw to this museum, every day, an animal that can be petted is normally on show as well. However today we found three, just waiting for us. Hen

ry, much to my amazement showed no hesitation in getting up close and personal with all three!

First he was intrigued by a HUGE python. He stroked it and described it as "warm and smooth".

Next he got down in amongst some very long suffering tortoises! He picked them up, turned them over, checked out their legs, eyes, tail, and shell. He even tried out his own experiment to see what happened when he put them on their backs....needless to say my intervention on behalf of the poor tortoise was needed at this point!

A lizard was also sat calmly (did not move a muscle) on an arm chair, so Henry checked that out "hard and rough". I'm not sure he believed me that it was real though, as it was so still.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The outdoor Hour - Butterflies

This week's Outdoor hour challenge was Challenge #22 Butterflies. If you have been following the blog so far you will know that we have raised our own butterflies from Caterpillar stage.

The whole experience of watching the middle stages of the life cycle of a butterfly have been fascinating for both Henry and I. I can't think of a more engaging way to learn about this subject.

After 32 years, I saw first hand, caterpillars close up, eating leaves, spinning silk and creating a large amount of poop for such a small creature!

The change into chrysalis was fascinating, as was the change in colour of the chrysalis over the 10 days they developed. This morning, to see the chrysalis wiggle intermittently and then watch a butterfly emerge as we ate our breakfast was a unique experience.

With live creatures and detailed photos on hand. Henry went about recording the appearance of his butterflies.

We started with finger painting our painted lady. Looking carefully at the photo to add detail in the right places.

Henry then did an amazing drawing of the butterfly with its wings closed (rather than open). With little guidance from me he drew the butterfly from the photo.

He made a point of telling me what he was drawing at each stage: the wings, its head (with a x in the middle of its eye), its body. It has 4 legs. It has 2 antennae with white dots on the end. It has a long tongue. I encouraged him to look carefully at the photo and count specific features such as circles and colours. Which he then carefully added to his drawing in crayons and pencils.

In addition to recording his observations in art form, Henry and I also discussed in detail how to describe the butterfly. I captured his thoughts and he wrote the key words.

We also went over the life cycle of the butterfly once more - a process I think Henry dosn't even need to think about anymore, because he has been exposed to it in such a physical way.

The first butterfly has arrived

First in the kitchen this morning, Henry was more than a little excited to find that his first butterfly has emerged from its chrysalis in the early hours.

After watching it intently, we decided to provide it with some food. Watermelon on hand we gave it a nice juicy bit...only for me to have to re think an hour later as it kept getting soggy in the watermelon juice that pooled around the fruit!!!

Anyway, as usual my inventiveness shined through! Emptying out the mesh basket with all the paints in (which are now just dumped on the floor) we gave our new butterfly a more satisfactory home. It even spent the afternoon outside in the fresh air in its new home!

On the last few occasions that we have visited a butterfly house, Henry has been scared of the butterflies as they fluttered past him. However today, his inquisitiveness got the better of him. I showed him how the butterfly walked onto my hand with no hesitation and described how it felt to him. Regardless of Henry's education, this was a new one for me......it was FANTASTIC.

Shortly after, Henry had his hand down into the habitat and the butterfly climbed obligingly onto Henry. He was literally shaking with excitement and intrepidation. He was so excited by the experience though, it was amazing. It was all i could do all afternoon to keep him from making the butterfly a permanent attachment to him!

At bed time we read all the Caterpillar and butterfly books he has in his collection. With another butterfly expected tomorrow (with two of the other chrysalis's darkening) he went to bed a very happy boy.

Caterpillar update

A few days ago, some of our caterpillars made it to chrysalis stage. It took about 4 days for 5 caterpillars to make it to the top of the jar to create their cocoons. One of those making the top never cocooned.

It was with great excitement, and Henry very worried about disturbing them, on 26th May that we moved them into their new habitat, to hang as cocoons and hopefully come out as butterflies.

The chrysalis's are fascinating to look at. A silvery grey green colour, you can see the caterpillar inside, but also an area where i guess the wings are forming.

The caterpillar's spikes appear like a gold colour through the chrysalis.

So we will wait with patience and hope that at least one of these creatures will make it through the whole cycle so that Henry may experience this amazing natural wonder first hand.

We will keep you posted!