Leopard Geckos

Elijah has some new pets. Leopard Geckos. Their names are Rango and Comet. He loves them so much.

 

Elijah worked hard at making them the perfect habitat. Doesn’t that look like a great home for Geckos?

   

Rango spends a lot of his time in the tube.

 

Comet likes the heat rock.

 

Comet also likes the heat from the heat lamp.

When we first brought them home Comet didn’t want to eat. A few days later she shed her skin and now she is eating well. We read and found out that sometimes they won’t eat when they are about to shed. Elijah feeds them meal worms.

 

Rango likes to eat.   Elijah takes each gecko out one at a time and places them in a smaller container to eat so he will know who ate and who didn’t. If one doesn’t eat very well he will offer that one more food in the evening.

I don’t know who is who in the pictures below. I can tell them apart if they are side by side, but if I look at only one of them I have no idea who it is. Elijah knows who is who from a glance.

We are enjoying learning about Leopard Geckos and I plan to do a unit study on Geckos soon.

Baby Owls

We have a big owl that has lived in a tree by our house for years. She is fun to watch and I find it comforting to hear her hooting at night.

A week or so ago we discovered she has two babies. They have been peaking out at us, but today Dakota was able to get a picture of one of them.

Guess what unit study is next on our list?  OWLS

Lowe’s Build and Grow

 

Dakota and I took Elijah to Lowe’s this morning for a Build and Grow workshop. Today’s project was a pull back race car.

 

Here is Elijah nailing the two halves of the car together.

Gosh, that boy has a lot of hair!

I was thankful Dakota went with us so he could help Elijah.

Cousin It almost finished with his car. 

It was a fun little project and didn’t take long at all.

 

The finished car! It really works, if you pull it back and let go the car takes off.

If you have a Lowe’s near you they do these wood workshops every other Saturday, I believe. Check with you Lowe’s to find out more. I think there might even be some information about it on their website.

Our Taco

We added a new baby to our house this week. His name is Taco and he is a chiweenie. He has the body and nose of a weenie, the legs and head of a Chihuahua and ears of Dumbo. Isn’t he so cute!

 

Pedro has surprisingly done well with Taco. He has growled a couple of time, but when I’ve said hush he has. They haven’t fought, but I don’t think Pedro loves him.

Taco and Pedro.

  A few minutes later Pedro and Taco.

 

Taco has taken a liking to Dakota over the rest of us. He follows Dakota all over the house.

 

Taco reminds me a lot of Jose who passed away this past year with kidney problems. They have almost the same markings, but Jose has tan where Taco has a darker brown.

Science Fair 2011

Our homeschool group had our science and social studies fair this past week. Elijah entered a science project, How are Rocks Made?   Elijah made his project into a little learning center.

The board was interactive, the cards in the pockets can be taken out and moved around.The big white flap opens up and had matchbooks on the inside. At the top it says Can you name these rocks and minerals? Each little flap opens and has the name written in the matchbook. 

Elijah’s board had a lot of information and little booklets about rocks. Even a magnifying glass to use to take a closer look at the rocks.

We only took a few rocks to the fair. We have a ton of rocks, but the load would have been so heavy to try to take them all so I told Elijah to just pick a few of his favorites.

Elijah won 2nd place with his project. He was very pleased and of course I reminded him that I would have still been proud of him even if he didn’t place. The great thing about our fair is that everyone gets something so even if a project didn’t place 1st, 2nd or 3rd that person still got a medal.

Here is Elijah with his project and his trophy.

The Brain!

Elijah and I are going to be learning about the different parts of our body. We will do a unit and project on our body in between other studies.

We will be using this Anatomy book by Jeannie Fulbright.

 

We started with the brain. I set up the learning center with brain information.

I bought this styfoam head at Hobby Lobby for Elijah to draw the brain on it and label it.

  Some information about the brain.  What boy wouldn’t love eating a marshmallow brain?

Elijah did have fun cutting up that brain and eating it. It was too funny!

I’ll post a picture of the head after Elijah has finished drawing the brain on it.