Summer Reports, Swimming Lessons

These are our reptiles. The pictures were made by coloring with Sharpies on aluminum foil. Then we cut them out and pasted them to construction paper. Sorry, I couldn't get them to face the right way.

Annabelle learned about crocodiles and alligators. She learned that there are only 2 types of alligators - the American alligator found in the southeast US, and a chinese alligator. Alligators are mostly grey/black in color, have short rounded snouts. Crocodiles are mostly brown in color. Crocodiles have long, V-shaped mouths.

Jonah studied the Komodo Dragon. He learned they start out as tiny lizards living in trees, eating bugs. They can grow up to 10 feet long. Their favorite food is deer or wild boar. Luckily they only live on a few islands of Indonesia.

Grace learned all about snakes. Snakes do not have legs or arms. They have long tongues that they use to smell. If a snake has fangs, it is poisonous. The fangs can squirt venom. Most snakes lay flexible, leathery eggs. Snakes shed their skin as they grow. Grace learned to recognize a few snakes, like the rattlesnake and garter snake and a few others.

Olivia learned about turtles. Turtles spend most of the time in water, while tortoises spend most of their time on land. Their shell grows from their backbone, so they cannot leave their shell. They have no teeth, but they do have a hard beak.

Every day for two weeks, the kids all had swimming lessons. This was the last week of June and first week of July. Olivia's swim class was mostly for fun. She was upset the first couple days because she couldn't go play like she normally does. She had to sit and listen and only do what the instructor said. But she warmed up to the structure and had fun anyway. Finn did not have lessons, and he was quite upset that he couldn't get in the water, too. Luckily the pool building is connected to the library, so I took him there during swim lessons. That way I didn't have to keep chasing and hauling him away from the water's edge.

We did a week research on presidents of the United States, but the kids had a hard time getting into it. The reports were kind of a flop. We did learn a tiny bit about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Barak Obama.

Next we learned about insects. Jonah studied the praying mantis. He thought is was cool that sometimes while mating, the female eats the male's head! Then afterward she may eat him all the way.

Annabelle wrote a lovely report about honey bees. The worker honey bees spend a few days being a house bee polishing and cleaning, then a few days being a nurse bee, 10 days are spent making wax storage cells, then 7 days as a guard bee, then forager bee, then they die. Did you know the buzz a bee makes is from it's wings beating 200 times a second?

Grace told us about the life cycle of a butterfly. Olivia told us that ladybugs are red and have black spots and are good for the garden.