In-Home Hatching: Baby Robins!

A little 4 year old somebody in our house just LOOOOVES birds. Well, we all do around here but I mean she LOOOOVES them! She has two of those great Audubon singing plush birds (Male Robin and Eastern Bluebird) She also received a needle felted female bluebird from Santa (with a little help from mom) for leaving him such healthy treats to fortify him on his epic Christmas Eve journey. She left him blueberries and almond milk! She just loves to play "Birdies", finding new types of nests for them and now since those little fuzzy Easter chicks appeared in stores, the birds can be Mommies and Daddies. I was inspired to give her some robin babies as the Plush Robin has been father to baby chicks for quite some time. He seems perfectly paternal in his adoption of chickens but well....

First Hatchling

And Then There Were Two...

So Ugly They're Cute!

Feed Me, Feed Me!

Now to make a Female Robin. Over at our house it's not a question of which came first, the chick or the egg, its- which came first, the babies or the mommy. Babies came first due to lack of time in making a mommy bird. A. doesn't mind, the daddy Robin is a great Daddy just like her own!

A Froggy Family Birthday

Our sweet little A-Girl is 4! We had a wonderful family birthday with all of the Grandma's and Grandpa's and Great Grandma's. We now have two new friends at home who live in the Montessori classroom area and have become the object of much study! Grandma and Grandpa T purchased two African Dwarf Frogs (Hymenochirus Curtipes) at a great Educational/Toy store in Vernon BC called Vernon Teach and Learn.

Their classroom habitat

They live in harmony with Living Gravel TM (a bacteria infused gravel) and a Lucky Bamboo Plant. Essentially, the unique “Living Gravel” is acting as the natural filter for the water, filtering the dangerous ammonia left from waste material and converting it into nutrients for the aquatic plant. The plant feeds off of those nutrients and converts them into nutrients for the water and the wildlife. The wildlife then converts those nutrients into nutrients (waste material) for the gravel. It is a balanced ecosystem environment that is constantly cleaning and conditioning the water. Not only can A. learn about aquatic frogs but when she starts learning about ecosystems this habitat will be a simple example for her to understand. She can also learn about aquatic plants and bacteria! It's a 4 in one learning tool and the frogs are so cute too!

I call them Tiny and Mini but according to A. they don't have names!

Physical Science and Zoology shelf.

The top two shelves are dedicated to learning about our new friends.

Frog Life Cycle. The images are from Montessorimom.com's frog lifecycle cards

Frog Matching from Montessori Print Shop's free downloads

Laying out the Life Cycle with cards and little froggy miniatures

Frog Coloring Page courtesy of www.first-school.ws

Beautiful Bull Frog!

I long to find some frog eggs that we can nurture to frog maturity and then let go back in the wilderness. I was very fortunate to be able to experience that when I was young and I'll never forget taking care of those little guys from egg to adult frog! We've heard of a park fairly nearby that has an explosion of frogs every year. So many that there are signs posted telling cars to slow down or they may skid off of the road due to the thousands of car tire frogicides. Maybe we can save some from that fate. Will keep you posted!