"For the Birds" update, again...

Our bird chart is growing like crazy!

We have seen so many different species, in all sorts of places, around our house!

Here are FIVE Turkey Vultures we saw over the weekend, down the street from our house! We pulled over and got out of the car to check out one that we saw on a tree by the road... Within in minutes, one-by-one, multiple Turkey Vultures joined the party for a total of FIVE in one tree!

As I was minding my own business and updating the blog this afternoon, I was treated to a little show from TWO Pileated Woodpeckers! They have been around our house for a good month now. We often hear them both calling and pecking, but it was so neat to observe them in action right outside my window.

Worm Excursion!

"Rain, rain, go away...", but not today!!!

What a great day for a worm excursion!

Sometimes the best lessons and activities come when you least expect them! On our regular adventure to the mailbox this afternoon we were pleasantly surprised by a HUGE earthworm crossing the driveway. What started as a few questions from my daughter, led to a fun adventure in the rain!

There were so many questions coming from both of us...

• How does it move?
• Where's the mouth?
• Where does it go to the bathroom?
• What is it doing?
• Why did it scrunch up and stop moving after we tried to touch it?

We observed the worm for a bit and brainstormed all sorts of ideas about where it was going, what it was doing, etc. We then proceeded out to the mailbox and came up with some other ideas and questions, such as... "I wonder if there are more worms out and about right now?"

For quite some time we sloshed down the driveway, across the lawn, near the woods, and over to the freshly rototilled garden looking for more worms. We didn't find many more, but one special worm was enough to open up a can of worms of excitement to learn something new!

(Here's an Earthworm crash-course and a great site for kids.)

Here are some directions we may go in from here...

• Make dirt cake! (Three versions of this recipe can be found on allrecipes.com.) Using the edible experiment, discuss layers of the dirt, places worms may go, how worms help plant roots in soil, etc.
• Label worm body parts! (Use a gummy worm and toothpick flags to label all the parts to the worm.)
• Learn all about animal adaptation! (How do different animals move, protect themselves from predators, eat food, and survive?)
• Ecosystems! (What roles to the animals and plants in an ecosystem play? How do worms help and ecosystem?)