Taxonomy 101

The school year has now truly begun. I taught my first Science Time classes on Monday and Tuesday. The weekly routine is complete and I don't have any more excuses to prevent me from submerging into this whole writing business. So here I blog.

Science Time started when my friend Peggy called two years ago and asked if I wanted to teach an after school preschool science program. Sure. Why not? Sounds like a good endeavor for someone who wants to write chapter books for children.

Now Peggy and I are business partners going into our third year of Science Time. My study is littered with plastic specimen jars, bug cages, googley eyes and pipe cleaners.

Usually Boxer and her children star in the first class because even the most teary eyed hesitant young three year old will crack a smile and laugh when a box turtle poops in their hand. I know my audience.

I gave the turtles a break this year because Boxer is a.w.o.l. and I hate pausing class to wash my hands.

Peggy and I taught Taxonomy 101. Can three's and four's get this? Yes. Scientists study things by sorting. So do preschoolers. We sorted each other and sorted crayons before moving on to the good stuff: cold blooded vs. warm blooded animals.

The secret to a successful Science Time class is a bullet proof message. No matter what, some part of the message needs to make it home to the parents. Even if a turtle did poop on the teacher and that's all the kids want to talk about.

This week we made a set of animal cards cut from brown paper bags with pictures glued on them. Not only is this material recycled it is durable. We punched holes in the cards and reinforced them just in case.

While the kids colored, I handed out the cards one at a time. Repetition is the key. Each time we went over what makes that animal warm blooded or cold blooded.

When we were done going through all 10 cards, the children strung them on a pipe cleaner, making a nice neat package to carry home.

The rest of the class was filled with playing the game. I would ask them to go through their cards and find a two legged warm blooded animal or a cold blooded animal with no legs. They loved it.

Next week we are teaching All Turtles Great and Small whether Boxer comes back or not.

Rules for Falling Behind on a Blog

The first rule for falling behind on your blog is don't talk about falling behind on your blog.

No one wants to hear why you are behind.

The second rule for falling behind on your blog is don't talk about falling behind on the blog.  

Just admit that you stumbled into a worm hole and get over it.

The third rule for falling behind on your blog is post a picture of a cat and move on.

Boxing up the Herb Garden

The backyard is slowly undergoing a total redo.  The end results will be an undulating patio with a pergola, grilling station and scattered seating.  

This means I finally get to tear down the weird detached deck built by the previous owners.  It is more dock or dais then deck.  Standing on the vile thing, I feel like I'm on a watch tower looking into the neighbors yards.  

Before the despised deck can go, I need to make a temporary space for the grill and table.  We don't want to sacrifice nice evenings outside for a prolonged construction project. 

Step 1.  Move the herb garden.  This will let me use pavers to extend the small patio off the back door. 

But I don't know where the new herb garden will be.  So I am building moving crates out of garage scraps.  Lining the crates with newspaper let's me easily shuffle my homeless herbs around or give them up for adoption.  

If you need mint, lemon balm, oregano or catnip, let me know. 

The 2012 Mommy Manifesto

Three years ago I taped ten rules for summer vacation to the wall of our kitchen.  Those rules have grown with my kids and evolved through trial and error into The Mommy Manifesto.

Do we stick to the rules the whole summer?  No.  At first we are strict but by August the rules are pretty loose and open to interpretation.

Then why post rules at all?  Because think of how feral my kids would be if I started out lax.  It would be unbrushed hair, jammies all day, breakfast at 11 a.m. and surly moods all around before the end of June.

The Mommy Manifesto

Summer 2012

1.  Have breakfast with Dad on the weekdays.
This ensures that the little dears are up and fed by 7:15 a.m., letting us take advantage of cooler mornings for outside activities.  It also means that the little rotters will be tired by 7:15 p.m., allowing mom and dad some grown up time.

2.  4 p.m. to 5 p.m. is quiet hour.  
Interpretation:  No screen time.  No saying "mom" for one hour.  Other than that, you can do what you want, where ever you want to in the house as long as you don't touch or talk to your sibling.  This lets me caffeinate, cook dinner and head into the last part of the day with a bit of sanity.

3.  No Screen Time before noon.  
If the screen time starts first thing in the morning, the active part of our day bleeds away into one more show or one more level.  Better to leave that junk for the heat of the day and not waste valuable outside morning time.

4.  Screen Time must be earned.  
Screen Time is not an inalienable right and must be earned half an hour at a time.  See the Mommy Manifesto Screen Time Addendum 2012.

5.  Each kid cooks dinner once a week.  
Parental help is provided.  This rule flopped the first year because I tried to have the kids working together to produce a meal.  It has since evolved into a sibling separation tactic.

6.  Go hiking once a week.  
This should be fun this year because we can go hiking then pick up our CSA at Leroy Springs on Tuesdays.

7.  Have dinner at the pool once a week.
Always fun because Dad gets to join us at the pool for an evening swim.  Also, nothing makes a kid sleepier than a little chlorinated water in their eyes.

8.  Three movie nights a week.
I have to state this right up front, otherwise there is constant begging for a movie night and arguing over what to watch.  Movie night every night means that bedtimes runs away with us and my sanity erodes.

9.  Try a new recipe once a week. 
Debuting a new rule this year in honor of our first summer in a CSA.  I'm hoping this keeps the kids involved in meal time and gets them to try more foods.

10.  Have fun!  
An over scheduled summer is like an over scheduled school year:  No time for spontaneous play and plain old fun with friends.

The Mommy Manifesto Screen Time Addendum, 2012
Screen Time may be earned half an hour at a time by:
Reading a chapter book for half an hour.
Walking or running one mile. (Yes, the weekly hike earns screen time)
Writing a NEW story.  Beginning, middle and end required, thank you very much.
Cleaning your room.

All activities can be repeated in the same day (except cleaning your room) to earn even more screen time.  Please!  Read for an hour or more, hike/walk/run a mile or more, write lots of stories.  But a room may only be cleaned once in a day.


Screen time must be used the day it is earned.  There are no roll over screen time minutes.
Family movie night does need to be earned.

Yet Another Birth Announcement

Look who joined me for coffee this morning.

There was a little hatching mishap over the weekend.

In March I ordered three Chinese Praying Mantis Ootheca.  Unfortunately they arrived when I was ill.  Not only was their home made cage not ready but the poor dears spent a day or two cooking in the black metal mailbox in full sun.

I drilled a few holes in the plastic pretzel barrel and set the ootheca on the bottom, rather than hanging them up from a nest of sticks.  After more than a month, I gave up hope that they would hatch.

This is my very lame apology for the fact that the lid was not all the way on the pretzel jar when at least a thousand.

My son and his friend discovered the hatching on Sunday.  The nymphs must have just started hatching because only a couple hundred were running around loose in the library.


I quickly finished the mantis habitat with a piece of screen and some duct tape for proper ventilation plus sticks for climbing.

My son rounded up as many nymphs as he could.  Obviously a few are still making the rounds of the house.

I'm going to set this little guy outside with the other liberated nymphs.  Hopefully they will eat lots of mosquitoes, grow up and lay ootheca of their own.

Their siblings in captivity aren't faring as well.  I'm not having much success catching fruit flies for the nymphs and the tiny crickets I bought at petsmart are too big.  The nymphs are coping with the problem.

Alas alack, the fratricide has begun.  

Birth Announcement

Look what I found during my morning garden rounds.

This little box turtle is from the 2011 brood that hatched in August.  The 2010 brood had six babies hatch.  When we found Scooter in August, I searched the pen a few times looking for any siblings.  Baby box turtles survive their first three years by the curl up and cope method.  Clearly they are great at hiding.

The older a box turtle is, the more eggs she lays.  Clutches start out at two or three.  Boxer is at least 14 years old.  We thought there would be more babies in Scooter's clutch but figured that predators or the harsh summer took a toll.

Since this little guy hibernated through the winter all on his or her own, I think the name should be Lucky.   However, my husband and son seem to remember a promise that the next turtle be named Gamera.

That's an awfully big name for such a little turtle.  But a promise is a promise.

Welcome to the Garden of Good Intentions, Gamera.  

Wrapping Up Science Time

This year Peggy and I got smart.  As Science Time wound down and the kids wound up for summer, we made our projects more and more kinetic.  Less and less dependent on glue sticks.

Imaginary play is a great way to learn.  Our three's and four's loved this salt marsh project. 

We gave them an 18"x12" page with the blue tide line already hot glued to it.  The "tide" is open at the top, making a perfect pocket for all the marsh animals we handed out during the class. 

Cord grass is the heart of the salt marsh.  We explained this to the children while they colored the whole page green.  Even during science class, there is always time to hone those fine motor skills. 

Next we handed out wavy strips of brown paper to represent the creeks as the tide goes out.  This was my favorite part because each child got to design their own marsh.  I love it when the kids go home with projects showing their own individual flair.  

Last, we borrowed a story rhythm from Erik caarl to help us introduce the marsh animals.   Blue heron, blue heron, what do you see. . . .

Our marsh animals came from online clip art and were printed on white card stock to make them more durable. The children colored them in while we explained how each animal played a roll in the salt marsh ecosystem.

By the end of the hour, the class room was a din of talking otters, blue crabs, shrimp, herring gulls, sheepshead minnows, periwinkle snails and happy preschoolers.   

Now its time to get ready for our June 11-15 Science Time Summer Camp.