Ants, Seeds, Eggs

To go along with our study if insects, the boys were interested in having an ant farm.  Since we live in an area full of fire ants, I was not crazy about the idea of making one and catching our ants.  To be honest, I wasn't that crazy about doing an ant farm at all.  I try to make it so there are no ants in my house :).  But, the boys were really interested, so we bought an ant farm at Walmart for $15 and sent for our free ants ($4 shipping.)  The ants are Harvester Ants which do sting, so you have to put them in the fridge before you add them to your ant farm.  This is our second batch of ants (long story on what happened to the first one, baby getting hold of the ant farm was a big part) and the children love having an ant farm!  They are a lot of fun to watch and easy to take care of.

We are taking a break from our Apologia Flying Creatures for a little while.  We only have about 2 weeks left until we finish the book and we have some really interesting Science review items we are working on right now.  We are working on Christian Kids Explore Biology from Bright Ideas Press (look for my review next week.)  The next unit is on plants and the children really have been interested in planting some seeds.  While we were at Walmart on Friday each of the children picked out a seed packet and we planted them Saturday afternoon when the weather was beautiful!  I am not very successful at growing things, but I am hoping something will grow.

My mom and dad were here for the weekend to celebrate Christian's birthday (he is 5 today), so while they were here we had some Easter fun.  We had a little egg hunt in the back yard and colored eggs.  We colored the eggs outside since it was so beautiful and hotter in the house than outside.  I hated to do it, but I broke down and turned the AC on when we went to bed.  It is going to be a long, hot summer.