Mushroom Unit Study

Fall is such a beautiful time of year here... as it is in MANY places! It is one of our most treasured times.

Our walks are so much more beautiful with the leaves falling. One thing my kinders look forward to are spotting the mushrooms that grow around here.   Last season, we took pictures of mushrooms every-time we saw them, then we made a little laminated mushroom catalog and took it along with us when we went out. 

This year, we went a little deeper in our Mushroom Study! 

The Kinder's each have their own digital camera (my old ones) and they take pictures now whenever they go on walks. I like this because it helps them become more involved in our study, and it's really neat to see what they choose to photograph. At this point they are still SO excited as they find mushrooms! KT still insists that I come and see each and every one she finds. ..=) 

                                                 Here are a few from our walk last week....

This is a Puff Ball Mushroom. They are edible before they turn this color... The kids do enjoy smashing these... lots of spores fly out!

These are Umbrella Mushrooms- They are very poisonous. 

Last week I hosted an "Introduction to Mushrooms" walk for our local First Class Home school Group.

We had a great turn out in spite of the many rainy days! And The Lord blessed us by holding the rain till the end!

Each child received a Scavenger Hunt card with 10 mushrooms found in the same woods we were headed to. 

Each mushroom had it's name along with the German name for it.

 The kids had a BLAST 

Here are all the mushrooms collected that afternoon! 

When we were done, our friend hosted ALL of us in her home right down the street for some hot cider!

 Here we had a display of Mushroom Fun & Facts! 

• Mushrooms we CAN eat - a little taste testing (portabello, oyster, and button)
• Mushroom Diagram- from enchanted learning ( we also handed these out to each student to take home)
• Mushroom Fact Sheet for each family to take home
• Spore prints the kinders and I made last week 
• Mushroom poem which my friend read to everyone

  After telling the kids all afternoon not to eat any we found, some of them DID try these raw ones, and most of them did not care for them. =) Better cooked is what I say!

The Kinders and I made spore prints Before our outing so we could share this experiment with everyone.
It's VERY Easy to do!

I framed it so it wouldn't get ruined in transport. Out of 8 Mushrooms these are the ones that left their print.
The one on the bottom right is white... Use black card stock and white to see the differant colors when you make one!

 All we did was cut off the mushroom caps, lay them face down on paper, and covered each one with a glass jar or bowl overnight. I did this outside in our patio! I wasn't to keen on having poisonous mushrooms in the house. =) I used regular printer paper. I should have used Card Stock. It still worked but the paper did naturally wrinkle a bit from the moisture of the mushroom. Why cover with glass? This keeps the moisture in and the spores from floating around your area...

The tiny ones did not work. =(  The largest ones were great! and one medium lavender one gaves us the pure white spore print. 

Giving them time to search on their own, is wonderful for them. Make sure you allow a good hour for these walks...

                                                    Here is our Mushroom Diagram.
                      I  just cut it out, colored it in, and glued it to card stock for the Kinders to see...

                                 Outside your Window : A First book of Nature by Nicola Davies

This beautiful and LARGE book we borrowed from the library had a wonderful and fitting poem on Fungi.
I highly recommend this book for your Nature shelf! Beautiful artwork...

The Kinders painted little mushrooms onto Rocks as a keepsake for all the kinders that came on the special outing so they could remember their day! 

We used river rocks from the craft store, and sharpie paint markers. (these worked much better th an the Elmer paint markers I started with.  It took some time to dry, and they did it in processes, but it was worth it! 

Some other Fun Mushroom Facts we shared: 

Mycology (German Mykologen) is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi.
People who study all about Mushrooms are called Mycologists.

Interesting!

·         Germans love their mushrooms, consuming the most mushrooms per capita than any other country in the world .

·         Mushrooms have no chlorophyll (a green pigment in plants), so they don’t need sunshine to grow and thirve

German Mushroom hunting Phrases

·         Kann man das essen? = Can you eat that?
Das ist giftig. = That's poisonous.
Das ist tödlich. = That's deadly.

Common Mushroom Names in German:

http://www.mssf.org/cookbook/foreign.html

List of poisonous mushrooms and photos in Germany

http://livingingermany.geekymoms.com/must-knows/toxic-plants-fungi-in-germany/

http://www.nerdygaga.com/3513/the-poison-mushroom/

More Mushroom Facts

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/kids/farm/story4/mushroomfacts.htm

Thank you visiting! 

I hope you have a chance this fall to get out and learn about God's amazing creation! 

Celtic Unit Study

We went on an awesome field trip a few weeks ago to a local Celtic village Museum called Keltendorf.
But before we went, we did a quick 2 day study on the Celts.

Who were they?

 Why are the so popular today? 

What about those amazing knots they make?

 Surprisingly there isn't to much online for KIDS about these cool people! So I just put together my own lapbook (gasp!) with some basic info, and we were set for our adventure!

We talked about the cool Celtic knots... And colored one online. 

We learned that they didn't write to keep track of their own History, but told story after story to keep it going... it wasn't until the Romans came in, that the Romans wrote down what we know today.

KT's chosen sentence of the day and her little round house....

We have a favorite Geography songs Cd ... This is the printable from the activity guide that goes with it. The song was of the British Isles.  We discovered that they Celts lived in many places in Europe even as far as Turkey!

                 Finally, we cut out and colored a Celtic Cross, then glued it to a large sheet of paper..

We read an excerpt from The Story of the world Vol. 2. It was a great story for the kids! ...  Watched a few you tube videos and read a little bit online from BBC on Iron Age Celts

That was pretty much all I had at home for our impromptu Adventure!

Keltendorf Museum Day!

                                                      Each room was a mini Museum.

Each Child was able to make a craft on site. KT chose to make a leather purse, while JT made a wooden arrow for his bow from scratch!

                                        Here, they had a chance to hold a shield and fight !

                                                     KT trying out the grinding stones.

As part of afternoon they included traditional lunch. Soup & apple juice. =)  The kids had a GREAT afternoon!

Did you know the Celts were the first to use Soap? And they really weren't dirty and barbaric? =) 

A fascinating people.. 

Thanks for visiting!!! 

Days of Fall.....

Happy Fall!

This post is picture heavy! Fall is one of our favorite seasons...Here is what the Kinders have been up to!

Every year we visit our favorite Pumpkin Festival. It's our kick off into the season! We haven't missed one in 8 years!

The Kids favorite is always the Hay bales and the Giant pumpkins on display!

Nothing like driving along......and out of no where... some cows...=) They escaped somehow. We managed to heard them with our car back into the village we had just driven through, and a few minutes later the farmers were on the hunt for 'em.. The kids thought this was very fun! =)

                                      We also found out we are expecting Kinder #3 !

Another fall favorite is finding chestnut trees and picking all nuts, and bringing home the shells. They are prickly little things... not to fit into a pocket so easily...=)

                                                                Lots of cool sunny days...

We had one litter of 4 bunnies this August, and to our surprise one day, ANOTHER litter! This time there are 6 baby bunnies. They are a week and a half old.

Isn't new life amazing? while we still haven't given away the other 4, we are so excited about these little guys... The kids are really enjoying watching them grow.

The Kinders both started Horse Lessons this fall. It's gone really well. JT was extremely afraid of Horses, and now....he is awesome! No fear, and doing so well. KT just loves it...

                                   Our Homeschool group went on a field trip to the pumpkin farm!

                                                              Library days.......

Fall Craft Time! Last year we got into Needle Felting. This is a totally fun craft if you haven't tried it yet. It's great for all ages from about 5 & up....  This time we felted pumpkins.....

Aren't they adorable???

                KT is spending more and more time in the kitchen with me, and learning basic recipes.

Robots! My kids have been so into creating robots out of any recylable at home the last few months. I found a small kit online for them to try, since they wanted to make a REAL one. KT usually wants to do everything JT does, so I had to find a robot that was do-able for both! We did a Tin Can Robot.  totally worth it! They loved it, and it still works!

All year I have been learning to make skirts and little things for KT. Here is one I made out of a vintage table cloth. It turned out really cute!

And Lastly, we have been working on the house little by little. Here is our Front Entry way. This to me, is the  weirdest room, and most awkward to re-do (on a budget).... it looked like a mobile home entry way from the 1970's...

The walls, were paneling, the doors were a different color wood, and as you can see the ceiling above is another shade of brown... We painted the paneling, no other choice at this time... because of the way it was installed.Then there was DIFFERANT paneling on the wall with the doors... i just put wallpaper batten and board on it.  The doors were solid wood, so I decided to paint them till I find doors I love ( it seems all the doors here are fake wood, and that light modern color). I also added decorative trim to the basement door to give it some character.  then I added some molding to the top, and we are putting up white ceiling tiles. Now, we just have to add the molding to the top and add lighting!

Thank you for visiting!! More soon!