There's a lot of nostalgic talk about childhood summers in the 1970s. The kind where kids ran rampant and unsupervised throughout the neighborhood, especially during the summer. One thing I did as a kid in the Chicago area was capture tadpoles and raise them into frogs. Last year, when I was out walking Tesla one late spring day, we came upon a large puddle filled with tadpoles. I stopped to watch them for a while and later brought my niece to ... [ Read More ]
Look Up! Bird Watching in Your Own Backyard. A Book Review
I don't know why it's taken me so long to review Look Up! Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard (affiliate link). It's a wonderful book. Written and illustrated by Annette LeBlanc Cate, this adorable book on bird-watching is dense with facts. However, all that information is presented in such an engaging manner thanks to lively illustrations and an adorable cast of opinionated illustrated birds of all types of beaks and feathers. Look Up! is a ... [ Read More ]
Silkworm Science Fun with Little Ones
In keeping with the theme of tomorrow night's 8/21/12 #STEMchat on Twitter, raising kids who love science, I thoughts I'd share a silkworm science experiment (gone partially awry) that we did six years ago when my newly minted 7th grader was just a wee elementary schooler. Inspired by Linda Sue Park's wonderful book, Project Mulberry (affiliate link), and my young boys' classroom study of the Silk Road, we decided to raise silkworms for a science ... [ Read More ]