Properties of Sand and Horseshoe Crabs Field Trip to Cedar Key

Today was our last Earth Kids meeting, for this school year. Next year, I have made some changes. Most lessons and activities will be online on Facebook, and once in a while a field trip. I have many reasons for making this decision.

Today, we headed out to Cedar Key, a tiny resort town on the Gulf about an hour from our home. The weather was breezy and warm, then the breeze left and it was just hot, lol. We studied Horseshoe Crabs, which surprisingly we did not see any. We always see Horseshoe Crabs at Cedar Key. The tide was coming in when we got there, and usually we are there at low tide, so that might have something to do with it. The kids also did an experiment on the properties of sand. That was very interesting. It was to complete DJ's Marine Biology project book, for 4H, but I decided to make it a group project too. Then the kids get to chill, swim, look for shells, or just walk the beach. Another thing we found, that we have never found at Cedar Key, are small perfectly polished and smooth white rocks. We have been to Cedar Key lots of times and never seen these particular type of rocks there.

All in all it was a beautiful day.

Earth Kids Meeting: Make Bird Seed Dough

We finally got our Earth Kids meeting done. It has been cold, and with kids having colds, we just have not been able to do it. We did do it at the house, rather than the park, this one time because it was raining and I did not want to cancel again. We only have four active kids in the group right now. So, if you live in the Gilchrist County, FL area and you want something fun to do drop me a message and I will let you know when our Feb meeting is. We are on Facebook too at Tri County Earths Kids Club. For this meeting DJ practiced his 4H demonstration, for this weekend, on the Leatherback Sea Turtle. Then we made these very interesting bird feeders. This was an extremely messy craft, but it did work and we have them outside to see if they birds will love them. I followed all her directions for making the bird feeders, and you can too by clicking the link.

Earth Kids for 2013/2014

Today was the official end of our first year of Earth Kids. We made our butterfly feeders, made butterfly cookies and then voted and decided on next year. The kids decided they want to study oceans and ocean animals. I already have a project book on Marine Biology from 4H, so that works out awesome. Plus, I found this website, with tons of great ocean themed items.  She has put a lot of time into her ocean themed unit study.  It incorporates Math and Geography, not just the Science of oceans.  Love it.  We switched up our meeting times.  The 5 PM time slot just was not working well, and definitely will be very hard on me in the very near future.  So we decided we would meet at 11 AM on one Tuesday, and then a Friday, so twice a month.  The kids want to do some hiking, nature walks, visit a pond, visit a zoo and aquarium, visit the springs some more, crafts, painting and photography.  So, I think they decided on some pretty fun activities.  We are taking August off, and will start back up in September.  I can't wait!