Tip Tuesday #2-Making the most of teachable moments

The plan today was to go to the park first. We would take our nature journals and kill time until the church office opened because I needed to pick up paperwork. After that we would go to Walmart for groceries. What we didn't plan was how well the opportunity lined up with what we have already been studying and some of what we haven't. In history we are in Ancient Egypt as I discussed before which carried over beautifully to the study of deserts. Since we happen to live in one it just makes it all that much better.
It was my intention to have the boys take some soil samples to compare and write or draw about what they saw. I didn't anticipate that they would see an illustration of a desert food chain in action when we witnessed ants devouring a dead cockroach(gross, I know but fascinating none the less).
We were also treated to a flock of gray pigeons who in their midst had one single reddish brown friend. This led us to thinking that it was either a different type of pigeon or perhaps a male, which led to discussing now male birds are almost always flashier that their female counterparts, and then about why that is and how God designed it to be that way. We also saw lots of lizards scurrying away as we walked past and we noticed how many different types of cars were parked in the parking lot.
We also found two distinct soil types and some wild mushrooms.
Next week we will go again and this time we will be armed with tables to make data graphs on. We will figure out how many different animals we see and how many different makes of vehicles there are and how many of each. We may even make a data graph on what different types of people we see there.
Did you notice how many "ands" I used in this post? It is amazing what can happen when you are open to the teachable moments around you and all the rabbit trails that spring up from them. Everyday life can be a great curriculum when you let it.

On a side note, one of the purchases made from Walmart today was two Ken dolls. It was so funny because the boys fussed so much about getting "Barbies" for this. Of course they had the packages open by the time we got in the car and by the time we got home were making plans to borrow their sister's girl Barbies to complete the Kens' budding families. The Kens also fought several battles both with each other and with other action figures before succumbing to their injuries. They were then utilized in our mummy making process. This website over here has great instructions on how to do it yourself. These are a few pictures of our process. We will finish up tomorrow with a mummy mask, sarcophagus, and pyramid tomb. Who knows, we may even hire ourselves as professional mourners. (Pharaoh funeral processions had those you know.)

The first one is of Ryan tearing his linen strips. (we used an old pillowcase)
Taylor did this too but I only managed to get the pic of Ryan.

The second is our wrapped up mummy-Kens complete with mummy-Ken sunglasses!