McKinley Point Academy

By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. ~Proverbs 24:3-4

• Sep. 15, 2009 - Solar System Movie

• Oct. 12, 2008 - Outside the Box Field Trip

This week we took a field trip that is outside the expected.  We are studying Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures.  We finished up fish & sharks a few weeks ago and were in the middle of crustaceans. The book mentioned tanks of lobsters in restaurant or markets. That got me to thinking --- our local Asian grocery store has lots of tanks of live fish, crabs, lobsters, etc.  They also have lots of fresh seafood.  So we made a field trip to our local Asian grocery store.  It is was cheaper (except for the $$$ we spent on Chinese dumplings to take home) and it was a whole lot closer than an aquarium. So here are some of the sea animals we saw: first those on ice: - whole shrimp - a bunch of different fish - all whole - a cutup shark - an eel - squid - whelks - still in their shell - the sales person pulled the foot back so the kids could see him better - mussels?? I have a hard time remembering what all we saw! those crawling around on a table: - blue live crabs - we practiced identifying males and females those in cardboard boxes sitting on the floor: - lots of little snails those live in tanks: - lobsters - brown crabs - orange crab - elephant trunk clams - catfish - blackfish 2 empty tanks: - live eel - talipia We also checked out the frozen meat section to see other fish, squid, cuttlefish, etc. Okay, here are the pictures!  Some of the tanks were a little hard to see into.  Also it felt weird taking pictures in the store!! Catfish Some type of crab: This orange guy was in with the brown guys.  Don't know what kind he was. Blue crab lying on a table.  They were alive.  While we were looking a man came and picked up some with tongs, threw them in a paper bag, and took them to the cashier. Close-up of one.  The kids mostly saw females.  Someone told me later that the males taste the best so maybe that is why we didn't see any males on the table! Also called a geoduck, the elephant trunk clam - click here to read more. I figure when we eat all the Chinese dumplings, we will make another field trip and check out the mollusks, whelks, and squid this time.  We can also see if the empty tanks have anything!  Did I mention they also have a restaurant?  We are always up for lunch out -especially Chinese! Also related to our study of sharks, we did the salt water vs. regular water electricity experiment.  The kids enjoyed expanding the experiment and tried new ideas to see if they could get electricity to conduct.

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• Sep. 13, 2008 - Zoology 2 Lapbook

We finished the first 5 lessons of Apologia's Zoology 2: Exploring Creation Day 5: Swimming Creatures.  Mei created a lapbook.  Mark did notebooking.  This was our first time to do lapbooking.  We used the lapbook from Knowledge Box Central. For the second half, Mei is making another lapbook.  Mark wants to do the booklets, but will be mounting them on paper in his notebook.  He is hoping this will reduce the amount of writing he has to do.  I hope it makes recording what he has learned more enjoyable! Mei's lapbook - her cover: We like to include pictures of the animals rather than just writing everything. Although I do most of the writing, Mei also does some of it: The back:

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• May. 21, 2008 - Frog Update!

Day 16: May 21 I bought some flightless fruit flies at Petco yesterday.  They love them!  Or at least they are disappearing from the habitat.  These guys don't fly but can crawl like crazy, so I had to tape most of the air holes shut.  I moved the crickets back to the cricket habitat.  I counted 6 frogs today.  These guys are good at hiding. Thank you Lord that our little froglets are eating and we continue to ask that you keep them alive!

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• May. 19, 2008 - Tadpoles to Frogs Saga

So we are doing Apologia's Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day.  In lesson 4 on aquatic herps, it has an experiment you can do with tadpoles.  Day 1: May 6 We were visiting someone's house and the kids found a bunch of tadpoles so we brought them home for our experiment. We put 5 tadpoles in one small habitat container and the other 5 in another habitat container.  We boiled some lettuce and are feeding it to them. Day 4: May 9 We started our experiment and drew pictures of their size.  Each day, we shown a bright light on one container for 2 hours to warm the water.  Some had little leg buds. Day 7: May 12 Well it worked, those warm water tadpoles started growing like crazy and soon got full back legs, complete with toes.  Colder water ones still just have buds.  We put a rock in each container for them to climb onto. Day 8: May 13 Two in the warm water now have front legs!  Some of the ones in the cold water now have a bend in their back legs.  I buy some frozen bloodworms for the froglets to eat.  They don't eat any that I can tell. Day 10: May 15 Three froglets in the warm water are climbing out of the water and clinging to the sides of the container.  Then disaster strikes that evening.  We find one froglet floating dead.  We remove him. Day 11: May 16 Another dead froglet this morning.  We are now attached to these guys and the deaths are too much.  We skip school and make a mad dash to the pet store.  We buy a frog friendly container with a gentle slope.  We buy small crickets for them to eat.  The froglets love their new home because they can sit in the water and poke their heads out to breathe.  There are also little rocks to hide under.  We add two crickets.  We put all the tadpoles into one habitat container and turn the other into a cricket house for the extra crickets. Day 13: May 18 We keep moving froglets to the frog home.  We now have 4 crickets, a dead fly, some bloodworms, and some lettuce in there with the froglets  The crickets are as big as the froglets.  What are the froglets eating? Day 14: May 19 We have just 2 tadpoles left in the tadpole habitat and 7 froglets, 4 crickets, some bloodworms, a dead fly, and some lettuce.  We are trying to capture some gnats.  That hasn't worked yet.  We heard you can buy wingless fruit flies at the pet store.  Going to try doing that tonight. So what are they eating?  Who is going to die first?  I put some potato in there for the crickets.  If I starve them will they be so weak the frogs can eat them?  The frogs are interested.  We saw them having a stare down.  Meanwhile, the crickets are getting bigger. Stay tuned.... One of our tadpole habitats.  The other has a purple lid.  That is leaf lettuce floating in there. He is a little out-of-focus but that is a froglet on the rock and 3 tadpoles in the water. This guy is ready to be moved to the new frog habitat! Our frog friendly habitat on the left, tadpoles in the middle, and crickets on the right.  The light is still useful for spotting these guys. Current update: I tried to count the frogs - could only find 5.  Did 2 become dinner for the others??  There is also two suspicious white balls.  Could they be cricket eggs?  If so, maybe the frogs can eat the hatchings.  That would work...

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