Check out the link below to win a free microscope!!  What a nice contest!  We're science/nature nuts here and this would be so wonderful!  We ran out of $$ to buy one this year so the contest is perfect timing!

Here's the link to the blog of Tami who's opening a new retail store too!  Here's the info on the contest:

Discount Home School Supplies is giving away a MSK-01 microscope! It sells for $129.99 on our website. It is appropriate for use with children as young as ten (with adult supervision), and it is also appropriate for use with a high school biology course. 

Here's another great use for a microscope..  I've started a new group called the Young Explorers Club.  It's a group of homeschooling families and our friends who meet up at local parks and have an open time for exploring.  I got the idea from another homeschooling blogger mama (whose bloglink I can't find!)  But it's brilliant!

We've had three meetings so far, rocks/geodes, prairie, and the pond.  They've gotten better each time and I can't wait until the next one. 

A quick funny story... What was the very first thing that happened right when the group walked up to the pond?  My ds Z walked right up and stepped INTO the pond!  There was so much duckweed floating in pond I think he thought he could walk on it LOL!!  He looked shocked, scared, and confused as my friend pulled him out, I don't know if he knew what to think.  Ohwee..so funny!  I just KNEW that one of the kids would fall in, and I had this sneaky suspicion that it would be my Z!

I've just started the blog for the group here: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/youngExplorersClub 

so I don't have any pictures up yet, but they'll be coming.  Also Z caught a flatworm!  How cool is that!?  We were researching ponds before our lastest meeting and I remember seeing one in the Pond version of the "One Small Square" books.  I was thinking, man that would be awesome to find one..  I'll be posting a picture of that also.