Christmas is for the Birds!

The birds in our yard that is! : ) 

During cold/winter months we like to feed the birds at our house. Normally that means seeds in the bird feeders ... but during the Christmas season we like to give our birdies a little treat.

The boys ... with some help from Uncle Alex and their big brother Zach ... strung up some popcorn, cranberries, fruit loop like cereal, and cherrio like cereal for our birds.

We started off with a needle and thread ... knotted at one end so the food doesn't fall off. : ) Then sat out the food stuffs for our chains ... boy you can tell where I shop can't you??? LoL

We started our chains with popcorn ... those Fruit Spins & Whole Grain Oat cereals would fall off even with a knot if the popcorn wasn't there to hold it on. Unless you tied the thread around a Fruit Spin like Uncle Alex did with his.

It seems I have to add pictures 1 at a time now ... apparently google has changed how picasa works and I can't even get to my albums yet ... great another thing to figure out cause google thinks they are so great ... blah!

 

 

Uncle Alex apparently got tired of stringing though ... he left before his chain was finished and Zach finished that one up. Then here are the boys with their finished strings of birdie food.

We wanted to be able to look out and see the birds feeding, so we put the finished chains on my Butterfly Bush that is out in front of the house. Here are the boys hanging their chains.

 

A fun time was had by all! Snacking was a BIG part of our stringing too! : ) We ended up with 7 food chains in all. I should've taken a picture of that, but we were all tired afterwards & just wanted to hang them up and observe! : ) 

We took the leftovers (the ceral & popcorn that was dropped on the floor; cranberries that nobody wanted to eat after trying just 1) and dumped them about the base of the bush.

We've enjoyed watching the birds the past few days too.

Merry Christmas to you all ... and if you have time ... put a little something out for your yardland creatures too!

Our Spider

This is a spider that has built it's web outside my oldest son's bedroom. It's outside so I can enjoy this one ... I don't want to touch it and if it started crawling toward me it would be one of those rare times that I run, but outside ... it's okay. : )

This spider is called Black and Yellow Argiope - my youngest made me look it up on the internet ... otherwise we'd all just be clueless as to what it's real name would be.  That big white spot is a cricket that my 2nd youngest found & threw into the web.

The zig zag line through the web is from a male spider of the same species. The female makes a regular web and then the male (who is much smaller will build the zig zag web over the female's web). It was very interesting to learn about ... and this wasn't a part of our school day! Isn't it great to be able to learn everywhere!?! : )

Here are some links if you'd like to look up more information about this spider (parents please remember to check websites before allowing children on them! I didn't run into anything bad, but you just never know.)

http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/black_and_yellow_argiope.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argiope_(spider)
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Argiope_aurantia.html
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/galveston/beneficials/beneficial-24_spider_blackandyellow_argiope.htm

I think we'll do a lapbook on spiders now. I believe I have 1 or 2 somewhere in my files! : ) HOAC has one & I'm pretty sure I have that one. We'll have to get started on that! Good time of year for a lapbook on spiders too ... close to Halloween! : ) If you'd like to put together a lapbook on spiders you can get one from HOAC (Hands of a Child) HERE

I don't know of any free spider lapbooks, but if I run across any I'll be sure to let you know.

One last picture of our spider & I'll let you be ; )

Isn't she amazing! : )  Just stay outside & we'll love you from a safe distance. : )