Ants In The Kitchen And Frogs In The Pond

catchy title huh? well today, in the land of homeschoolers, was complete science magic. i mean it was gold people. the morning started off innocently enough with a pest problem in the kitchen. this is not so odd since it seems like everyone on our block, every summer, has a bit of an issue with "sugar ants." you know, those tiny little reddish ants that seem to appear out of nowhere and live in colonies of, oh, like fifty bajillion. every other week they seem to choose a new battle ground and we run the normal drill of killing the initial scouts, flag bearer and drum and fife corps. then sneaking up behind them with the trap filled with the sugary death goodness and then waiting for them to take enough back to their army buddies to kill the whole battalion. and so it goes, except for today. we killed the initial few and brought out the trap, but then i figured hey, why not make the best of this? so i called the oldest two kids into the kitchen and announced it was science time. you see, for weeks we have been trying to locate an ant trail in our backyard for our science insect program. it seems the ants in our backyard are schizo and just run around in random circles, not really accomplishing something. our families personality has even rubbed off on our household pests it seems. anyway, this morning in the kitchen was perfect because these ants had carved out an exact route on my kitchen wall and the kids were fixed in bizarre fascination to watch them work. they sat transfixed for a good twenty minutes while i read about how ants followed a trail by smell and all that good stuff. my husband then informed me that only a homeschooling mom would turn an insect issue in the kitchen into a lesson. oh well, i say, make do with what you've got. right?

then, in the land of homeschool science...the day just turned to pure gold. pure gold i tells ya. my mother is visiting and she likes thrift shops almost as much as me. so, we headed out about a 30-40 minute drive to a thrift shop my friend amy told me about. the thrift store was top notch, but what happened after the thrift shop was little kid heaven. we stopped to eat the lunch we had packed at a really cool park we had seen on the way to the thrift wonderland. this park was primo. it had lots of really cool and nicely kept playground equipment, two covered pavilions and bathrooms, yes it even had bathrooms. this park also had a small man made pond with a small fountain in the middle. my daughter asked me to go with her to the pond to throw rocks. i walked over with her and i saw what i thought to be a cricket move through the grass. upon further examination i found it was actually a dime sized frog. i captured the frog gently in my hands and called over my mom and other two children so they could also see it when i let it go. they came over and as i let it go i saw another, and another, and another in the grass. the grass was teeming with froggies. there were hundreds. everywhere you looked they were hopping through the grass and on the rocks at the edge of the pond. we were also able to observe some of the frogs that still had the remnants of their tadpole tale and then see some tadpoles in the water. it was such a joy to see my children, especially my little boy, gently picking up these frogs and just enjoying this little gift that God gave us today.