What does one do on Labour Day? Well...around here when tend to relax, though we'll do some schooling as well if we're bored due to rain. :)
First we decided to go up the Pinery Provincial Park. They were doing a program in the afternoon on Smart Birds. And the lad wanted to hunt for ant lions.
First we decided to go up the Pinery Provincial Park. They were doing a program in the afternoon on Smart Birds. And the lad wanted to hunt for ant lions.
He managed to catch 5 of them all together and has set them up in a nice tank at home and will be feeding them ants on a regular basis. If you don't know what ant lions are you can learn more about them here. I've attached a video below so you can see them in action.
He also discovered tent caterpillar nests... so off he went collecting some of them as well.
The smart birds program was about the crow family. We all learned (Dad came with) that crows use tools (using cars to crush hard nuts), know how to use ants to clean mites off their feathers (called anting), like to have fun (aka using plastic lids as sleds) and some of the crow family can mimic human speech. It was quite an interesting presentation though we got there five minutes late (we desperately needed to put gas in our car). After the presentation we took walk on one of the many trails the pinery has. Neither my son or my hubby understand why I like taking pictures of fungi, but I just find the variety in them fascinating. I mentioned to hubby I wouldn't mind have a book on identifying them (who knows, that might be a Christmas present this year). :)
aren't the rings on this one cool?
I'm fairly sure this picture has two varieties... one the looked like peeling bark, and the other more button shaped. I've not seen the peeling bark kind before.
We ended up doing some schooling later on in the day as I had a lad bored with the weather. We have continued to wander through "a child's geography". Stay tuned because a review is coming up soon for that. :) We also worked on A+ Math. We covered fractions today. We haven't done fractions in a while and it was amazing what the lad got hung up on. So we listened to the lesson and then are letting it sit for a bit.
Today we are going (I think) to the back to school picnic. We'll bring along an umbrella as it's supposed to rain and is rather damp now. It's usually fun regardless the weather. Dad needs to visit a rather sick parishoner in the hospital so he's providing us the ride down (we only have one vehicle at the moment so it makes travel a bit more difficult).
Today we are going (I think) to the back to school picnic. We'll bring along an umbrella as it's supposed to rain and is rather damp now. It's usually fun regardless the weather. Dad needs to visit a rather sick parishoner in the hospital so he's providing us the ride down (we only have one vehicle at the moment so it makes travel a bit more difficult).
I just missed dad pointing up into a tree so the lad could see where a cicada was sitting. Through this area the cicada's were VERY loud. We have a couple in our backyard as well. They are are an interesting insect to observe.
So that was how we spent out Labour Day. How did you spend yours?
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