Turtles, worms and volcanos, Oh my!

We have continued with our daily themes this week.  The boys have really enjoyed this part of the day and look forward to the surprise of the "research topic".
Monday we learned about turtles.  Did you know that a group of turtles is called a bale?  And, the largest turtle is a Leatherback sea turtle that can weigh up to 2000 pounds!  Did you know a turtle does not stick its tongue out to get food, but only uses it to swallow?  For "Turtle Day" we did a word search, read a Franklin book, wrote stories about turtles, did a maze, played a turtle memory game online and made our very own turtles!  Here are the crafts they made.

Tuesday was Earth Worm day.  This was inspired solely by a book on cd I found at the library called "The Diary of a Worm".  It was such a cute book and the research was fun too!  When I told the kids about "Worm day" they did not seem too excited...at first.  But after digging for worms in our yard and racing them I think it was quite the hit!  The race was Zack's favorite part of the whole day!  For other activities we did another maze with worms in an apple, and the kids came up with words that related to worms for almost every letter of the alphabet (by themself!) and we learned some facts.  Did you know that the longest worm recorded is over 22 feet long?!  And, on one acre of land there can be over 1,000,000 worms!  Did you know they can have up to 5 hearts?  So many interesting facts that I never would have known if it were not for a bit of worm research. :) 
Here are some pictures from "Worm Day".

The worms had some assistance getting to the finish line, but we did watch them squirm for about 15 minutes!

Today was dubbed "Volcano Day"  It was initiated by a scientific volcano movie Zack found at the library.  Zack and Owen both did a word search with many words related to volcanoes (it was really a bit too hard for them, but a challenge is a good thing!), then they solved a volcano riddle.  They had to match the corresponding numbers with the appropriate letter to determine what the largest volcano is.  Do you know?  It is called the Olympus Mons and is on Mars.  We watched the volcano "movie" and also made our own volcano eruption! We made a volcano out of playdoh and used some food coloring, baking soda and vinegar to make it erupt.  It was really a fun activity!  The kids wanted to do it so many times that we ran out of vinegar!  Oh well.  All for a good science lesson!

I missed the big "explosion" since I was on pouring duty and camera duty, but none the less, you get the idea.  The kids expressions show how excited they were about this project too!

And, to top off the day, as I was writing this I peaked out the window while I was waiting for pictures to upload and saw a beautiful orange sunset.  I must add that to the days happenings because it was so strikingly fantastic!

I have really enjoyed these "research days" and love the engaged time with my boys.  The added structure sure helps with establishing the routine of summer vacation too. 

Tomorrow...it will be Zebra day and Owen's gonna love it! :)