The tadpoles have front legs !

As soon as the tadpoles got front legs, they seemed to look a lot more like frogs. We were quite concerned about their lungs taking over from the gills, as we were not sure when this would happen. We have heard of other families having tadpoles who drowned because they had nowhere to climb up to when they turned to frogs and used their lungs.



He is clearly not using his lungs yet, so not a frog yet.

Our tadpoles have legs!

It is the moment we have all been waiting for, and it was as exciting as we had expected. We were so amazed last week to see little back legs coming out of our not so little tadpoles. They continue to grow well, we have read that we need to start feeding them meat soon, so that will be next, I am sure they will grow really big really fast when we start to give them meat.

Learning about History

We have come across this wonderful gem on amazon, it is an audio book of a complete overview of history presented chronologically beginning with Ancient civilizations, and ending at World War 2. It is told at the perfect level for younger children, and mom and dad are learning a lot too, it makes for great entertainment in the car.
We also read this book for our history. A lot of the stories are the same as the above audio, but it is reinforced as it is told with different detail, or in a different way, and is just as interesting to read.

Mommy toad

On another trip to Bushy we came across this female toad laying eggs, you will see here more clearly if you click on the photo to enlarge it. We were amazed at how many eggs she had laid, they are small black eggs, and there are literally hundreds all over her and around her. (Thanks Grandad Jim for correcting us, we looked it up on the internet to check).

The tadpoles are growing!

The tadpoles are getting really big now, and have a big appetite(we are feeding them gold fish flakes and boiled lettuce). They spend a lot of time at the top of the tank getting oxygen from the bubbles on top, there are 8 who have survived, and their names are Squiggly, Bumpy, Lettuce, Wriggly, Bubbly, Lazy, Gobbly, Jumpy

Microscope

We finally have a microscope after wanting to get one for a year. This one can be used in two ways, either as a normal microscope with light shining from under, or as a high powered magnifying glass with the light shining above (making it possible to see flowers, leaves and spiders up really close). We were lucky to pick up some prepared slides already, and could not believe it when they had slides of human blood, brain cells, heart, kidney from a mammal, and stomach cells, as well as a whole selection on frogs (frog skin, intenstines, lungs), everything that we are studying right now. So we really enjoyed looking at all of these things today, it was great to actually see red blood cells after just studying about them. The children then collected flowers, leaves, rocks, an ant and a spider to look at under the magnifying glass function, we were all amazed to see that the Lord puts such a lovely pattern on every grass blade, and colours the flowers so delicately and beautifully. We looked at an ant through the microscope and magnifying glass, Jude loved this one, and couldn't stop looking, but Eden said that she regrets ever picking up an ant, and wondered why God had made it. The spider was incredible to look at, the detail of the eye, and the legs, as well as the different hues of hair all over its body, Eden and Niamh could not bring themselves to look at it for too long though, they will have to get used to being this close and personal with hairy insects. We also looked at a human hair, and the cut on moms finger, really amazing to see a small cut in such detail, and how the body is in the process of repairing it.

Learning about Bach

Since Eden has played quite a few Bach pieces now, and her teacher keeps on giving her titbits of information (like you thought you have a big family, well Bach had 20 children), we have decided to do our own study of him at home.


This is a lovely lighthearted biography of Bach's life. In the cd he arrives at a little girls house who is practicing a piece of his music (coincidentally the one Eden has just learnt), and he plays for her, he then brings his whole orchestra in, and gives her the story of his life, and plays his music from the different times of his life (he was even jailed, and wrote some lovely music for his wife and children while in jail).
This cd is a lovely selection of Bach's most famous pieces.

We have also been playing a lot of his music through spotify, which is an amazing online application that allows you to play any music for free, they have loads and loads of classical, so there is no need to buy any more cd's.