The Wilson Kids Times - October 2000

This week at The Healthy Homeschool we are studying spiders. This was not a planned study at first, but just came about when we spied a beautiful, very large Argiope in our flower/butterfly garden! You know how it is when you are homeschooling--you have to take advantage of learning opportunities when you find them!

A study of spiders can become overwhelming to children if you insist on too much memorization. We used it as an opportunity to just touch on what genus and species names are and how having such a naming system helps scientists with organizing data and the naming of new plant and animal discoveries. We also talked about different kinds of spiders and the characteristics that make them different from each other.

Stretched between a string harp of 'Heavenly Blue' morning glories and a pot of verbena was an intricately woven web inhabited by an elegant black-and-yellow Argiope spider." So reads a portion of an article by Sharon Lovejoy in Heart's Ease, a column featured in Country Living Gardener. I love this article, which I have read more than once. I feel honored to have one of the graceful Argiopes in my own garden.

OUR WEEK

A Mother's Journal

Livin N Writin About It

Five In A Row ~ The "Heart" of our Homeschool:

Art of the Month:
"Rowing"

Quotations

"A rich child often sits in a poor mother's lap."
Danish proverb

"I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand."
Chinese proverb