Welcome to the Saturday Science Blog Hop & Link Up co-hosted by Little Bins for Little Hands, P is for Preschooler, Lemon Lime Adventures, Suzy Homeschooler, The Joys of Boys, The Usual Mayhem and yours truly!

We haven’t been doing many science experiments this spring and summer other than the Carrot Top and Birdseed experiments. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been learning anything science related. I’ve just been letting learning take its natural course and believe it or not, we’ve learned a lot about nature this way, through child-led exploration! Otherwise known as natural science. 😉

We’ve seen a lot of critters in our yard now that we live in New Hampshire that we would have probably never got the chance to investigate living in Rhode Island. Each time we come across a new animal we spend some time looking it up on the internet and learning interesting facts.

The first critter we came across in our yard was a newt, an Eastern red-spotted newt to be exact! This is the coolest little critter we have found! Did you know it lives part of its life on land and adult newts live in the water? They also completely transform from an red-orange salamander looking creature to an olive-green tadpole-like critter! After learning that they move from land to water, we walked down to a nearby pond and found some more aquatic dwellers! It was so neat to find both forms of this animal!

Check out this Red-Spotted Newt felt board activity from Fireflies & Mudpies!

This Spring we also got to witness baby Robins go from tiny blue eggs in a nest, to teeny featherless baby birds, to big baby birds in a crowded nest! Caden excitedly checked the nest below our deck each day! It was so neat to watch the birds grow from such a close vantage point! And now there are three more eggs to watch!

Each time Caden has taken an interest in something, I make sure to pick up some books on the topic at the library! We’ve read a lot about bugs this summer, but we’ve also checked out books on birds, frogs and turtles! Here are some bird books we read:

We have also found two different turtles in our yard! The first one Caden spotted from a window on the second floor of our house and said “hey look! a big beetle!” upon a closer look we discovered a good-sized painted turtle in the front yard! It really did look like a beetle from the second floor!

We immediately ran down the stairs, hopped in our boots, grabbed some gloves and my camera and went outside to investigate! Boy was that little turtle mad that we disturbed him! He peed all over the place! It’s a good thing Daddy grabbed his gloves! After checking him out for a few minutes we put him back down and he headed for the trees! Then we went back inside to look him up on the internet and make sure we correctly identified him.

The other turtle who decided to visit our front yard was a huge mama snapping turtle, doing some nesting. She had dug a hole in our front yard and we thought she was laying some eggs. We briefly went outside to get a closer look, but didn’t stay long so as not to disturb her. After she left, we investigated the nest site, but discovered there weren’t any eggs. It has been suggested that she was just testing the site. We probably failed the test by being too nosy… oh, well. Below you will find some interesting books about turtles.

We have also spent time exploring ponds and rivers. There is a big pond near our house that we have walked to several times. It is always interesting to check out the pond. Since ponds sustain so many animals, there is always something to see there! We always see lots of dragonflies, but we’ve also seen a duck, some fish, newts and water bugs!

We also spent one morning with a homeschool group at a local river! It was so fun to wade in the shallow water and build boats out of natural elements and watch them slowly float on by. Here are some great books about ponds and rivers!

And now it’s time for the Saturday Science Blog Hop & Link Up!

Saturday Science Top Picks from P is for Preschooler

 

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