TRACKiNG

Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.
~ Lewis Grizzard

Well spring is here and things are busy in this neck of the woods as usual. HAPPY SPRING EVERYBODY!!! We have been staying busy here trying to juggle home schooling, gardening, house building, and ballet.

Our home school cooperative has been going very well. Violet really enjoys the two days a week that we meet and have group lessons. This week was my week to teach. Our theme for this week was local animals and their tracks. All of our learning for this week centered around this theme.

On Wednesday we headed down to the buffalo river to make some casts and identify animal tracks that we found. The conditions were just right and we found loads of deer, possum, raccoon, turkey, and fox tracks. Kalin who is a great tracker helped the kids find and make the casts of prints. The kids had a lot of fun and they turned out great.

We ate our lunches on the beach down by the river. Then followed up the day by making birds nests from a project that I found on No Time For Flashcards. This is a great home schooling resource.

IF YOU WANT TO MAKE TRACK PRINTS OF YOUR OWN:

1. Make a mold out of cardboard that is large enough to encircle the print you want to preserve.

2. Carefully dust any debris away from the site in order to make a good cast.

3. Spray the area with pan spray.

4. Mix plaster according to directions but make it slightly wetter. We mixed ours in an old coffee can.

5. Pour plaster into mold.

6. Let the plaster set up for about 15-20 minutes depending on the instructions on the plaster box.

7. Carefully lift the cast off of the print and tear off the cardboard. This will be a 3 dimensional mold. If you want to make an imprint mold of this the directions are listed on this site. It also has list of prints you can identify. This site also has a great tutorial for making prints.

HAVE FUN!!!