Firewood, Grubs, Painting, and SCIENCE

The way 2020 is going, we decided we'd better get our firewood earlier rather than later, (what do you think are the odds of a Snowpocalypse in October?) and we went up to the mountain to cut some! The kids had a picnic dinner while we chainsawed and loaded, and then helped until the distractions of the forest took over and they got gloriously filthy hiking, exploring, and wandering in the clearing around where we were at work. 

One of the things they discovered, as some dead bark rolled off one of the tree trunks, was the variety of life under the surface, most prominently, GRUBS. (I was loading firewood and didn't take a picture of the grubs; sorry!)

Fast forward to the next school day. The kids were begging me to let them do some painting. But I had a SCHEDULE to stick to, and a CHECKLIST of things to accomplish, and really, the only thing I wasn't excited about for the day was our science lesson which just didn't seem very engaging...

So I pulled out the paints and some cardboard I'd saved in case of crafting needs, and brought in a piece of bark from the firewood pile (a good, dry piece of bark. Sans bugs.)

We painted the two sides of the cardboard to be a nice, mossy, rotting bark section. I got rubber bands of different colors (so we could tell whose grub was whose because...that matters?!) and we made tissue  paper grubs. We even dunked them in water so they'd be authentically slimy.

Voila! Hands-on science project! We finished off the lesson by figuring out which kinds of grubs we had seen, and looking at the life cycle of one kind in particular. 

This was memorable, fun, and super easy; and it was more engaging for them because it was something they were interested in. They had already begun their research; I just had to help them round it out, a little. I'm thinking we might do some tree trunk rubbings later and identify which types of beetles or borers created the little paths.

I know you've heard me say this before, but seriously; don't neglect opportunities of real life to learn just because of schedules and lesson plans and scope-and-sequence of your curriculum! It's a balance of discipline (to cover the foundational basics and information) and lighting that fire of excitement to LEARN in all of life! 

So give me some ideas! What opportunities have you been able to add-in to your homeschool so far? How did you turn it into a learning experience? 

Sources for info included USDA.gov PDF on Bark Beetles, Nature Anatomy book, and The Usborne Outdoor Book.