martinzoo

The other day, GB and I attended a microscope class with our fellow homeschoolers and their moms.

Mike, from Tobin’s Lab, very kindly came to visit our group. And he brought dozens of microscopes for us to look at, and try, and even buy if we were prepared. I was prepared. I’ve been wanting a good microscope for about a year and a half. I got one off of ebay about a year ago, and it’s a piece of c**p! It’s hard to buy a microscope, sight unseen. And when you go to a store that sells them, they look nice and proper in the boxes, but you don’t know how well they work. So this was a fabulous way to ’shop.’

I ended up with a Stereo Microscope because I knew that GB would be more interested in looking at ‘things’ rather than slides. He wants to see the bugs all huge and hairy, if you know what I mean. And that was what I’d been looking for. Mike gave us a great deal, which I won’t repeat, just in case he doesn’t do that for other groups. But I was VERY happy with the end cost.

While the moms were learning about the differences in all the scopes, the kids were in their own class, led by Mike’s wife, Tammy. They were learning all about owls and doing a lap book. I had bought an owl kit about six months ago for GB so that he could dissect an owl pellet, but he wouldn’t touch it. Imagine my surprise, as I came out of MY class, to see GB off in the corner with Tammy doing an owl pellet dissection, and looking absolutely fascinated. Isn’t it funny how other people can get your kids to do things that they swear they will not do?

When we got home, GB immediately went looking for a bug to put under the microscope. And before I had even unpacked it, he had found this centipede. Gross, huh? Yuck! But I’ll tell you, even I was fascinated to see it the intricate design of this usually repulsive creature. All I did to get this picture was to put my digital camera up to the eye piece of the microscope, and click.

Today we decided to finish dissecting the owl pellet. GB was really interested and kept chastising me to be more careful as we picked through the debris. We found two bird’s legs, hip bones, ribs and other tiny bones. That was about all we could identify. But I still have the pellet that I bought, so we may try this again in the future. We were pretty satisfied. Apparently during the class, the kids decided that it was cooler to have bird bones, than it was to have rodent bones….. So, ok, ours was cool.  One child’s pellet had a bird’s skull, perfectly intact!

This is a picture of the bird’s claws under the microscope. Aren’t they disgustingly hairy?

GB also diligently worked on his lapbook and finished that up today, too. He really hates to color, but I think he did a nice job.

We left the bones we found on top of the red pocket, just for the picture. Then we put them inside the pocket for storage. Although, I’m not sure if I’m going to actually keep them. I’m still on the fence over that issue.