Sponges, jellyfish, and earthworms

We began our day looking up animals in the scriptures. The topical guide was helpful, but an old concordance I had was even better. We looked up "Animals" in the concordance (vs. going page by page through the topical guide) and found 30 or more. Then the kids each chose one animal and cut it out of a sponge. Once that was done, we found the properties of a sponge by putting it in water, squeezing it dry, dipping it in paint, stamping the animal on paper, and then looking up information about sponges via the internet. Great bridge from Bible to art to science, eh?

While we were on the net, we searched for pictures and information about jellyfish, the next invertebrate in the study list. J went and got his Wild Facts notebook and shared the pages on the Portuguese Man-o-War with the rest of us. Did you know it got its name from sailors that thought it looked like the Portuguese sailing vessel? That tells you a lot about how the animal moved! (It uses its umbrella as a sail on good days; on stormy days, it deflates the gas from the umbrella and sinks under the water's surface.)


Cool! Now I'm puzzling over dinner while letting the kids play with their K'nex amusement park.
(Added later: Check out this link for some cool Revolutionary era links.)