Our Fremont Homeschool Book Club is in the local news this week!
Q: How do you find the princess? A: Follow the foot-prince of course!
We began by making crayon rubbings of our own boot soles and then going out and making prints in the soft mud (courtesy of the ground squirrels and their dirt-digging). Then we swapped locations with another team and tried to match their rubbings with their footprints.
Next, after reviewing mammal tracks of bobcats, mountain lions, house cats, coyotes, gray foxes, squirrels, voles, raccoons, skunks, opossums, cottontails, deer, and feral hogs, we went out on an expedition to locate real prints in the mud. Because we had a hard rain last night, many of the prints we would have seen were washed away. 
However, we did see dog and deer prints along the trail and creek area.
The highlight of the trip was the discovery of both a drowned Wood Rat and dead Bufflehead Duck in the creek bed. 
Today we went on a fieldtrip to Ardenwod Historic Farm in Fremont for their Monarch Butterfly program. After a wonderful presentation on the Monarch migration and a review of insect body parts, we headed outside to the greenhouse to view chrysalises and then the eucalyptus grove. We found three butterflies on the ground as well as a cluster in one of the trees. There were even a few flying around in the sunshine! Tons of puddles...lots of mud...a great opportunity to put on our rain boots and have some fun!
Rainy days make me feel sluggish...
Today our Math-Science Nucleus class met at the Tule Ponds in Fremont to learn about birds. We all got binoculars and set out on a hike around the ponds. We saw Double Crested Cormorants, American Coots, Canada Geese, Mallard Ducks, Scrub Jays, Crows, Pidgeons, Mourning Doves, and even mushrooms. After we got back to the lab, we examined bird feathers (and the difference in owl feathers) using basic microscopes.
Today we started the new year off right with a 5-mile hike up Mission Peak in Fremont with the Nature Explorers of the East Bay (NEEB), a homeschooling group that is new for us this year.
