Explore Outdoors ~ Millipedes!

 

The millipedes living in my neck of the woods are about three inches long and round, with pretty stripes marking the edge of each segment. They have dainty antennae and feet that will tickle if you let them crawl up your arm. Some folks think millipedes have 1,000 legs, but they don't. What they do have is 2 pair of legs per segment. Centipedes have one pair of legs per segment, and tend to be flatter - and faster. 

Millipedes tend to spiral when they die, and their colors fade. But, even dead, they are cool to observe. For one thing, their faces look like they have smiles. And for another, you can see how the legs attach.

This week ~ look for bugs with lots of legs. Maybe you'll find roly-polies (pill bugs) or centipedes or millipedes, or daddy longlegs. 

Give it a name. Mine is named Millie.

Spend some time watching your critter. How do the legs attach to the body? How fast does it move? What does it look like when you put your eyes at ground level?

Ask questions.

Draw a picture or take a photo so you can continue to study your leggy critter.

Messing around in my Nature Journal

 Have you ever smooshed a marigold or buttercup across a page in your journal or sketchbook? Maybe it left a yellowish smudge… And while you may have done it by accident, a couple weeks ago I smooshed plant parts onto the page on purpose.

It was part experiment, part “artist date” a’la Julia Cameron, and a whole lot curiosity. I wanted to know would blue pigments in my bachelor button blossoms smear blue pigment on the page? Would the centers of oxeye daisies make as nice a yellow as buttercups?

Materials

I began by collecting a variety of plants that I thought might provide some color:

bachelor button flower

bleeding heart flowers and leaves

oxeye daisy flower

buttercup flowers and leaves

yellow hawkweed flowers

creeping charlie leaves

wild strawberries

Method

 I knew I could extract pigments by boiling the flowers and adding a mordant (a mordant is a chemical that helps keep the pigment from fading, such as vinegar or alum). But I wanted something more immediate. So I pressed and smeared, smooshed, and squashed petals and plant parts directly onto the paper.

Results: Yellow hawkweed and buttercup petals left bright yellow smudges; the yellow center of the daisy left only a faint mark. Bachelor button petals left a bright blue. Strawberries left pink smears, not the red I expected. Bleeding heart flowers left no pigment on the page. As for the leaves, creeping charlie and bleeding heart leaves left different shades of green.

The Buzz about Bee Books

If you’re a longtime follower of my blog, you know I am passionate about bees. I spent a summer at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab (RMBL) near Crested Butte, Colorado following - and tagging -bumble bees. So I’m ending Pollinator Week with a couple of picture books that focus on bees. 

theme: bees, mystery, nonfiction

Honeybee Rescue: A Backyard Drama

by Loree Griffin Burns; photos by Ellen Harasimowicz 

40 pages; ages 5-8

‎Charlesbridge, 2022

This is Mr. Connery, and that is his ramshackle barn… a few days ago, on the way to his vegetable garden, Mr. Connery noticed that the rickety old structure was buzzing.

When he looked inside, he discovered that honeybees had taken up residence in a corner of the barn. Now, Mr. Connery raises bees, so he knew that this was a new colony. And he wanted to save it. This book tells the story of how a honeybee rescuer removes the colony of bees from the barn and relocates them into a hive. There is mystery. There is adventure. There is a honeybee vacuum!

What I like about this book: I like how Loree Burns turned a swarm of honeybees into a tale of drama and suspense. Why are the bees in the barn? She explains swarming. How will Mr. Connery get them back into a hive? Loree introduces a beekeeper who specializes in rescuing honeybee swarms – whether they’re in a church steeple or the wall of a house or, as in this case, clinging to the rafter of a derelict barn. 

We get to see the insides of a honeybee hive and meet the queen. We see a Honeybee Sucker-upper in action! And there is a wonderful interview with the bee rescuer, plus lots of great back matter.

Not only does Loree write amazing books for kids, but she is also a scientist. So I had to ask her One Question.

Me: How is writing a book for kids like being a scientist?

Loree: I’ve begun to think about writing as being like a scientist in its iterative nature.

When I was doing bench research, I designed experiments that I hoped would help me understand how something worked. (In my case, how do cells regulate the expression of genes inside their nuclei?) Once I’d done my experiment, I usually had a bit more information about how cells achieve that regulation … but I didn’t have the whole answer. Just enough to think about how to design a new set of experiments that would expand on what I’d learned even further. And so on and so on until a story began to emerge, ever so slowly, about the ways that cells regulate their genes.

Similarly, when I’m writing, I go through a long process of incremental progression. I have an idea for a story I want to tell, and I draft it on paper. Once it’s all written out, I put it aside for a hot minute. When I’m ready, I pull it out to re-read, scouring the storytelling for sentences and paragraphs and pages that work … and also for ones that don’t. Then I revise. With each revision, as with each set of experiments, I get closer to telling the whole story in the right way. It’s all trial and error, fits and starts, bit by bit.  But eventually I get there!

One of the skills I picked up during my summer at RMBL was how to identify bees by their sounds. So I was intrigued by this book.

After the Buzz Comes the Bee: Lift-the-Flap Animal Sounds 

by Robie Rogge; illus by Rachel Isadora 

32 pages; ages 2-5

Holiday House, 2022

After the buzzzzzzzzzzzz… (lift the flap) comes the bee.

Each spread presents a sound: ribbit-ribbit, ah-ah-ah, munch-munch-munch. But you have to lift the flap to reveal who makes that sound. A frog, for sure, but ah-ah-ah? Who could that be? And what’s fun is that the inside of the jacket cover is a poster.

Bee-yond the Books:

Listen to the sounds bees make as they fly by and as they visit flowers. Write down the sounds you hear and see if you can create your own list of buzz-words for pollinators visiting your yard or neighborhood. Check out this article to learn more about why bees buzz and hear two different bees.

Go on a Pollinator Scavenger Hunt. Here's one list you can use to inspire your discovery adventure.

No Bees, No Picnics. Here are some of the foods we eat that depend on bees for pollination. How many do you eat?

Apples, apricots, avocados, beans, blackberries, blueberries, cantaloupes, cherries, cocoa, cranberries, cucumbers, grapes, lemons, limes, mangos, nectarines, peaches, pears, peppers, plums, raspberries, strawberries, tangelos, tomatoes, walnuts, and watermelons  

More books about bees:

Turn this book into a Beehive

Where Have All the Bees Gone? Pollinators in Crisis

Begin with a Bee

books about pollinators for emerging readers

The Queen Bee and Me by Gillian McDunn

and another by Loree G. Burns, Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe

Loree Griffin Burns is a member of #STEAMTeam2022. You can find out more about her at her website. 

Today we're joining Perfect Picture Book Friday, an event where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copies provided by the publishers.