Spontaneous learning!

    Right now our routine in the mornings for learning to include all of the kids(including me!) young and old is spontaneous learning. We have a huge stack of creation magazines, several years worth. Our favorite one is called Nature Friend . Each morning, as we our getting our breakfast ready, we take turns in getting an article to read from our stash. We read our regular devotions and bible and one child  gets out the NF. We never know what we are going to learn. I feel it is always, always God led and timely though. Even if it is a strange, or unique animal. Then we have taken time to talk about the nature reading, and we usually are able to find more on the internet including videos or more pictures. A lot of the things we learn, are new to me too, so I am really enjoying this with my kids!

   Today, we learned about a bird from Central and South America called a Mot-mot bird.
My 8 year old is going to tell me what she learned, and I am going to transcribe it here. She is excited to read what I type.. here goes...

He lives in the forest in central-and south America. It has a turquoise color and some black on him, on his throat. His tail is as long as a tennis racket. He will fly down into another animals burrow. Then he will dig another way out. The male birds are prettier. They are worried about their pretty tail. And they will dig out backwards so they don't ruin the feathers on their tail. Funny! And the other funny thing is that they eat insects, once they catch them they hit them against a tree until they are dead. Gross! They like to sit in a tree and swing their pretty tail and make a sound that sounds like a dog "woofing" to me! What a pretty interesting bird!

*several video clips of mot mot to see 
*listen to mot mot  

Look for more of our learning posts.. it's fun to share what we are learning!