I started the Trim Healthy Mamaway of eating a few weeks ago and have already lost about 6 pounds. I have not done it perfectly… but I have found one of the most amazing aspects of this diet. I rarely have left-overs. Why is that important? Well, I have three boys (two teenagers and a tween) and a hubby who all love my cooking. So, I was worried that I would have to cook two different meals each night!
That is SO not the case! Honestly, they love the meals as much as I do. I still cook them carbs and they can have their sweet tea. But I can’t tell you how surprised I have been at how much they are loving these recipes! That helps me stay on plan! Such a blessing.
This recipe is another one that they loved. They gave it a 9.5 on a 10 point scale! So, I wanted to share the recipe with you! I modified it in several places, but this is inspired by the THM New Cookbook.
Hello! This is the second post in my Backyard Bug Study series. Did you know there are over one million different kinds of insects? How about that for every one human there are two million of them? Or that they are in nearly all habitats? Or did you know there are over a five billion bugs in the world? No wonder we are so familiar with them!
Bugs. What are bugs? Many people use the word “bugs” interchangeably for “insects.” But should they? So lets see if we can decide… is it a bug or an insect?
Let’s start with some scientific information about insects. Insect scientists, called entomologists, categorize all of creation. For insects they are in the Kingdom of Animalia (animals), the Phylum of Arthropoda and their Class is Insecta (comes from insectum and it means cut into sections). Arthropods are animals that lack a backbone, which are called invertebrates. There are several types of arthropods classified into groups that have common traits. In this article I will be discussing what insects and bugs are and how you can tell them apart.
What are Insects?
Here are some of the characteristics that insects have, that bugs may not.
Six Jointed Legs – All insects have legs that have three sections. Look at praying mantis for a great example of this.
Segmented Body – Head, Thorax (The midsection of the body) and Abdomen (the tail end) are the main 3 parts of an insect’s body.
Breathe through tiny holes in their bodies called spiracles – These tiny holes let air in through the exoskeleton and directly to the trachea (The windpipe) and then into the lungs.
Antennae/Feelers – They use echolocation to send sound waves that bounce off of objects then come back. Bats and dolphins also use echolocation. They can figure out distance by how long it takes for the sound to bounce back to them.
Metamorphosis – What happens when the young body of an animal goes through a radical change in form when it grows up.
Exoskeleton – An exoskeleton is sort of like a protective armor that insects have. It doesn’t grow with them though, so they have to molt / shed yearly and grow a new exoskeleton.
Compound Eyes – Most insects have compound eyes, which means their eye is composed of thousands of tiny lenses.
Then what is a bug?
True bugs are insects, but they do have some differences. Some bugs have more than six legs, where insects, do not. Most true bugs will have an X or a V on their back. Also most true bugs have a proboscis (a straw-like mouth) so they can suck pollen and other things out of a flower. The wings are different for true bugs. The front wings of true bugs are thicker and colored near where they are attached to their body, and are more clear and thin towards the end of the wing. The hind wings are usually clear and under the front wings. Finally, true bugs also have three ‘life phases’ while insects have four stages. The true bug stages are: egg, larva/nymph, adult. The insects however, are: Egg, Larva/Nymph, Pupa, Adult.
What do they have in common?
Both have exoskeletons, and are invertebrates and have many other features that are the same such as: They both have three main body parts, they also have compound eyes, jointed legs, and most bugs have six legs like insects. Since there are even MORE things, I’ll put a diagram of some things that they have in common, and what they have different.
Activity: Bug and Insect Identification
Let’s take a closer look at nature! Let’s get into your backyard and see if we can identify some insects! First, remember you don’t want to touch bugs with your bare hands unless you know what the bug is! Remember some bugs bite and sting. So gloves, a net and tweezers are nice to have! When we go on a nature scavenger hunt, we try not to harm the things we are studying. So plan to release them after you are finished.
Jar (with small air holes punched in the lid) to hold specimen. When we were little, we had something like thisBugwatchto use to examine bugs (and anything else we could fit in these containers)!
Camera. Our grandmother gave us real cameras when we were really little. I think I was six. I still have this camera and it is still takes great pictures. I do have to use tape on the battery compartment to keep it closed because I broke the cover several years ago!
When you find a bug to study you can either look at it there where you found it or put it in your container. See if you can tell if it is an insect or bug by reviewing the chart above. Take a picture of it or draw it. My brother is writing a whole series on Nature Journaling. This might be a great time to start one!
Resources
Here are some great products that helped me write this article. I thought you might find them helpful too.
I hope this gives you an idea of what the differences are between bugs and insects. I’ll be writing lots of articles about insects in our backyard and we will talk about both, so I wanted to start here so we all could understand the differences… but I’ll still probably slip up and call them bugs!
Have you ever wanted to spend time outside, but didn't know what to do? Or maybe you wanted to do an activity outdoors, but didn't know how to do it. Or maybe you were simply bored with your normal activities. I know, I've been there on more than one occasion. So to help all of us come up with some creative ideas, I've decided to start a new series, Backyard Activities for Kids. I'll share activities you can do in your backyard or neighborhood that are affordable, educational, and will be fun for all ages!
Before I get into the series, I thought I should give you a bit of the back-story on why I decided to start writing this series. For my entire life, I've lived on a forty acre farm in southwest Tennessee. It's been home to me for almost sixteen years now, but it's quite possible we'll be moving soon. As our needs and desires change, we have to change our way of thinking and living as well. So, a large house on a farm isn't quite what we're aiming for anymore. But during the last decade and a half I've done a lot of things on this farm, and I want to share them with other people so they can enjoy them too. And most of these things aren't exclusive to homesteads, you can do most of this just as easily in a neighborhood or large city.
With forty acres we have a variety of landscapes and types of areas that we can (and do) use for our outdoor activities. Those include a pond that covers about an acre, a horse / cow pasture that is fenced in, thick woods with lots of hardwood trees, open fields, a garden area, a small stream and our front and back yards. Here are a few pictures I've taken of these areas over the years.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
I'll be covering a lot of summer activities, but I'm also going to make sure to add plenty of educational things to do too. For most of us, the weather outside is getting warmer and warmer, and here it's great outside. So why not combine the two, learning and outdoor time? I attended a Montessori school before homeschooling and we had a formal outdoor classroom there. We haven't actually set one up at home, but we have always used our 40 acres as a classroom. A place to explore and enjoy. I'll be covering things we have done or plan to do this year. Topics will cover astronomy, biology, botany, practical life skills, you name it! Basically anything that you could do outside. And I'll even sneak in some math and language, because it can be done outside too!
In today's world, people are busier than ever with not much time left to enjoy the outdoors. So we have to be more focused on making the effort to slow down and get outside with our families. Outdoor activities seem to bring back some quiet and peaceful balance to our busy lives. Not to mention they are fun and create memories that will last a lifetime. You may actually find out you enjoy spending time outside more than you realized!
In one of my first posts I will discuss some of the outdoor daytime activities we normally do when we are camping. As an avid camper, I can tell you there are a ton of things you could do. From hiking to scavenger hunts, the possibilities are almost limitless. Add in some creative ways to document the camping trip and you have a homeschool unit study happening.
I hope you will follow along to see what backyard activities I will be sharing!
This is Gage. I’m so excited to announce I am starting a new series, a Nature Journal series! I will be sharing about all the flowers, plants, trees, animals, and insects (nature) we find in our backyard… and teaching you how to do nature journaling.This will probably be the last year we spend here because we are getting our house ready to sell. So this series will be a way to help me remember where I grew up.
I have really loved living here. I enjoy being able to keep and care for farm animals. We used to have a bunch of dairy cows, I really enjoyed them. We had many calves born here on the farm and have had many funny escapades with them. Here is Bullophagus — one of our frisky baby bulls, out investigating if the grass really is greener on the other side!
Now, we are down to just chickens and a horse, but mom sometimes feels like they are too much too! You can see why. When we took everything off our porch to paint, the chickens thought they had found new roosting places!
I am 13, almost 14, and am the middle child of the family. I used to attend the La Grange Montessori School. In 2008 it closed due to lack of funds. And I have been homeschooled ever since. I love to go out and just listen to nature sometimes. I’m not going to call myself a nature guy, but I do enjoy spending time outdoors.
Let me tell you about my home. I have lived in La Grange, TN all my life. We live on 40 acres of land. During the summer, it is normally around 80-92 degrees and it doesn’t rain that often. Our house is on a hill so our backyard has a slight slope. The grass is normally cut but is not a manicured yard. Out the front door is a mostly flat yard that slightly slopes down towards our ditch then back up to the main road, there are many trees as it starts to slope down. Beside our driveway is the horse’s pasture and the driveway doesn’t stop at the house, it continues down to our barn. Behind the barn is the woods, and down from the barn through the pasture is the Pond (where we let our turtles loose.) The backyard is met with trees as you get closer to the barn.
Since this area is very rural we can find and study lots of interesting animals, birds, and plants around here. Just three days ago when I was walking with my mom picking Dandelions, we saw a snake. Have I mentioned mom hates snakes?
Another great thing about living in a rural area is the fact that we can keep certain animals we find. For example, in TN you can not buy red-eared sliders. But we found two in our pool after we had shocked it — we had those two for quite a while but they got too big and we let them live in our pond.
One of the things I enjoy most is trying to find animals. I’m not sure why, I just really love finding them. Once we found a small snake, very small, about 4 inches long with an orange belly and grey/tan back, I just kept watching it while we kept it in a jar with air holes. Oh yeah, have I mentioned momhatessnakes? There was no keeping that find! So we released the tiny snake.
I also enjoy listening to the sound of nature around me. I usually bring my school work outside on nice days… especially the messy experiments!
Next time I will be talking about Lyreleaf sage aka Cancer weed and in the future we will cover a plant everyone knows, the Dandelion!
I have linked up with other teen/tween writers at ClaraBlevins.com. If you are a Teen/Tween writer join the link up!
Hi, I’m Blake. This is the first post in a new series I’m starting called the Backyard Bug Study. Guess what I will be writing about? Yep… Bugs! And Insects.
First let me introduce myself to you! I’m Blake and I’m eleven years old. I have two brothers who also write on this blog. We are all homeschoolers. We live in a small town in Tennessee called La Grange.
It is a very rural area where we have around 40 acres of land with a huge house! So large we can’t manage all of it! We are trying to sell it to buy a smaller house and less land. So I thought I would create something to help me record the great memories of my first home!
Our backyard has tons of clover and dandelions (there are weeds growing in it too)! We have a wide variety of trees, and some of them are very fun to climb! 🙂 And bugs. Lots of bugs. We have stinging bugs, flying bugs, digging bugs, biting bugs, swimming bugs, hopping bugs, boring bugs… you get the idea. We have bugs! So this should be an easy series to write because we have LOTS of insects and bugs here!
And while we are on the subject of bugs, let me tell you about the word “bug”. Many people use the word “bug” when really they are looking at an insect. Bug only accurately describes a few! And even the ones that have the word “bug” in their name, most aren’t even bugs at all! We will learn all about that in this backyard bug study! Which ones are “true” bugs and which ones are insects, where they live, what their natural predators are, are they harmful or helpful to your plants and garden, and lots of other fun and interesting facts.
I hope you will follow along with my new series and that you will find it helpful! Maybe it will give you some ideas on what to study in your own backyard! If you do choose to join us, please leave a comment each week to let us know what you found!
