Hey folks! We are finally getting back
into the swing of things with homeschooling, so I thought I would
share what we've been up to!
Usually I will decide on a theme to
roll with for a week or more based on what Myka is interested in at
the time. I had NO clue what I wanted to do this week, but I knew I
wanted to keep the ball rolling with school stuff. I hadn't planned
on doing a specific butterfly theme, but it just kind of turned out
that way this week. (What Bob Ross would call a “happy little
accident”.)
We ordered painted lady caterpillars
again this year. Long story short, they sent us an extra one and we
think they ran out of food, so only one of them ended up
hatching...And since we waited so long to see if the other ones were
going to cocoon, he started coming out while still in the cup instead
of the “habitat”. Oops. Because of that, he was all dried out and
was never able to open his wings all the way. Oops. They're kind of
curled and gnarly looking. It's the saddest butterfly you've ever
seen.
Luckily, though, we have had TONS in the yard, so, while we
weren't able to see them go through their life cycle, we have caught
quite a few painted lady butterflies to observe in our butterfly
habitat for a time before letting them go. The one pictured here is a
black swallowtail! We had a nice little impromptu nature lesson the
day I caught it, identifying it and learning what it likes to eat. I
want one of the pretty orange ones with black spots or tiger
swallowtail to check out, but they are wily things!
We checked out a really neat book at
the library titled Science and Craft Projects with Insects,
Spiders, and Other Minibeasts,
which is part of a Get Crafty Outdoors
series. Fun! Sounds right up our alley, right? After all it pretty
much combines our two favorite things!
Anyways,
we did a few projects from that book this week. It was great because
even my 2 year old could do them with some help AND they had two
pages before the craft/activity that talked about the related
critter. The girls made these cute little handprint butterflies,
painted caterpillar rock garden decorations, and we made a worm farm
in a bottle! (We also finished some lady bug and bee kindness rocks
we started a few months ago, as you can see in the picture. Lol)
We
also made butterfly life cycle crafts (Pinterest).
Ripley actually did most of hers on the left. I was impressed! She
was trying to do hers like Myka. It was so cute!
We've
also been investigating some other nature critters around the farm. A
bird built its nest in the corner of the school room on the outside
and became Myka's obsession until they flew out. She checked on them
multiple times a day...Even in her Barbie car. Lol
We
happened to see a turtle in the yard one evening, so that was fun! We
came across lots of Easter Box Turtles last year, but this was only
the second we've seen this year so far. I like that we seem to have a
lot around here because they are threatened, possible close to being
endangered, if I remember correctly. Myka has been keeping a more
casual eye out for his reappearance in the front yard. ;)
John
and I noticed some frog eggs (and by some, I mean TONS!) in our pigs'
mud pit today. Naturally, we had to save some of those too. :P As
long as we don't forget to keep an eye on them and make sure they
don't get too hot, I look forward to watching frogs go through their
life cycle with the kids! (We just learned about frogs recently too.)
Are
you still chugging along, or is it time for summer break for your
family?
