While I was washing dishes a few days ago, I saw caterpillars on one of my milkweed plants. Colin and I went to look at them to see what kind they were. I thought they were probably monarchs because that’s why I planted the milkweed in the first place (it is the monarch host plant). Monarch butterflies only lay their eggs on milkweed because that is what the caterpillars eat. We looked on the Internet to confirm their identity and caught one for our butterfly habitat. Since we knew exactly what it would eat, caring for it was very easy. We gave it fresh leaves for two days and Tuesday night, it crawled to the top of the enclosure and stayed there. Then, it started to let go very, very slowly with its front feet so that eventually it was left hanging in the shape of a “J,” upside down, clinging for dear life with its very back feet. I just knew that it would be a chrysalis when we got up Wednesday morning, but it wasn’t. I looked at it several times while I was working in the kitchen. One time I looked at it and it was still a “J” and less than five minutes later, I looked and it was a bright jade green chrysalis….beautiful!

We had ordered caterpillars online before and watched them develop into butterflies. Until that time, I had no idea how they actually did that (not that I’m perfectly clear on it now). They molt (shed the exoskeleton) and underneath is the chrysalis. When I was in school and up to the time we observed our first caterpillars turn into chrysalids, I thought butterfly caterpillars would spin cocoons around themselves. It has really been an eye-opening experience homeschooling and actually paying close attention to nature.

I have pictures of a caterpillar on the milkweed plant and one of the chrysalis. Notice the antennae on the front and the mock ones on the back to confuse predators. It is easy to mistake the back for the front. I couldn’t get a good picture of the caterpillar leading up to the chrysalis because of the netting on our habitat. I also can’t get a picture of the exoskeleton it shed to reveal the chrysalis. Hopefully within a few days, I will have pictures of the butterfly!

If you ever get a chance, it is a wonderful thing to watch a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly!!

Today it wasn’t too hot outside, so we decided to go for a nature walk (and get some exercise at the same time). We don’t get to spend much time outside at our house this time of the year because the mosquitoes are horrible, so we have to go elsewhere to enjoy the outdoors. We walked between 4.5 and 5 miles total. Eamon did very well for having such short legs. We only carried him for a little while. Last week when we went to the same park, I pushed him in the stroller and vowed that he was big enough to walk. Today was much more enjoyable without having to push him! My arms will thank me tomorrow.

The critters apparently thought it was a good day to be out, also, and I took a few pictures. Unfortunately I didn’t photograph everything. We saw two millipedes, a caterpillar, a funnel-web spider, (along with lots of other spiders and webs), many butterflies and skippers, birds, squirrels, lizards, bees, ducks, geese, dragonflies, and damselflies…I probably forgot something.

I had several interesting conversations with Eamon along the way about different leaves, flowers, seeds, etc. that we found on the path. He told me that pinecones come from a pinecone tree and acorns come from an acorn tree. How funny! Of course, I corrected him and he learned so much from the whole experience.

As we walked along the shaded paths in the woods, we heard birds and cicadas singing, frogs croaking, squirrels barking, geese honking, and ducks quacking. It was such a peaceful time and it was wonderful to be with my family.

Click on each picture for more information about it.

Well, Colin finished his first lapbook today. We will continue to study and watch the Olympics, but I think we have a satisfactory number of things in the lapbook already. I don’t really know much to say about it, so I’ll just post some pictures. If you click on a picture, you should be able to see the whole thing instead of just the thumbnail.

Well, it has been a while since I wrote anything…with good reason. I have been so busy! Two weeks ago, I was cleaning up and sorting through things to get ready for school and then we started back on Aug. 4, so I haven’t had much time to slow down. It has been a wonderful school year for the seven days we’ve been at it.

The first day of school, we started a unit study and lapbook on the Olympics, so we went to the library to find some information. It’s my first experience with a lapbook, but so far, so good. Colin seems to be enjoying it, except for writing in all the mini books. He wouldn’t want to admit it, but he gets a little bit of perfectionism from me and he wasn’t satisfied with his handwriting without lines to guide him. So…I started drawing lines in pencil so he could write and then I erased the lines when he was done. Colin is very artistic and crafty, so he’s been able to do a good job on this project. I’ll let you know how it turns out. We’ve also enjoyed watching the Opening Ceremony and the many sporting events on t.v. to go along with our studies.

Tuesday (Aug. 5), after we finished our lessons, we met some friends at the playground. Eamon and one of his friends found a butterfly and I got pictures of it sitting on their arms. So cute. After the playground, we went to a cousin’s birthday party at a pool. We only had four days of school last week because on Thursday, we spent the day at a nearby water park.

During the weekend, we went to I.N.K. (Interactive Neighborhood for Kids). It is a really cool place for the kids to play with things you see all the time, but they never get to touch. There are different rooms off of a hallway that all have a theme. I know I will never be able to name all of the rooms, but there’s a grocery store, diner, library, post office, beauty shop, bank, doctor’s office, school, vet’s office, etc. They even have a real police car, fire truck, and airplane for the kids to play on and push all the cool buttons.

On Monday of this week, we did most of our lessons, then met some friends at the pool for a “Not going back to school” party. We stayed for around 3 hours and the kids would have stayed longer, but we were all exhausted and needed to go home to rest.

On another note, I’ve had a strange turn of events with curriculum for this year. One of my friends (thanks, Cristy!) is letting me borrow her books for ambleside online. She had used them with some of her kids last year, but wasn’t going to be using them this year, so she asked if I wanted to use them. I have considered using ambleside before and I already lean toward a Charlotte Mason approach. I just never took that step because I always put together my own curriculum. Ambleside seemed confusing at first, but now I am SO excited about it!! I’ve looked through the books and printed out the lesson plans to tweak and add to my own. It all seems great! Planning is my favorite part of school and I’m just ecstatic! I love writing lesson plans, deciding what books we will use, setting goals for the year, visiting the library to get ideas, etc. (I know, I’m weird.)

Now that I’ve studied up on ambleside, I realize that you don’t have to purchase a lot of things. Most of the books are available to read or print from the Internet. Since it is so inexpensive, I might continue using it even after this year. I am the type of person who had rather have a book (or catalog) in hand instead of reading from a screen, and I don’t like the expense of printing things out, so I’m glad I can just borrow the books for the first year to see how I like it. One of the difficult things for me to wrap my mind around is reading so many books at the same time. It is working brilliantly, though. We started our book of centuries so we can understand what century events were happening in and when compared to other events in history.

There is a list of extra books for “free reading” that Cristy didn’t have, but they are all available at the library or online. If you’ve never looked into it for yourself, here’s the website Ambleside

We are still using Natural Speller, Saxon Math, Rod and Staff Grammar, and Apologia (Zoology 2) for Science. I’ll probably continue using The Story of the World some since we were reading the same time period as in the ambleside year we’re doing. According to ambleside, I will still add Music/Composer studies, picture study (art), nature study, dictation/penmanship, and “handicrafts”
to my schedule.

Hopefully the excitement of the new school year doesn’t wear off too quickly. 2008-2009 school year, here I come!

Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. We have had so much cake lately that the boys and I decided to surprise him with pie instead. So, while he was at work on Thursday, we made an apple pie and a lemon meringue pie…both of his favorites. I had asked earlier in the week what he wanted for his birthday meal and he said jambalaya. So we had jambalaya and pie last night (not at the same time, of course)….yum!