Summertime Fun - July's Adventures

Continuing on with our summer learning and exploring.... we went to a birthday party over the summer, and we bought a Backyard Safari butterfly cage for this person for their present.  The boys thought it was so cool, we ended up buying a second one for ourselves!  So, we put in an order for some butterfly larvae to arrive in the mail.  After a couple weeks, they arrived.  All dead.  Thank you, Florida summer temperatures, for cooking our poor little larvae in the mailbox.  :(

Fortunately, the company that we bought them from, Carolina.com, was really great about replacing them.  In fact, something must have gotten buggered up in their system, because they sent us TWO replacements.  We were LOADED with butterfly larvae!

Painted lady caterpillars cozy in their jar.

After a week, they all made their way to the top
and each formed a chrysalis.

We took out the paper they had attached themselves to, and we affixed it
to the top of the butterfly keeper.

The boys were very interested in watching the butterflies after they came
out.  Unfortunately, we managed to miss each one actually breaking free of
their chrysalis, but it was still cool to see them afterwards.  Hayden was
constantly giving us updates on each and every one of them!

Out of 12 caterpillars, we got about 10 butterflies.  The very first one to come out was the only one to die because his wings never unfurled properly.  I'm not sure what happened to the other one. ???  In the end, they all mated before I realized that we should've let them go, and they laid 5 gazillion teeny tiny bluish-green eggs all over the cage.  I had to stick the cage outside next to one of our hibiscus plants because when the caterpillars hatched, they were SO tiny, that they kept falling out of the mesh of the cage and dying on the shelf because they couldn't find food.  It was INSANE how many of them there were and how fast their life cycle came and went.  

You can see the little blue eggs on the wadded paper towel which was
soaked in sugar water.  The little black lines here and there are the caterpillars
that have hatched.

Along with our butterfly habitat, we decided to do a lapbook to keep track of everything we learned.  We read quite a few books on butterflies as well.  What a great learning experience!

Bob and Otto by Robert O'Bruel
The Magic School Bus Butterfly and the Bog Beast:  a Book About Butterfly Camouflage  by Nancy E. Krulik
Where Butterflies Grow by Joanne Ryder
My, Oh My - a Butterfly! by Tish Rabe
DK Readers Born to be a Butterfly by Karen Wallace

Working on the lap books:

We still have one more mini book to put in our lap books and then we need to decorate them.  After that, I'll put the finished products on the blog.

Other activities from July....

A Magic Crystal Tree experiment from Steve Spangler's science website.  We'll have to try this one again at Christmas time when it actually makes sense.  Ha!

I think next time, I'll add at least twice the amount of liquid that the
experiment called for.  This was as far as our little crystals made it up the tree.

Solar Oven Experiment

One shoebox, aluminum foil, black construction paper,  plastic wrap,
and some goodies!

Waiting for the smores to melt!

And they're ready!

Survey says....

Not bad at all!!

 The boys grew sprouts from tiny azuki seeds in Spiral Scouts (a secular version of Girl/Boy Scouts) to prepare for a gardening activity.

 Elephant Toothpaste experiment from Steve Spangler's website:

Ingredients used for the experiment:  Hydrogen peroxide, liquid dish soap,
yeast, red food coloring, aluminum pan, and empty soda bottle

Sawyer ALWAYS wears goggles for science experiments.  He's afraid something
will blow up in his face.  At least he's got some sense of safety.  Better than none
at all!

Elephant Toothpaste!

Summertime Fun - June's Adventures

Our summer "vacation" is officially over.  And thank goodness, because we need some structure around here!  We started back to school this past week (gently) with our Free Range Learning Co-op fall semester, and a lot of fun reading and exploring at home.  We actually did quite a bit of schooling over the summer, but took a break for the first half of August.  Now, we are easing back into the real deal!  But first, let me share with you what we did over the summer.

Working on grouping items that are alike after testing out a new language arts curriculum.

Sawyer did dogs.

Hayden chose insects.

Sawyer doing Roll-a-Dough letters with his name and playdoh.

Decorating the letter S for Sawyer.

Copywork:  Little Miss Muffet (he got tired of it after the first two lines).
Writing is not a fun skill to learn for these boys.  It's coming along though.

And yet, more writing practice.  Did I say "summertime fun"??  Haha!
Actually, he didn't mind this one so much.  It was another activity from our
new language arts curriculum.

Nat ran.  Ann ran.  The first early reader of the language arts curriculum.

Aesop's Fable, The Lion and the Mouse.  They had to color and cut out the
pictures after hearing the story and put them in the right order.

Trying to use correct pencil grip for tracing some flowers.  

Hidden picture sticker activity.  MUCH more enjoyable!

A little bug unit I found with some fun activities to complete.  Sawyer did
a little pattern recognition.

And not too shabby a job, either!

Shake-a-tree activity with our bug unit.  We took out a big white sheet, stuck
it under a bush, and shook the heck out of it.  Then, we pulled out our
magnifying glasses to see what we could find.  LOTS of teeny tiny spiders
and snails!

Bug Phonics.  Sawyer had to write the first letter of each word.

Scrambled sentences.  Hayden had to unscramble the funny sentences.  I
learned this day that he can read a lot better than I thought he could.  That
little booger has been holding out on me!!