Posted By Melissa on August 20, 2010

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been purposefully leaving the light on outside by the door to our schoolroom.  It has been SO much fun to go down to school in the morning and first thing check the wall outside by the door for moths.  It’s like a little treasure hunt each morning to see which moths will visit and stay for us to observe them.  This morning we had a special visitor, the Carolina Sphinx Moth.

This moth is pretty large and at first glance seemed pretty bland in color.  My oldest daughter suggested I see if it would let me pick it up (notice how she makes me do it).  So, of course, I did.  And the moth was just as friendly as could be.  I think they are rather lazy in the morning and they’ll let you do that.  When I picked it up it spread out it’s wings to reveal six rows of bright yellow bands.  I don’t think it’s so bland in color anymore.

My daughter took numerous closeup photos so we could observe the details.

I really was amazed at how long the moth allowed us to observe it.

The following is a video we took showing how the moth would flutter it’s wings.

Shortly after we took this video the moth took to flight towards the woods in back.  This particular moths flies rather slow and my first thought was, “Oh no, a bird will get it.”  And sure enough down swooped a bird after it.  Well, that bird was not going to eat MY moth that has just blessed me.  So I took off “shooo-ing” the bird away just in time.  The moth fluttered on down and landed at the base of a tree.  My daughter and I decided we would go “rescue it” by putting it back in the safer place we found it.  Well, God has other plans, He has taken care of this moth just fine.  Ever heard of camouflage?

We left that beautiful moth right where it was!

Category: Butterflies and Moths | 3 Comments »
Tags: camouflage, carolina sphinx moth

Posted By Melissa on August 18, 2010

We focus on art on Wednesdays each week.  This week we’ve learned a little more about Michelangelo.  So today my daughter had a wonderful time creating a fresco painting, which Michelangelo was known for.

This was a very fun project and I plan to try doing some different things with plaster.  I have some ideas for nature projects!

The idea for fresco painting came from my favorite artist project book, Discovering Great Artists by MaryAnn Kohl.

Category: Art and Music | 1 Comment »
Tags: Art, Artist Study, fresco painting, michelangelo

Posted By Melissa on August 14, 2010

We finished up our butterfly and moth focus this week in school.  With my youngest (Kindergartner) I’ve concentrated on the very basics of these wonderful creatures.  And one concept we’ve learned about was symmetry.  Aside from bringing up the word “symmetry” to her as often as possible during the past two weeks, the three main things we did were:

• looked at several pictures of butterflies and drew attention to how their wings were similar;
• used pattern blocks to have her build butterflies symmetrically (I would make one side and have her copy it to the other and also just let her do this on her own); AND
• I printed out a simple outline picture of a butterfly (off the internet) and, ahead of time, I colored half of it using crayons, and then had her use the same crayons to copy what I had done.

I think she did a great job!  Now on to deciduous trees!

Category: Butterflies and Moths, Insects, Nature Study | 5 Comments »
Tags: butterfly symmetry

Posted By Melissa on August 11, 2010

Thank you to all my readers who nominated me for the 2010 Top Homeschool Blog Award.  This award was given to 30 blogs who exuded overall brilliance in their content!  Wow! Thank you!

Category: Blog | 2 Comments »
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Posted By Melissa on August 9, 2010

As always when we start paying more attention to something in nature, God starts blessing us with wonderful opportunities to see it.   As I said before we are learning more about butterflies and moths this first couple weeks of school.  Yesterday my oldest daughter came running excitedly through the front door declaring that we were being visited by a huge group of butterflies.  I used my camera to videotape what we saw.

Mostly they were Cabbage Butterflies, but they varied in intensity of yellow color.  But also there were several little tiny butterflies, called Eastern-tailed Blue, that I managed to catch close-ups of.

At first I wondered why the word “blue” was in their name; that was until I caught a picture of one of them flying off.

Then this morning, again my older daughter went out our back door to take the dog out and observed several moths on the concrete around our outside light.  That is a great place early in the morning to find moths!  Here are a few that we observed.

Even though this isn’t first first encounter we’ve had with a Luna Moth, since it is not frequently that we get to see one, we gently took it inside to observe closer.

This was a great teaching opportunity (seize the moments!) to teach my youngest about the differences between a moth and butterfly.  Here is another quick video.

I pray we continue to get blessed with such great opportunities to observe and learn about these wonderful creatures!

Category: Butterflies and Moths, Nature Study, Nature in Summer | 6 Comments »
Tags: butterflies, eastern tailed blue butterfly, luna moth, moths, Nature Study

Posted By Melissa on August 7, 2010

“Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life.  And everyone deserves a little sunshine.”

~Jeffrey Glassberg

The soaring heat and humidity of August makes it an excellent time to observe butterflies in nature.  In fact, for this first structured week of school, I have focused on butterflies with my youngest daughter.  Since my other children are much older its been a long time since I’ve had to think of the basics of butterflies.  We’ve been focusing on these three things:  life cycle of a butterfly, symmetry (butterfly wings), and the parts of a butterfly.  And of course the most important thing is we’ve spent some quality time outdoors chasing and observing butterflies too!  All of my research and ideas for activities and projects that I’ve used have come from the Butterflies Flutter By unit.

It’s been so nice to focus on the simple, basics of butterflies.  And to see my daughter’s unreserved enthusiam for these beautiful, winged creatures has been simply priceless.  On one particular day we managed to catch a Red-Spotted Purple butterfly to observe for a little bit.  Both my daughters got to stick their hands inside the enclosure to enjoy feeling the butterfly on their hands.  I believe being able to utilize the sense of touch and tangibility in your study of nature is highly beneficial.

As your schoolyear is beginning, be sure to bring some sunshine into your life by learning more about and observing butterflies.

 

Category: Butterflies and Moths, Nature Study, Nature Study Inspiration, Nature in Summer | 6 Comments »
Tags: butterflies, Nature Study