Carolina Sphinx Moth

| 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 [...]

Simple Butterfly Symmetry

| 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 [...]

Butterfly (and Moth) Blessings

| 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 [...]

The Basics of Butterflies

| 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 [...]

Defense Mechanisms

| July 27, 2010

God has given all creatures a line of defense, something to give them a better chance of survival.  And lately I’ve become intrigued by seeing evidence of this on our nature walks. For instance below you will see a picture I took at our last Nature Club meeting.  Notice the tiny red and black bugs. [...]

New at Shining Dawn Books!

| August 9, 2009

At Shining Dawn Books we have been diligently working to get THREE new units ready for your late summer and fall nature studies! We’d like to introduce: Butterflies Flutter By – A unit packed full of caterpillar and butterfly information and activities.   Constant Conifers – A unit that takes you on an in-depth tour [...]