• 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!

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.

Eastern-Tailed Blue Butterflies

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.

Eastern-Tailed Blue Butterfly, in flight

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.

Beautiful, orange-ish rust color

Frequent Visitors

Do you notice the shimmering gold on this one's wings?? Gorgeous!

The Beautiful, Luna Moth

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.

Now this is hands-on schooling!

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!

“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

Open fields of wilflowers are the perfect spot to find butterflies of all kinds. Butterflies need the heat from the sun for energy, thus why you will not see as many out on a cool and/or cloudy day.

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.

There was a gorgeous Monarch butterfly fluttering around us for a long time. He is sitting on the red clover at the center of this picture.

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.

The color and pattern on a butterfly's wings is a piece of God's most beautiful artwork.

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

For instance below you will see a picture I took at our last Nature Club meeting.  Notice the tiny red and black bugs.

But especially notice below the bugs, the silver metallic spiky round objects.  Let me zoom in…

I was very intrigued by what these were so I sent the photo in to an Entomologist at the University of Kentucky and received the following response:

Hello Melissa,

The silver things are eggs and the bugs have hatched from them.  They should be some sort of stick bug.

Cheers,
Bill

I suppose the eggs are protected/guarded by those spikes on them.  Whether or not they are just “for show” or could actually do damage to a predator, I don’t know.  But they are intimidating at least.

And then there’s the fake stinger on the end of this Snowberry Clearwing Moth Caterpillar.  It is just a harmless hair, but predators don’t know that.  In fact, at first, I was a bit concerned about it!  I guess I would be looked upon as a predator!

Other defense mechanisms include camouflage, yucky smell (think skunk), poison glands (toad, etc.), bright colors (associated with being poisonous, frogs, etc.), protective shells (as in turtles), prickly spikes (hedgehogs, porcupines), and SO many more!

BUT, when our neighbor spotted this baby mole, all was forgiven of these cute creatures. I mean after all they are just doing what they do, and that’s dig. Maybe they’ve just gotten a bad wrap.

The little creature was alive, but I’m not sure where it’s momma was. Hannah, as usual, was willing to assume the role, but after I explained that we couldn’t bring it home she proceeded to cover it up with a leaf and say a little prayer that it’s family would find it.

Several moms in our homeschool group want to start a nature club but we have no idea where to begin with forming a club. Can you tell me a little about yours? Thanks for the help!

Thank you for your question Lecia and since this is a popular one I decided to write up a blog post entry about it.

This spring and summer will be my second time leading a nature club for our homeschool co-op, and I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am. Our nature club was a huge success last year and I truly loved leading it. As you probably know from my blog, I am very passionate about God’s creation and especially about sharing my love of it with others, and a nature club is an excellent way to do just that!

Here is my list of steps and recommendations for getting a club started:

Determine the interest level in your group. – Poll your group to see if you have a high enough interest level to make it worth officially forming a group. In my opinion, two or more families is great! These things have a tendency to grow quickly anyways once word gets out.

Determine a vision for how you want your nature club to be ran. – Would you like a more structured time including an appointed “leader/teacher” for each meeting and a focus topic for each meeting such as birds, wildflowers, etc? Or would you prefer a more relaxed club where you just meet and freely enjoy nature together? Again, you could poll your group to determine what the majority is looking for in the club. Determine if you want parental involvement to be mandatory at each meeting. I recommend this for a couple of reasons: parents will be responsible for their children and not the leader(s), and I highly believe in parents being involved with and connecting with their children in nature study.

If a more structured time is desired, appoint a leader or leaders who will steer the meetings, being sure the meetings stay on task to what is desired of them. – Perhaps all the members would be willing to take turns leading a meeting; however most often there are a small group of people who are “natural leaders” and/or are more knowledgeable on the subject of nature and will gladly do this. Or perhaps you will determine that having just one leader/teacher works fine too.

Determine the frequency of your meetings and the topics and locations. How many times a month will you meet? Will you meet year round or only in the warmer months? Where are the places you could meet? Make a list of local parks or other locations that your club could meet. After doing all of the previous, make a list of the dates you will be meeting and locations where you will be meeting. Decide what you will do in the case of inclement weather. Will you reschedule?

After determining this, and if you chose to make your meetings a little more structured, make a list of topics your group would like to see covered throughout these meetings. When you are picking topics, match appropriate locations that would work well. For instance, a particular park may have huge wildflower fields that would make it perfect for a wildflower focused meeting. Or another park may have a beautiful creek which would make it perfect for a creek focused meeting. When determining what to teach on the focus subjects that you will be covering keep in mind the NaturExplorers unit studies at Shining Dawn Books each have a section dedicated to giving you ideas of things to do with Nature Clubs and Co-ops. I use these for each of our nature club meetings.

After you have all these details, put the information together coming up with a calendar of dates, meeting topics and locations for your club.

Now you are ready to start implementing your meetings! It is helpful to send out weekly reminders to the group, perhaps via email or another online means. In the reminders it’s helpful to list all the basics (where, what when, etc.) and also any helpful information such as if the children should bring anything special (nets, containers, etc.) or wear anything special (mud boots, long pants, old clothes, etc.).

I have tried to be very thorough in these recommendations for starting a nature club, hopefully I have not left anything out. And hopefully I have not left you feeling overwhelmed. If done correctly a nature club will NOT be overwhelming and tedious to run. It will be well worth the minimal effort! Do not make it too structured and “textbook educational”, keep structured teaching time minimal and hands-on exploring maximal.

Lastly, here is how our nature club looks:

We meet only in the spring and summer, starting in April and going through July. We meet every other Friday morning from 10:00am to 12:00pm, having a total of eight meetings. Some of the families stay after the meetings to have a picnic lunch together. Parental participation is mandatory. We start our meetings with a 10-15 minute teaching session on the chosen focus. Then the remainder of the time is spent exploring and doing fun hands-on activities. I send out reminders at least 5 days in advance giving all the details and recommendations for the meetings.

I will be happy to answer any other questions that you may have. And may God bless you in the study of His creation!

There were beautiful patterns of ice in the creek. In places the water was flowing under the ice making bubbly sounds.

The trees even in wintertime are covered in green lichen. Some of them have fabulous patterns.

There are places in piles of leaves where the ice is not melted, still sparkling in the sunlight.

And dried up fall wildflowers still stand tall holding on to their seeds until spring.

Here are a couple more photos I’d like to share with you.

Hannah surprised me today by drawing me a sweet picture on the whiteboard with a super sweet message. It reminded me of the springtime to come! Do you notice the “o” in MOM is a leaf? She definitely knows me well!

And one more…I don’t think that any animal can get as cozy as a cat! Ah, the life.

Oh dear, I’m almost late in getting this post out! Can you believe that tomorrow is February? Where has January gone? Well anyways, I hope that you were able to get some good nature study time in during January, even if the temperatures were a bit (or a lot) chilly! The sun did finally break through the clouds and the blue skies returned after days and days of gray, that was an instant mood lifter.

So, onward to February nature. If you hibernated last month (like I did somewhat) there’s no time like the present to get back outside and enjoy God’s creation. Usually by February everyone’s starting to look forward to springtime (getting cabin fever), so I would encourage getting outside as much as possible and observing the details to find beauty and encouragement.

Here is my list of February Nature Notables to get you started. Some of these things may be repeated from last month, but many are new.

• Did you start a nature calendar in January? Be sure to keep it up through this month. Even if you didn’t start one in January, it’s always a good time to start any time of year.
• Whenever possible study and observe snowflakes, ice and frost.
• Hunt for animal signs and tracks in mud and/or snow.
• Chart the sun on the horizon throughout the month at the same time each day. Note how the position is changing (keep the Observing the Sun’s Position notebooking page if you’d like).
• Watch for sun or moon halos (this time of year is a great time to observe this).
• Spend time cloud gazing. Humidity levels are low in the sky giving a very clear view on certain days.
• Spend time at night star gazing for the same reason listed above.
• Search for beauty in winter, even on gray, drabby days look for details and give God the glory.
• If possible, put out bird feeders. This time of year they will greatly appreciate it and you will immensely enjoy watching them. Plan to participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count coming February 12th – 15th!
• Observe wooded areas. While the brush is gone and leaves are off the trees you can get a great view of wildlife such as deer, squirrels and birds.
• Study and observe evergreens and conifers.
• We all know that February is all about LOVE! You could play this into nature by taking a hike and making a list of things that you find that you love in February’s nature; this would also help with the cabin fever and lack of appreciation. And/or find ways to “love” and take care of nature by feeding the birds and other wildlife, providing water, etc.
• Another way to help with cabin fever: planning/mapping a garden for spring, buying seeds, etc. Yep, we can officially say we can start looking forward to spring!!!
• Also now is a great time to have a Indoor Root Vegetable Tabletop Garden!
• Join the Journey North Mystery Class (starting February 1st!).
• Applicable Shining Dawn Books topics: Snow and Ice, Constant Conifers, Animal Signs, Captivating Clouds, Beautiful Birds.

Editing to add a couple more things:

Don’t forget February 2nd is Groundhog Day. A great time to study about groundhogs and hibernation.

On February the 28th there will be a Full Snow Moon – Since the heaviest snow usually falls during this month, native tribes of the north and east most often called February’s full Moon the Full Snow Moon. Some tribes also referred to this Moon as the Full Hunger Moon, since harsh weather conditions in their areas made hunting very difficult. – Might be a great time to study full moon names and their origins and moon phases.

Happy February Nature study!!

(this image is showing a huge black dot, it’s supposed to be a sun, but it appears fine when you download it!) Isn’t that ironic that we seem to be “missing” the sun a lot around here lately!! LOL