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Friday, August 7, 2009

Nature Studies (up close and personal)

Although my girls are very "girlie" there is one area that Olivia diverts from the norm....bugs.  She LOVES bugs.  She randomly captures them and gives them names and tries to turn them into pets.  Imagine her horror to find that "Petty" (a lightning bug) was crushed while sleeping in bed  with her  (shudder).

As late summer arrived, we've found a new love.  Cicadas...seriously.  We found a cicada shell in the flower bed out back.  She carried it around for HOURS.

Then we found more...and so on, and so on...for days.   Currently this collection is hanging in our dining room, marked with the date and location they were found.

Since there was an interest, I threw together a quick unit study/lapbook for us.

On the left is a little booklet entitled "The Cicada" full of little factoids.  On the right is sequencing cards for the life cycle of the cicada.  Both of these items were found on Enchanted Learning.  The blank areas are for photos once we've completed our collection.   These are FAR more colorful than real cicada's...but I bet they'd look like this if they could.

This lovely diagram (also from Enchanted Learning) was lots of help as we studied the shells we've found.

As if this lovely collection in the dining room isn't interesting enough, my friend Amy captured  a couple of caterpillars for us yesterday and brought them by last night.  Overnight Nellie (the larger caterpillar) spun her cocoon.  Nellie is the big grey glob on the stick in the center of the photo.   Isn't she lovely?   (ok, it could be a he...but I wasn't up for the argument with the girls over the point). 

She has a roommate named Sonny.  Sonny is an active little guy...very entertaining to watch.  You DO see Sonny, don't you?

We also cut a couple of sunflower heads off today to dry out to replant the seeds....they are HUGE.  This cookie sheet is 17.25 inches by 11.5 inches...

So...here is a typical dining room...for a homeschool family....

Bon appetite!

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