The "Blutterflies"

Our lesson on the life cycle of butterflies continues! These creatures are truly an amazing creation. So strong and yet so delicate...we've taken these "pets" out a few times and let the girls hold them (yes, they do fly around the house a bit, but they always come back!). The look of awe and excitement mixed with the squeals of glee as butterflies climb all over them is such a beautiful, wonderful thing. Seleia even (slightly) overcame her fear of bugs and has held them a couple of times ("I can't believe I held my first bug!" she says. I say, "I can't believe you'll dissect a fish without blinking but are squeamish about a butterfly!").  I believe the names ended up as Felicity, Eloise, Emily and Molly. Did you know that Painted Ladies are most often chosen by breeders and schools to raise because they can be fed an artificial diet? Or that the emergence from the  chrysalis is called eclosion? You can tell a butterfly is a Painted Lady when it had four eyespots on the lower wing; the American Lady has only two. I'm sure our butterflies will leave us soon, but then we can begin our Butterfly Habitat gardening and meet new friends all summer long!

Beautiful Butterfly

We have our first butterfly! There was big excitement as our first caterpillar emerged from it's CA-coon during lunch today. Amarra has named it Lily, as she tends to name everything (pets, bugs, stuffed animals, dolls...) until she comes up with a permanent name.  Now, as the girls pore over the butterfly book while waiting for her to take flight, I'm off to make some nectar!  The next few days will be quite exciting as our butterflies continue to emerge!

The Calerpittars

I love schooling our children at home, I truly do. Every little moment becomes teachable if you just pay attention. Right now there is big excitement as Amarra's caterpillars are getting ready to move on to the next stage of life. It seems in a week or two we'll have some painted lady butterflies to provide entertainment. I didn't tell the girls what variety of caterpillar (or "calepittar")Amarra had, though, they chose to look them up in "the butterfly book" and figure it out themselves- which they did correctly! Now we're learning all about butterflies around the world, from the egg stage on, and picking our favorites (all of them) while learning why they are so different from moths. Soon we'll pick out a few butterfly-attracting plants to add to our backyard and put our butterfly houses (feeders made by the girls at a Home Depot kids workshop) back out for spring. For now, though, we'll be watching these little guys form their cocoons (I wish you could hear E & A say it....more CA-coon with the a pronounced as in apple. I refuse to correct them just yet.) and waiting for them to emerge with wings!