More on B - B - Butterfly!

I just had to share the name of this sweet book we borrowed from the library.  It was so cute and I'd had it sitting in our book basket a while, not really knowing what the story was about.  I grabbed it as a FUN read, but it ended fitting in with the butterfly theme really well.

Where's My Mom? by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, is a cute book.

Right on schedule we had butterflies breaking out of their chrysalids.  First one, then another, then another, and one more....Out of five we have four butterflies flitting around our butterfly habitat.  One chrysalid is left.  He was a late starter compared to the others, but we expect his arrival on Wednesday.  We'll enjoy them for a bit longer then let them go as per our instructions.

Here are a couple pictures of our beautiful creatures with wings:

Two butterflies are pictured here with two empty cases just to the left of 

the bottom flower.  The empty cases are setting on a bit of dried food.  

When these two became chrysalids they stayed on the bottom of the 

container and were attached to their food.  I had to move the entire little 

cluster to the habitat.

Up close and personal with one of our Painted Lady butterflies.

There are four Painted Lady's in this photo.  

One to the left and three on the top pink carnation.

This project has been so much fun.  It's incredible to me how the fuzzy caterpillars turn into such beautiful butterflies.  One of God's wonderful miracles for sure!!

"He has made everything beautiful in its time...." Ecclesiastes 3:11

God bless,

Pam

All About Butterflies

We've been having a fun time with the larvae we received from Insect Lore.  It is part of our project for "B B Butterfly."  It's pretty incredible to watch the process so far.  I hate to admit that at my age I've never seen this up close.  I'm enjoying it as much as Caleb is.  ;o)

It's hard to believe that this fuzzy little critter begins the process.  It's a Painted Lady larvae.  For record keeping sake, this is what all five larvae looked like on Day 1.

Then it becomes a chrysalis:

And this.  Not sure why these two ended up on the bottom of the container, but they did.  Insect Lore assured me that they will still do their thing and become butterflies.  We shall see.

Here they are all together before we moved the chrysalids to their new home....the butterfly habitat.  The one is still in larvae form.  That one doesn't move around much, but does appear to still be alive.  So, we used a paper towel in the lid and need to wait and see if this 5th one will become a chrysalis also.

And here they are in the butterfly habitat.  Again, for record keeping sake - this is Day 7.

These are the guys that were on the bottom of the container.  I was told to move them using a spoon and being very gentle.  They were somewhat attached to bits of the food so we didn't have any choice but to move it all in one clump.

And my little guy who doesn't care much for drawing?  Drew this.

We're both hoping to see them actually break out of the chrysalis.   Just a few more days - - so we'd better be watching!

Until later,

Pam

J-J-Jewels

Our most recent studies were that of the letter J for jewels.  Learning that Jesus is MORE valuable than ANYTHING else!!  Even jewels!!  A fun part of our lesson was making some jewelry.  We had several activities to choose from but mom just so happened to buy a new package of straws in a variety of colors so we decided to make a necklace.

Caleb had such fun creating a "pattern."  Only his idea of a pattern is do do a small one, then start a new one.  So, as you look back over the necklace, you really and truly cannot determine where one pattern begins and one ends...hee hee...

We cannot forget that this was our first day of school at our new desk!!!  Didn't dad do an awesome job??   Of course, he isn't quite finished, but we needed to get our things organized so we sorta pushed ourselves in there before he was ready.  

Also, Caleb has found a new favorite book.  This is an adorable book about a mouse and a mole who are best friends.  He absolutely loved it and begged and begged to read another chapter.  It's a beginner chapter book and so cute!  Didn't really have anything to do with our lessons, but we read for fun, too!

Until next time,

Pam

Rrrrrrocking & Rrrrrrolling!!

Today we talked some more about building your house upon the Rock.  Who is that Rock?  Jesus, of course!!

Then we went outside to find a variety of rocks.  We brought them back in the house and lined them up according to size, categorized them according to colors, and counted them.  Caleb really enjoys doing these types of hands on activities.

We're that much closer to the end of the alphabet!  Whee-hoo!!

In His Name,

Pam

100th Day of School

We were very excited to finally reach our 100th day of school.  Granted, public schools hit that milestone a while back.  That's the blessing of home schooling as we get to go at our own pace and as you see, we ultimately reached our goal as well.

Each day of school we put a stick in a cup and count the number of sticks in the cup that day.  When we'd get to 10 sticks we'd rubber-band them together and put them in a 2nd cup.  This 2nd cup was our ten's cup.  Every time we added a bundle of ten sticks to the cup we'd count them, counting by "ten's," of course.

Here is Caleb counting out our last ten sticks, making up the final grouping of ten sticks to reach 100.

Then he laid the groups of ten sticks out on the table and counted those, counting by ten's, until he reached 100.

Here is his 100 chart.  Each day of school he would write the number for that day on the chart.  If you look closely, you can see the progress he's made in writing his numbers.  You can nearly see the confidence coming out on the chart. 

What a fun goal to finally get to this day!!  Yea-haw!!

In His Name,

Pam

Wrap'n up Z and onto Letter R

Today we wrapped up the letter Z by reading all the Zoo storybooks we'd collected from the library.  "If I Ran the Zoo," by Dr. Seuss was quite crazy.  Afterward finishing the story our TM told us to have Caleb draw a picture of an animal he would put in the zoo if he were the one in charge.  Never expecting him to agree, I retrieved some paper and the crayons and asked him to draw a picture of an animal he would put in the zoo.  Surprising me, he took the paper and a crayon and turned his back on me.  I wasn't allowed to watch.  But hey, it's a start if he's at least willing to TRY to draw SOMETHING.   He named his critter, and much to Sissy's dismay - - told me it ate chimpanzee's for dinner, and came up with a fictional place where he located his critter from!   LOL   He does have an imagination and can use it when he wants to.

Onto letter R for Rock.  Maybe we WILL see the end of this alphabet some time soon!  He even colored the picture cards by himself today while I sat next to him and brought his binder up to date.

We read from Matthew 7:24-27 and Caleb learned that the wise man builds his house upon the rock while the foolish man builds his house upon the sand.  "We" sang the song as well.  I told him I could just read it because mommy didn't sing so well and he said, "yes you do mom.  you sing good."   Bless his pea-pick'n heart.  Didn't want to hurt my feelings by agreeing with me!   Back to the theme of the week:   "I listen and obey; I build my life on the Rock."

I explained that Jesus is like the rock and when we listen to His Word and obey Him, it is like we are building our house on the rock.  We need to build our life on Jesus, the Rock!!

We read story after story today.  Caleb loves to be read to.   He's reading a little bit by himself, but he gets embarrassed easily and won't read for dad.  I suppose as he comes out of his comfort zone he'll get better about that.

Another day at Silver Creek Academy comes to pleasant end!

In His Name,
Pam

Out of Africa

The last few school days we've been studying the letter "Z" for Zebra.  Part of the lesson 18 activity was to print out or obtain a map of Africa, find you some pictures of animals from Africa and put them on your map.

I did not have any poster boards around but found a roll of brown paper used for mailing packages.  I cut off a huge piece and after finding the map of Africa, quickly drew an outline slightly resembling the shape of Africa.  I use the word slightly to the fullest extent.   I did not take time for this.  The point of the project was really all about the animals anyway.

I have a few wildlife magazines, but we opted to go to the internet and find pictures of animals that can be found in Africa.  We carefully printed out only pages that had the animals we needed.  We cut them out and adhered them to the map, putting them in the area of Africa that they are most likely to be found.

We had the best time working on this project.  Caleb is not a crafty kid - - hates to draw and all that, but looking up animals, reading about them, figuring out where they should go on the map was something he really enjoyed.

Here is his finished project.  He was very proud of it and excited to share it with dad this evening when he got home from work.

Let me point out the little Island of Madagascar on the right.  Caleb insisted we find an animal that came from there.  He loves Disney's Madagascar movie, so we found a Lemur from there...  

One animal that we did not put on his map was the ugly "Naked Mole Rat."  When I say ugly, I mean ugly!  Eww....

Together we've decided that letter "Z" was a lot of fun!

Til next time,

Pam