Butterflies Part 2

Besides making these really cute butterflies and caterpillars and caterpillar eggs...

....and reading these fun books about caterpillars and butterflies...

This book was my favorite because it had the following two pages. Actually, the book was great for a lot of reasons.

You can't read it from here, but each caterpillar is labeled.

And then on this page you can find the butterfly that goes with the caterpillar on the other pages - the butterflies are labeled too.

This was Joshua's favorite book because it had the following two pages (every picture in this book is a stunning actual photography)

That is a caterpillar pretending to be snake so it wont get eaten.

...mostly all we did this week for home school is drive 8 hours to Denver, Colorado and visit the Butterfly Pavilion. I was pretty pleased with myself for making the 8 hours drive all by myself. The kids didn't start going crazy until we were about 20 minutes away from my sister's home, so all in all, the trip there was pretty good. (I do attribute a lot of this to the DVD player in the minivan.)

The first full day we were there we went with my sister and her youngest, Cameron, and my mother and stepdad to the Butterfly Pavilion. I mentioned I had been there before, but when I was there three years ago they were under renovation. This time, although it wasn't any bigger, it looked a lot cooler and their displays were even better and better organized. They have one room that has cockroaches and spiders and centipedes and even bees (honey bees that have a little see through tube so they can fly in and out of the building. There is a little ticker that counts how many bees exit and enter the hive each day. It is really neat. In this room you can even hold Rosie, a tarantula. Last time Joshua got to hold Rosie but Abigail was too little. I didn't bother to give Lukas the chance, figuring he wouldn't be too keen on the idea anyway - just look at his face in the picture. I'm not sure tarantulas really peak his interest.

The second area was about aquatic invertebrates. There were crabs and lobster and shrimp and jellyfish and anemomes and even some fish. They even had starfish and horseshoe crabs you could touch. In every room too, there was someone who could answer any questions you had.

And then the final room, and of course the main attraction, is the butterfly room where there were so many butterflies that you almost bumped into them as you walked along the paths. Mostly, the butterflies just kind of flew into your path as you walked along. I bought Joshua a little pamphlet to help him identify the butterflies he saw. He was able to find a couple with Grandma Paula but was a little disapointed he didn't find the Blue Morpho Swallowtail - the big blue poisonous one which is his favorite. He asked one of the workers and he said they didn't even have any blue morphos. I was impressed with how Joshua took his "field trip" seriously, just in the sense that he was ready to learn. He watched and identified butterflies. He spent time actually observing the butterflies that had just emerged from their chrysallis's.  He asked the workers questions and then asked if there were any caterpillars he could see too. One of the workers pointed to a bush down the path and Joshua went down there and stared at the plant for a while searching for the little bugs, but he never found any. Still, he came ready and excited to learn and that made me very happy.

This is Joshua posing as a tree so a butterfly would land on him.

Back at home, insect related but not necessarily butterfly related, we made these cute bugs. My sister had the idea in a book of hers and she pulled out the book and all the supplies for us. They were fun and cute to make.

Also on our trip (ok the home school part of the blog post is done) we took a little walk/hike on a river trail in Boulder. The weather on this trip was pretty warm, although cooler of course when the wind blew. Our walk was a lot of fun and we spent a little time sitting on some rocks and watching the kids throw rocks into the stream. We also saw a deer and a bald eagle. My mom said that was nothing, they see bald eagles all the time on her island. And that is true. The one time I was there I was kayaking with Derek and Bob around along the shore of Lopez Island and a big bald eagle majestically flew around us and then perched itself on top of a tree just above us.

Also, the school where Claire's kids go was having a movie night for all the students and families who attend the school. It was completely sponsored by local businesses and they had free popcorn, pizza, and ice cream. The kids picked out a blanket and pillow and we found a spot on the floor and with about a gazillion other kids and parents we watched Monster's University. (Claire and I snuck off right before the movie started to do a little shopping, but we came back during intermission so I saw the very end of the show - don't worry, Bob and Gary were there with the kids.) I know my kids had tons of fun. Joshua's only been to a movie theater once and I'm sure he doesn't remember it - it was, I think, for his second birthday. He didn't sit through the movie very long and we ended up leaving early I think. But even Lukas sat and watched the movie and I think he enjoyed it, even if he didn't understand much.

The next day it was already time to go home. Another long 8 hours, but this time we had potential snow and icy roads to deal with. I was really nervous and I said a lot of prayers. I did go through some slushy icy roads over the first mountain pass, but it wasn't very much, and at the very end over the last mountain pass (do they call them mountain passes here in Utah? Or is it just a summit?) right before you come down into Spanish Fork it was barely snowing. But here is the miracle. Besides those two areas, and even above Spanish Fork, the road was wet but not at all icy or slick, the roads were completely dry. This is a miracle because everywhere around me it was raining and snowing. I could see it raining and snowing looking all directions, even in front of me, but my road was completely dry. It was more than a tender mercy. I think it was a miracle. Especially because we were all really anxious to get home. The kids started going crazy, this time, about 1 1/2 hours before we got to our destination and the last 45 minutes was a constant back and forth of hysterical laughter and crying. But we made it. And we're all home safe and sound.

Now, you wont get a field trip like that attending public school.

Next week, Assyrians and Turkeys!

The Bible and Butterflies

Our Bible study has kind of been going on for awhile now. Technically in our family scripture study we are in 2nd Nephi (I think it has only taken us since January of this year to get that far) and for the children's learning time study we are using the Stories from the Doctrine and Covenants. I know Joshua is reading the Book of Mormon on his own and he is not quite to 2nd Nephi - he was trying really hard to catch up with the family. But for our history lessons we were up to the Old Testament so we checked out a few books from the library and pulled out an old video and went to work.  The first day we learned more about the people who lived in Canaan, like the Philistines and such. It is kind of nice to know who those people were and were they had come from.  I think that it is helpful to understand what things were like as Abraham was traveling from Ur to Haran and then through Canaan.  Also, I love the stories of Abraham in Egypt, and since the kids are still interested in Egypt (Joshua just checked out more Egypt books to read on his own) this was very interesting to the kids - that and Joseph in Egypt as well. In my personal scripture study I went back and read the Pearl of Great Price and started again with Genesis so I would have everything fresh in my mind and be able to accurately retell and explain the history to the children as well. It is interesting to me that they mummified Jacob so that they could take him back to be buried in Canaan. It actually is written that Joseph called the physicians and they treated him for 40 days (that's how long the natron salt takes) and then after the appointed time of mourning (the same time the people would have mourned for Pharaoh) the procession left to go bury Jacob with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebeka, and Leah. Poor lonely Rachel.

I also let the children watch a series of videos we have on the Old Testament (I think the Christmas and Easter story are in there too) and they love these movies so much. I am also pleased with them because they are pretty scripturally accurate. The movies are from a series called "The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible" which was produced by Hanna-Barbara and feature Margo, Derek, "and their nomad friend" Moki who discover essentially a time portal during an archeological dig somewhere in the Middle East that takes them back in time to witness some of the more well known Bible stories. I can't really get that picture to line up very well, but below you see Margo, Derek, and Moki.

The kids already knew most of the Bible stories, besides watching these videos, but it is fun to watch a movie every now and again. AND I forgot to mention the copies I have of these are in German, so that is even more fun.  

Now,  a little LESS scripturally accurate is the following book, which retells some of the more famous Bible stories in a storytelling friendly way. At first, this book bothered me a lot. I very much did not like their retelling of Adam and Eve and their portraying that story as such a sad day where God was very disappointed that Eve had messed up the perfect world he had made. And then, besides the fact that they totally left out Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac, I was really bothered by their retelling of everything related to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - and to some extent Joseph, but that wasn't so bothersome. It took up until this point in the book (after I had been stopping every paragraph or so to tell the kids why this or that actually happened or how it even happened at all) before I realized that major and crucial information was left out of these retellings because the pastor who wrote them honestly didn't know. Everything relating to Priesthood and authority was totally scratched. I didn't even know you could tell the stories of the Patriarchs without at least some reference to what the birthright actually is and what that means to all of mankind. I mean, the Abrahamic Covenant? It's pretty important. At first I was disturbed a little because I thought, of course if the pastor admitted there was an actual line of authority through which God governs his church, this pastor's following would have to leave him and find that actual line, at least if they were interesting in the truth. But then I realized it is not his fault that he doesn't know. I'm sure he is a wonderful, loving, Christ-like pastor of his flock as far as he knows to be, and I am extremely grateful for people like him. But I am also extremely grateful to be able to understand the scriptures more fully and the doctrines of Christ.  I am grateful that everyone has the right to worship and believe in just what they want and how they want, too. So if the rest of the Christian world believes the Garden of Eden story as this good man portrayed it, that is just fine. But I know it was not a day in which God mourned. Anyway, I'd been thinking about that a lot. This book is still very fun to read and it really is a good read aloud. I just think it misses those points of the stories that make them important and relevant.

OK, we also checked out this book, which I loved. I checked out another book like this about ancient civilizations in general that I thought was so awesome I actually just bought it off amazon a few days ago.  This book was amazing and I think I could look at these maps for hours.  It really helps everything kind of come together in your mind. For me, seeing where Abraham traveled, and seeing who lived in what land at what time and how the Israelites come back from Egypt and into Canaan, then off to Babylon, and then back again, where the Assyrians were, where there Persians came from, I don't know, it is all very, very interesting to me.

So interesting, in fact, that I made it into our next project. I drew the lines outlining the land and the water, and then Joshua picked out (with a little direction) which cities and regions he wanted to label on the map. I chose to pick this larger region because it shows all of the lands (except the Indus river valley in India) that we have talked about: Sumeria and Mesopotamia, especially Ur and Uruk, Egypt and Nile, and now Canaan and Gaza. Technically we haven't covered the Phoenicians yet (that is still for Monday) and then we will add Tyre and Sidon. And actually, after that we studying Assyria, so although we already have Nineveh on the map, we might need to add something up there as well. Our map is not really time specific so that we could have things like Jerusalem and Babylon and Ur and Haran and (eventually) Tyre on there at the same time. You'll have actually click on the photo if you want to read any of Joshua's writing, it's just a little too faint to make out.

Ok, butterflies. Joshua checked out a magic school bus book about butterflies a couple of weeks ago and since he really likes the Magic School Bus, he chose butterflies for his next animal. I thought it was kind of a weird choice, you know, after sharks, but actually it is turning out perfectly. Again, I let the children watch another movie we already have "Die Kleine Raupe Nimmersatt" which is "the Very Hungry Caterpillar" in German. It is less than 10 minutes long, so they've seen it a number of times this last week, just for fun.
 
But we've also read some fun and informative books on butterflies. Did you know a monarch butterfly can fly more than 20 miles an hour? That is crazy.  In our grammar study we were learning about paragraphs, so for our narration page we worked on organizing thoughts into paragraphs focusing on a single topic for each. It turned out pretty well and it was nice to use our grammar lessons in a more meaningful way.  We also made these metamorphosis wheels to show the transformation from the egg to caterpillar to butterfly.

The most interesting thing, though, will be later this week when we go to the Butterfly Pavilion in Colorado. Yes, a field trip within a vacation. We've actually been there before but it will be worth it, I think, to go again after just having studying a little about butterflies. Joshua is hoping to find some poisonous ones. Here are a few pics of the kids at the Pavilion a couple years ago - 2010 I think?

Wow, this is a horribly fuzzy photo. They have tarantulas there too. This is Abigail touching one through the glass. Gross. Joshua actually got to hold one, but Abby was too small. Maybe this year? I opted NOT to hold the giant poisonous spider and will NOT be holding it again this year.

Joshua had seen a church produced film with a scene of Jesus holding a butterfly on his finger and Joshua wanted so badly to do the same, but sadly, no butterfly was interested.

Later, however, I was talking to a man who worked in the Pavilion and asked him if there were any tricks to attracting butterflies. He said, "well, you didn't see me just do this." And he picked one up gently and put it on Joshua's shirt. Close enough.  We learned in our reading that the butterflies are most attracted to red and pink, so we'll probably wear those colors again.

And lastly, I think, is our number poster that we created. I realized that although Joshua can count by tens and fives, he doesn't know how to count by twos. And Abigail could use some practice getting past 10, so I figured a number poster would help us do the trick. Also, it is nice to see the patterns in math and right after we finished the poster I should the kids what it looked like when we circled in red all the multiples of 10, and squared in green all the multiples of 5, and then marked the multiples of 2 and also the multiples of 3. It is fun to actually see the patterns and this was something the kids could get enthusiastic about.  The poster has also come in handy in our regular math lessons, which are going very well. According to our book, Joshua should be starting multiplication in just a week or so, which seems a little early to me, but oh well. I remember memorizing my multiplication tables through 12 in second grade. Or third grade.  In any case, we are introducing it in a couple of weeks.

Piano is going well. Music class is going well. Joshua's reading is going well. Derek has started playing games with the kids outside with balls, so we act like that is P.E. They played "soccer" the other day and then some sort of made up handball game the day after. We'll get the kids signed up for swimming and something else in the summer. So I guess, as a whole, we're doing ok on this homeschool experiment.

The Odyssey (still) and Sharks

Last week, as mentioned before, we finished up Mycenae but we are still working on Joshua's retelling of the Odyssey with illustrations. This is a long project. There isn't much to tell, but that he still has a lot of illustrating to do. I think the final project will be worth it, though.  We've also been reading a lot of Bible stories since Old Testament lands and times are the next on our list. We finished  a big book of them just tonight (and Derek finally finished Gilgamesh! Yea!) so I'll need to get some more. Anyway, I'll type more about that next week.

But our animal for this week was the shark. I remember two years ago we spent an entire month on sharks. It's on this blog, you could probably look it up, January 2011. We got pretty bored of sharks at the end. So two days was a great review. Joshua loved the library books. I think he wasn't as impressed with sharks as he thought he would be. He mentioned one day how sharks were cool but octopus's were AMAZING! Still, we made a shark hat (I don't recommend this project. the hat doesn't stay on very well and it is less anatomically correct, as Joshua pointed out) and a stretchbook to display our knowledge of sharks. The stretchbook was very hard to figure out, but I thought it would be such a cool book so I struggled and practiced on it anyway. This was maybe Joshua's least favorite thing to do so far in homeschool.  I still think it is cool and we will probably make stretchbooks in the future but not for awhile. The shark hat was only cool because the kids had to paint the paper plates and they thought that was fun.

 OK, the awesome stretchbook. When closed, the book is just a skiddy-wampus little square.

 While opening, it looks like this (especially if you open it with only one hand because a camera is in the other.

 

And when completely opened and laid on the floor with a hand holding one of the flaps out for all to see, it looks like this. I thought it was cool anyway.

Here are our shark hats from January 2011. What little kids! Lukas wasn't even born yet.

Pre and Post Halloween

I realized I never mentioned that we painted pumpkins as well (I guess I was too excited about the actual carving. I think that is my favorite part of Halloween.) I don't even have any photos of the finished pumpkins, but here are a couple of the kids working on them. The finished works of art are still outside the front door, but the jack-o-lanterns have been tossed into the garden already. The poor jack-o-lanterns. Their time in the spotlight was so short.

And then of course, the post Halloween sorting of the candy. I learned that sorting candy is a good math exercise and it was actually Joshua's idea to sort in the first place so he had Abigail and Lukas sort their candy as well. Since Joshua did it at kindergarten last year, I think he thinks it's just what you do. And he's right. But he doesn't know yet that after you've sorted your candy you are supposed to trade with your siblings. I am not willing to teach them this tradition because I have a feeling one very little boy would get cheated out of a lot of his candy if I did.