Painted Ladies

Our painted lady caterpillars molted, molted again and formed chrysalides, hung out for a few days, didn't seem to notice our ham-handed transfer of them to our butterfly barn, and then hatched!

We only managed to witness one butterfly actually in the process of emerging, but we somehow saw all the others immediately afterwards, wings all little and wrinkled and cramped. We watched their wings unwrinkle and spread out as blood filled them, watched them poop meconium all down the nice, white mesh of our bug barn (it's in the laundry queue now!), watched them gradually stop looking dazed and listless and sleepy and start looking fluttery and alert and quite interested in their sugar water treat.

And when that happened, they were ready to fly away:

Well, maybe they could stop for a visit, first:

While this experience wasn't quite as nice as with our wild-caught black swallowtail chrysalides (I know that the painted lady caterpillars truly didn't care that they were locked into a plastic cup with their nummies for the caterpillar portion of their little lives, it bothered ME. I wanted to give them leaves and stems and caterpillar enrichment activities, but I was also afraid of corrupting their sterile environment and killing them off somehow), it was nevertheless pretty great. This summer animal biology study has been a precious experience for all of us, and based on the great questions that Syd, in particular, has been asking, and the things that she's curious about (yep, I now own this whole set of children's sex-ed books, and the big events that have been happening to her body (Finally, a loose tooth! Finally, riding her pedal bicycle!), I think that the human biology study that we're going to dial down to when we finish up with all our animal friends is going to be pretty popular, too.

Will's going to be doing this study with us too, of course, but I've been trying to encourage her to self-direct more of her learning, and so it appears that along with math, and biology, and Latin, and Story of the World, and drawing, and the 50 states, we'll soon be starting a study on the history of video games.

How epic is that going to be, right?!?

From a Friend's Farm

When we have our own hobby farm/house on five acres one day, I want it, too, to have a creek within walking distance:

I might not want dwarf goats, but I'm not going to rule it out, either:

This is why:

Cute baby goats (+1). Milking their mamas twice a day (-1). Drinking fresh, free milk (+1). Keeping goats fed and watered and housed and clean (-many more than 1). Free lawn care and weed control (+1). Wethering the boy goat using that rubber band speculum thingy that my friend showed me (-1).

I've got some time to think of more plusses before we finally get our hobby farm one day, fortunately.

Black Swallowtail Butterfly

A few weeks ago, a good friend gave the girls a few black swallowtail chrysalides (in our social circle, summers are made of homeschooling families offering, swapping, and bartering small critters to each other, as we all apparently conduct our own little Charlotte Mason-style studies). As often as we've raised tadpoles, and fostered kittens, and tried our hands at chickens and praying mantises, and kept the odd spider, lightening bug, and lizard under captive observation, these were our first butterflies.

Chrysalides are a good intro to butterflies, since all you have to do to keep them is pop them into the butterfly barn, then walk by them every now and then, thinking, "Nope... nope... nope... nope... BUTTERFLY!!!"

Fortunately, each chrysalis hatched open upon its own timetable, giving us plenty of time to identify, research the order of classification, and sketch each butterfly--


--and then set each one free:

We really like this good-sized butterfly barn.

 I'm hoping to use those last two photos for the girls' butterfly anatomy work, since I haven't found any good, Montessori-style three-part cards with scientific anatomical terms.

We're still working on butterfly anatomy, and the butterfly life cycle, and we've got some painted lady butterfly chrysalides in the butterfly barn right now, but here are the butterfly and caterpillar resources that we've been enjoying so far:



I'm also using several ideas from my Homeschool Unit Study: Butterflies pinboard and several videos from the free Discovery Education Streaming promotion over at

Homeschooling's #1 Way to Save

I'm going to be SUPER sad when that promotion ends, by the way. 

Hamster Sitting

Meet China:

We are hamster-sitting this cute (and fat!) little dwarf hamster for a few weeks (and adding hamster classification, hamster anatomy, hamster care, the hamster life cycle, and hamster sketching from life to our summer animal biology study--mwa-ha-ha!).

And then--and this is my favorite part--after enjoying her and caring for her and feeding her pea pods and cereal (and listening to her run on her wheel all night and keeping her away from the cats), we get to give her back to her owner and once again live in a hamster-free house!

Pet-sitting is pretty great.

The Party has Encountered a Dragon: A Dragon Party for Will's Ninth Birthday

cardboard shields and balloon swords

a castle to paint and play in

a treasure hunt for the dragon's hoard

This is exactly like an Easter egg hunt, only I used the painted rocks from my DIY Treasure tutorial. 

 Dragon Tag

Rip old fabric into "tails." Have the kids close their eyes, and pass out tails to the majority of kids, who should tuck them into the backs of their pants so that they hang down. Have the tailed kids, who are the dragons, start running first, then let the other kids, who are the knights, open their eyes and chase them. A dragon whose tail is pulled off becomes a knight, and helps chase dragons. The last dragon is a champion, and so is the knight who has the most tails. We played this a second time without closing eyes, and with each kid choosing whether she wanted to be a dragon or a knight.

 watermelon, chess cookies, chocolate ice cream, and a castle cake

Yes, the cake did look about as bad as I was afraid of, but I don't care. I let the girls decorate it--can you tell? I've started making these super-long birthday candles for the girls now; Willow requested blue and yellow.

 friends and sisters to celebrate with

presents that are always so thoughtful

and, of COURSE, a walk to the park to finish

And that's how a great kid has herself a GREAT birthday party. Nine is going to be a good year, I can already tell.

Stained Glass Coloring Pages on the Light Table

another fun use for one of my favorite space-wasting behemoths!

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Business Cards and LEGOs

a round-up of surprisingly sustainable LEGO crafts

and a tutorial for stash-busting embellished business cards

I'm pretty excited about this method of de-stashing some of my random little craft supplies, so if you order something from my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop, you can probably expect to receive a bonus treat!