Posted in Education
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Almost three weeks ago we stayed with my
sister-in-law and her family in their mountain vacation home in western
North Carolina. Our boys enjoyed the great fun of catching caterpillars
(which were in abundance - I've never seen so many!) and keeping them
in a water bottle. They carefully collected leaves for them to eat and
sticks for them to climb on and were so excited when, the very next
day, those caterpillars formed their chrysalis (which Sam calls their
"racoon" - I just don't have the heart to correct that one to "cocoon"
just yet!). They have been sitting here in our school room for weeks
now and every day we've been checking on their progress. I'll admit, I
didn't have much hope for a spectacular ending to this little project.
I was doubtful that we were actually providing the right environment
for them to actually live, much less grow into a butterfly. The
pessimistic side of me even came out as I was sure that even if they
did "pop out" (as the boys like to say) they would likely be moths
instead of butterflies. But not the boys. They were certain all along
that Hermie, Wormy and Squirmy would be beautiful. So yesterday, as the kids were napping, I sat down at the computer to check my email. That's when I heard the faint fluttering sound.... I looked over and, sure enough, we had a butterfly!! An actual butterfly! I ran upstairs to wake the boys (only something truly special would ever cause me to interupt naptime!). The looks on their faces when they saw their first butterfly (whom Travis said was definitely Hermie) was priceless. They were in awe. We took the bottle outside and cut the top off so that he could stretch his wings and fly out. The boys were so sweet about letting him go - they said they were sure that he was probably starving after all that hard work in there! As he flew through the yard they ran after him saying, "Goodbye! Have a great day! Your friends will join you soon!". Wormy was "born" last night and, yes, we got the boys out of bed again so that they could see him off. We're still waiting for Squirmy..... Here are some pictures from yesterday afternoon. I've been trying to find out what kind of butterfly he is. Any thoughts?    |
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