Praying mantis'....farm visits....& butterflies... and it's summer!!

We have had some amazing things happen in the last few weeks. We watched our butterflies larvae grow up and we learnt all about their life cycle, what they need to survive, and finally let our butterflies go, but first we offered them some yummy nectar from our lilac bush.
Here you can see one of our little  ones "drinking" up our special treat.

We had so many amazing library books that we read and learnt from. They even had two butterflies video's for the boys to watch. Mr. I was so intrigued with the monarch butterfly and their life span with their migration to Mexico.

 We worked on our butterfly lap books, learning their predators, what they eat, how long they live, and more...lap books are so much fun and they have something to be proud of and to look at when the topic is over and gone.

LOOK at that FUSSY body! 

Take a look at our butterfly lap-books...with pictures of our own larvae, chrystallis, and butterflies. 

We visited a local farm that had a agricultural days, with many attractions for the children. We saw very old vehicles along with an old fire truck which was neat to talk about how things are so different from what it use to be. We noticed how the lights, the engine, and the safety is so different now a days. 

We were able to see working horses plow a field and take a ride on the back of a horse trailer, make a life size scare crow, play old fashion games like sack racing and egg on a spoon racing, there was also baby chickens there that were only days old. It was a neat adventure to go and be apart of. 

Later in the month we had another really great opportunity to go to a fellow homeschooler s farm where we saw amazing things, like green/blue eggs from the araucana chickens, we saw a goat in labour baring down to push out the twin babies inside of her. We feed pigs, baby rabbits, and a bottle feed some super sweet baby kids. We were able to feel what eggs from a older hen compared to a younger hen felt like we saw the difference in the egg yokes and shells. 

Mr. I loved this, he wanted to get closer, watching so attentively!! 

Bottle feeding sweet little babies. 

Pigs!!!

Mr. I observing his praying mantis's 

We finished this year with a bang, lots of observing, playing and experiencing life and it's cycles. We are done for the summer and hope everyone has a wonderful safe summer, see you back in the fall. 

Oh and we also found and raised tad poles...from a local nursery. We let them go in our own pond. We learnt about their life cycle, what they eat, and watched them grow from tiny tad poles to cute little frogs. 

So much fun, watching all their different stages..

Have a great summer!