The Mantis Like Our Bug Menu

Today was interesting. After doing a quick drop of an assortment of beetles plucked from our Lamb’s Ear, I thought I would check this morning and see if there was any evidence of a feast. I turned on the light for the bug tank and discovered one of the praying mantis already in mid feast. We all had the opportunity to watch the mantis dine on a beetle.

Then later this afternoon we collected a new round of gourmet beetles, and we were witnesses to a quick kill by by one of the mantis. Just prior to the drop we also saw a little bit of rivalry between the two mantis. Hopefully, the large assortment of food will break them up as one seems to be eating while the other hasn’t had any luck – at least none we’ve seen.

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A Special Visit

We have been longing for caterpillar and butterfly sightings all summer, but have never been blessed with more than a glimpse or a quick flitter of one passing quickly by. Today made it all worth it as we watched a very busy Eastern Tiger Swallowtail visit our verbena patches in the garden for 10-15 minutes. The butterfly cared very little about how close we were able to get to it (demonstrated by Grace), as it worked diligently hitting every flower in the patch.

What a great blessing!

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Preparing for our 3rd Term

XThis week we have taken a break from “school” year round, as happens when I need to go through the entire room and start packing up our term’s nature study, composer, and artist items. It also includes dusting down all of the shelves. And somehow, as the kids get excited with the changes coming, the entire room becomes a hazard zone.

This term we are adding handicrafts for the kids including: stuffed animal making (from patterns), yarn stitching and putting wood models together with screws. The last two weeks we have spent getting a jump start on all of these, and I am impressed with how enthusiastic the kids have been and how quickly they can pick these things up.

I just spent the last two days ordering for our newest term, trying hard to merge CM and Montessori concepts to keep both Grace and Jack fully emerged and interested. Term 3 includes:

Nature Study: Fish and Aquatic Life
Composer: Beethoven
Artist: Renoir

I wasn’t too sure how the kids would respond to fish, but a promising sign was given yesterday and today. In an effort to find sand for our Mantis bug box (I know they don’t need sand), I pulled out an OLD fish bowl filled with sand and shells from our honeymoon on Sanibel Island. Instantly, the mantis were put on the back burner and the kids took to soaking, cleaning and drying the shells for further inspection inserting Ooos and Aaahs with this pretty one, and that neat one.

Sigh of relief…this should be fun. Especially when we bring our four gigantic pond fish in from the pond in the front yard to observe over the winter.

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Add 2 Praying Mantis to Our List of Pets

In a desperate effort to get myself and the kids out in this stifling heat, we all headed out to the flower garden with our clippers to deadhead the stalks of our bee balm, lambs ear and daylillies. I’ve been staring at the remains for weeks, but couldn’t bear the thought of going out in the strong heat of day with this pregnancy.

We were all red faced and dripping with sweat when we made the discovery of two young praying mantis’ moving along the daylillies. With a spare 10 gallon tank available, we decided to give the mantis’ a luxury bug box, filled with rich soil, logs, sticks, grass, water, bee balm stalks and for fun…sand and shells. We’ll probably release them in a week or two, but so far it has been a great education to watch their fascination behavior.

Now the hard part…finding food so they don’t eat each other.

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Imagination at Work

It is amazing to me how a child will eagerly use any resources available to create something from nothing. Grace showed our family a beautiful example of imagination and resourcefulness today. I had to take a picture. This multimedia piece of artwork originated from her discovery that she could make shapes out of a single string on the floor.

This piece of art literally took her less than 10 minutes. I didn’t even see it in process, and I was in the same room on the floor with her!

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Fishing Lures and Yarn

It is amuses me how a few interesting and simple (but new) things in a child’s world will spark creativity to a new height for hours.

The kids have discovered that a box of squishy, colorful, hookless fishing lures, and a couple of large balls of fun yarn with a scissors, go a long way in the entertainment department. You would think that they might pretend to go fishing with all of those items. That connection has yet to be made.

Instead the kids have:

Created a game to see how many rooms the string can unwind through (upstairs and down)…Made new “friends” with the lures…Jack has found cutting string into bits to be easier practice for scissor use than cutting paper.

The “cause” is, we have never had lures or yarn in our house until now. The “effect” is, there are lures and string everywhere!

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Our Puzzle Caper

At first, I thought the problem was that all three 100 piece puzzles were purchased from Walmart. What are the odds that all three puzzles would be missing 3-8 pieces each?

I had purchased the puzzles on a whim, since Grace had showed a really interest in puzzles and needed more of challenge than the puzzles we had on hand. We have a perfectly square sized coffee table down in the basement that is waist high and accomodates the art of puzzle solving.

I gave Grace instructions on laying out the puzzle, finding the corners first, and then finding all the edge pieces – to frame things off and eliminate some of the overwhelming feels that can occur when you first “dump” the puzzle out. Grace listened to the instructions, and set to work putting the first puzzle together (a lamb in tulips). She worked on it for a few hours, and I assisted with encouragement and a few pieces. As we neared the end, I did a quick calculation, and agonized knowing that we were short by 3 pieces. After looking under couches, tables and everywhere else…I think…”It’s Walmart – what do you expect?”.

Grace handles the missing pieces well, and unphased dumps the next puzzle out: A golden retriever puppy. This one takes longer to work on. A few minutes here, a few minutes there. After a few days, it is complete – minus 5 pieces. I couldn’t believe it! What are the odds?

Determined…she dumps the next puzzle – a kitty. Days later…it is complete, but once again, short up to 6 or 8 pieces. We have looked everywhere for the missing pieces to all of these puzzles, and found nothing. And then a clue. One gummed up puzzle piece shows up in the mouth of our 80 lb. Golden Retriever (Maggie). The next day, we find her with another.

Maggie has been snacking on puzzle pieces for two weeks!!! She is the only 8 year old dog I know who finds used tissues to be a delicacy. We should have put it together. But she is stealthy! Never once has she been spotted actually swiping the pieces from the table.

Bad dog. Bad, bad, dog.

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