Last week was insect week. We visited a nature center and watched the naturalists check the bee hives. They smoked the bees to make them sleepy and then showed the girls the different parts of the hives. (Unfortunately, I forgot my camera that day!)
We read a lot about insects.
We visited another nature center that had a huge mural and learned about the insects in it.
It also had a see-through bee hive.
And insect puzzles.
And games.
And puppets.
We did many insect art projects and, of course, ate ants on a log.
Insects were not my topic of choice. In fact, the more we learned about insects, the more repellent they became to me! There was one special insect project that we all loved though...raising butterflies!
The caterpillars arrived in the mail like this:
Soon they grew fat and eventually hung in a j shape. One had already developed into a chrysalis!
Then, all five eventually emerged into beautiful Painted Lady butterflies! The girls named them Sunshine, Puff, Flitterfly, Trish and Mango.
We released them today with the help of our neighborhood friends.
One flew off right away. It was such fun to see. Four of them, however, seemed to not know they could fly! They kept falling to the ground, so we'd pick them back up. They loved crawling all over everyone! They eventually all found their wings and flew away.
And the girls with big sister Marie and little sister Willa.
It was raucous fun as usual!
The heat was reminiscent of our first days with Jia in Wuhan. There was also inside fun like dress-up:
And playing with many small things:
The girls got along famously as usual! We were glad to be able to spend the day with them and their families.
