Butterflies and Chromotography

After observing our butterflies for a few days, it was time to release them.

Come out little butterflies.  

I'm never quick enough to get good pictures during the butterfly release.

Kate made some butterflies that will stick around a little longer.  Chromotography experiments are so easy to set up, and they certainly have a bit of a wow factor.  

Random Photos

Collin learned about the phases of the moon recently, and the students created the ever popular Oreo cookie moons.  We did this at home a year or so ago.

Speaking of Collin, he is doing so well with the violin now.  I have noticed a lot of progress in the last two weeks.  Here is a video of him playing Bile 'em Cabbage Down.  

Kate still enjoys giving check ups.  Look at the "bandage" on Boo's leg.  Boo must have been tired, or extra patient at that moment.

Kelly was groomed by a mobile groomer this week.  It was so nice to have the groomer come to us, and she did a beautiful job.

Kate and I had fun with chalk recently.

I drew roads for Kate to drive her matchbox cars along.

We also used the chalk to turn Kate into butterflies.

Tom ran in a 5k last weekend.  We cheered him on as he ran!  It's so nice that the town races all go by Grandma's house; we have a great spot to cheer on all of the runners.

This is what Collin did while waiting to see Dad run.

The school year is winding down.  Five weeks to go.  Right now five weeks sounds like a lot, but we have a lot of busy weekends and end of school events coming up, so I'm sure it will fly by.

It's Hot Outside!

We are having summer weather today with temperatures near ninety!  Kate loves playing in water, and this water table is always fun for her.

This is the first time she has ever played with a water squirt toy.  She kept squirting herself in the face with that little flower, and she thought it was SO funny!  I was laughing at her laughing!

While we were outside, this gorgeous butterfly flitted around us for the longest time.  I was surprised that it stayed for so long.  Kate squealed and pointed and tried to grab, and yet the butterfly kept hanging around.

Butterfly Story Hour

I hosted my last coffee shop story hour today.  I may do it again in the future, but right now our schedule is jam packed with an upcoming trip to Disney, R's preschool graduation, R's dance recital, C's piano lessons, T's busy schedule, and come September, I will have a newborn.  Anyway, enough about me.

Today, the theme of our story hour was butterflies.  I read two books:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a book that most people are familiar with, but it features a very hungry caterpillar who eats his way through the days of the week until he wraps himself up in his cocoon and emerges as a beautiful butterfly.  We have owned this book since T was a toddler; it's great for counting practice for toddlers, and the story is fun for preschoolers too.

Butterfly Butterfly by Petr Horacek is about a girl named Lucy who chases a butterfly around her garden all day long.  The next day, she looks and looks but can't find the butterfly anywhere.  She finds a lot of other colorful creatures in the garden, and when she finally decides to lay down in the grass, she notices something wonderful in the sky - her butterfly.  The book is full of beautiful colors that are very appealing to young children, but the biggest attraction in this book is the pop up butterfly at the end.

After reading, each of the children made their own butterfly to take home.  They began by coloring coffee filters with washable markers.

When they finished coloring, each child used the spray bottle to spray his or her coffee filter with enough water to just make the filter damp so the colors would spread out over the filter.

We left the coffee filters to dry for a few minutes.  Then, I cut pipe cleaners in half and used one pipe cleaner (some people call them chenille stems) to wrap around the center of a scrunched coffee filter.

I twisted the pipe cleaners so they would stay in place and then turned the edges to look like antennae.

 

Thank you to all of my little friends for joining me for story hour every month.  I will miss all of the hugs!  Thank you to the moms for bringing the little friends, and for helping clean up!  Thank you to Cuppers Cafe for providing a great place for story hour and for providing free hot chocolate and juice for the kiddos.

For more art projects inspired by books, head over to stArt at A Mommy's Adventures.
  

Butterfly Fun

We released our butterflies last week, but with all of the end of the school year bustle, field day, Kindergarten presentation, baseball games, and R's upcoming dance recital, we have not had a chance to make any butterfly related crafts or treats.  Luckily, we made some last year and I can share them with you again!  Here are links to our favorite butterfly craft and a yummy butterfly treat we made last year:

This is one of my favorite crafts we have done, and I plan on doing it again soon.  Click here for directions on how to make your own stained glass butterfly.

If you would like to bake your own butterfly cake, click here for directions.  It's very easy, and your child will be impressed.

If you make either of these, leave me a comment to let me know.  I would love to see pictures too!  You don't have to have a blog to leave comments.  I love comments!

Butterflies

All five butterflies have emerged from their chrysalises, and they seem to be enjoying the orange slices and watermelon pieces we have provided for them!

Be Free

Our puppy finally noticed the butterflies. They were very active and she was not happy about all of that chaos. I knew then that it was time to set the butterflies free.

Here are a few photos of our butterflies right before we released them.

C enjoyed looking at them through his magnifying glass.

They really seemed to enjoy the orange slices we provided for them.

I am so happy we did this and plan on doing it once a year.