Life Cycle of a Monarch Project

A good friend and fellow homeschool mom found a ton of monarch eggs on her milkweed plants this spring and offered some to us. We took up the challenge and raised monarch butterflies from egg to caterpillar to butterfly.  What can I say?  If we were able to do it...anyone can.  I seem to have lost the photos of the eggs and caterpillars, so here is a video of the butterfly emerging from the chrysallis and photos of our butterflies.    I will update this post when I find those other photos!!

Just don't ask me about our tadpole raising disaster adventure last year!!

Our first Monarch emerges from the chrysallis!

We set it free near our milkweed plants on the side of our house.

Our second Monarch shows off its beautiful wings hours after emerging from the cocoon

This Monarch seemed to love the coffee filter top!  AH is trying to set it free.

A Picture A Day: August 17, 2012

AH and Amma enjoying a family bonfire!  (Amma is the Icelandic word for Grandmother)

A Picture A Day: August 15, 2012

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Today we were lucky enough to enjoy a docent lead tour of the Rembrandt in America exhibit.

A Picture A Day: August 7, 2012

Building catapults was one of the many activities at HiSci (Science Club) this month.

Online Fun

BlueSkies in Tagxedo

Followed a friend's pin and found this wonderful site called Tagxedo.  I'm thinking there has to be some way to incorporate this into our homeschool!  Cards, posters, web images.  I think I'm going to have some fun with this!

Maps!

AH is obsessed with a website that was highlighted on the blog, Free Technology for Teachers.  He hasn't stopped playing around with the animated maps on History Animated.  They have maps of major battles for the War of 1812, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II: both the Pacific Theater and the European Theater and the Mexican-American War.  These maps are animated so you can see troop movements and also read about the strategy used, the central characters, etc.   If you have students who love maps, check it out!!

A Picture A Day: July 10, 2012

AH was intrigued by this activity during our July HiSci Science Club.