March 31, 2007 by KellyH.

I’m sitting on my front porch, with my laptop, watching a beautiful Swallowtail Butterfly sitting next to me. He (I don’t know how to tell if it’s male or female, so I’m opting for male at this time) was on my hand earlier, but I don’t want him to get too used to me, so I placed him on top of the mesh on the terrarium.

Some of you may remember that last fall my parsley plant developed a ton of caterpillars. We gave some to three different families, and kept the last six for ourselves. I placed the parsley into a terrarium and placed some mesh over the top to keep the birds out. One died before getting to a chrysalis, four became brown chrysalises, and one became a black chrysalis. Three of the brown ones have already hatched, and today the black one hatched. It looks identical to the other three that have hatched, so I’m wondering if it was camouflage because of where it was hanging. This one is “Small Fry.” The first three didn’t get names. Small Fry was the last one to grow, and the last one to become a chrysalis.

I sweated over these babies all winter, worrying th–

Oh, he’s walking around, fluttering… he just flew away!!! What a beautiful sight! About two and a half hours from when I found him, with wings still curled, fresh from the chrysalis.

As I was saying, I sweated over these babies all winter, worrying that any precipitation would get into their terrarium and drown them. The first two emerged when I wasn’t on the look-out. My husband came home from work and said, “So, you’ve got butterflies, huh?” Of course I had to rush out to see them!

By the time I found the third one, a week later, he was also ready to fly. But today, when I found this butterfly, he still had curled wings and a puffy body. I coaxed him onto a stick, and he walked up onto my hand. If I turned my hand to look at him, he would keep walking until his wings were dangling behind him. I eventually moved him to a stick because he tickled so much when he walked on me. At one point I noticed he was dripping. The end of his torso had opened and he was excreting a milky brown liquid. Not much–probably releasing excess fluid from his body.

(It is now four days since I began writing this entry and the last butterfly has emerged. This one is “Buddy.” It must take a great deal of effort to emerge, because they sit so still afterwards. I’m sure he’s processing all the new feelings, sights and sounds he’s experiencing. Perhaps he’s praising God for bringing him this far in his lifespan.)

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March 16, 2007 by KellyH.

We’re heading out to the zoo this afternoon. Our time is limited, so we may return next week. Today we’re going to concentrate on two things:

1. Animals that live on mountains
2. Using a compass

I love going to the zoo, as do my children. We make it a point to buy the yearly zoo pass so we don’t have to keep paying every time we visit. With a family of seven, visiting the zoo twice costs more than the yearly pass! This pass also comes in handy when we travel, which isn’t as often as it once was. Just to give you an example of the zoos we’ve visited:

• Milwaukee Zoo
• Cleveland Metroparks Zoo
• Wichita Zoo
• Dallas/Ft. Worth Zoo
• Garden City Zoo
• Tulsa Zoo

There is often so much to see and do at the zoo, you just can’t do it all justice in one day! Contact your local zoo to see if they offer a yearly pass, then do the math. Pay once, then plan mini-getaways throughout the year and spend some quality time with your children!

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March 10, 2007 by KellyH.

In an effort to teach my younger students that it is possible for them to write more than just a few sentences, I like to stretch-out the creative writing assignments. This past week was a perfect example. On Monday, I gave them a sentence starter: “The river flows…” My third grade daughter wrote three sentences altogether. My first grade son completed the sentence and wrote one of his own to go with it. The next day I told them to continue that thought, but include the word “mountain” in one of their sentences. The following day they had to include the word “map” into a sentence.

Sometimes they write goofy things and sometimes they surprise me with their insight. Either way, I’m happy to see them writing!

If you don’t care for the creative writing prompts within the Day by Day, feel free to create your own! It’s not as hard as you think.

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