Nature...

For Easter the girls received a Butterfly Garden.  You send away for a container of caterpillars, watch them cocoon, then hang the cocoons in a netted container and wait for butterflies to emerge.  The information that arrives in the kit says you should end up with 3-5 butterflies.  We had 5 caterpillars....3 became butterflies.

I learned new things about butterflies during this process:
1.  Butterflies are cannibals - if one dies, the others will consume it!
2.  They only have an approximate 2 week life span once they emerge from cocoons (so we will release ours quickly. I am NOT ready to explain that process again!)

Here are a couple of pictures of our process:

 

Second nature study at our house is actually in nature!  FYI - if you come to our house avoid the front spiral bush at the corner of the walkway :).  We have had a bird that startles (and sometimes tries to dive bomb us) when we get near.  Today we were able to see (and show both girls) why.....there is, not only a nest, but 3 blue robin eggs in our bush.  We didn't touch them, and I won't move them (I would feel bad if something happened!).  So, I guess we are going to avoid the bush for a while.  I think it will be neat to let the girls keep an eye on the process (if all goes well of course).  :).

Here are some pictures of the nest -  if all goes well there will be more to come in a few weeks: