Thursday, June 2, 2011

Bug Whisperer

Well, my friends, summer is just about here and Camp Mommy has already begun! I am armed with fun ideas as well as learning experiences to share with Rubes this summer. Jeff was out of town for business so it's just been the two of us this week. We've missed him, but had a lot of fun playing outdoors and trying new stuff. Decided not to send her to summer camp this year for 3 reasons. One is I wanted her all to myself. :-) Two is I wanted her to have summer off. And 3 is that it's so expensive and we can do the same stuff ourselves. So our first Mommy camp experiment was all about bugs. Not typically my favorite subject, but I saw this cute Live Butterfly kit and thought I'd give it a try. Ruby was all excited to hold the jars of tiny baby caterpillars as you can see. We check them every morning to see how they've grown. You can find the kit at www.insectlore.com. If all goes well, we will have 10 beautiful butterflies to set free next week. Then we'll hatch us some ladybugs next month.
The kit comes with 2 jars filled with the larvae and food. You don't have to do anything for a week but watch them grow. 
It also came with lots of flower and butterfly stickers, a cute card board "scene" to put them on, and a poster that shows the life cycle of a butterfly - now promptly hanging in the play room.
Little bug catcher on the hunt for other bugs now. Armed with her butterfly net and "manga" glass. Haha. Guess it was too long a word so she gave it a nick name. She just loves that thing even if she can''t quite say it! We looked in the grass, in the dirt, under rocks, under bushes. I only squealed a little bit when a cricket jumped at me. Ruby stepped back but when I laughed she came right back to see it. 
So sweet here.
Inspecting the rock for tiny insects.
Ah, we discovered an ant "house".
I'm not sure but she may be unknowingly scorching some ants to death here.

And here are our little pets a week later. It will be so cool to see them turn into butterflies! Wish us luck!

2 comments:

c & b said...

Will you please send some "summer" over here. It's been unusually cool and damp here. About 15-20 degrees lower than normal in most places. I just about cracked up reading this post, especially the part about squealing and scorching. I am not too good with bugs and Miss M got a butterfly kit from my cousin a few months back and I haven't opened it yet. Good to see all well on your end.
christina

Jessica said...

I bought this for my niece a few years back and she loved it. And the butterflies were really, really beautiful. You can just purchase new caterpillars each year too from that same site. It makes for a reoccurring gift.