Lionden Landing

Our caterpillars finally arrived. (This is actually our second batch but don't tell Froggy that. I killed the first batch) We measured them when they arrived and are watching them grow. They started at tiny and have gotten much bigger than expected. We keep thinking that each molt is the last but not so. Sharing nature with my daughter is one of the finer things in life for me. We are reading some great stories to go along with our study and keep her interested while awaiting the metamorphosis. From Caterpillar to Butterfly is a Stage 1 Science book that show the life cycle in a fun and interesting way. We checked out three different books of this type and as I expected this was the only one that we read multiple times. Becoming Butterflies is part of the "Science Made Simple for Curious Young Minds" series. It is written as a story unlike the Stage 1 Science books. Froggy likes stories much better and will consistently choose these books over any non-fiction book...

One of Froggy's favorite activities while out lately is to find which trees are ready for winter and which trees are still working on getting there. According to her, a tree is ready if all the leaves have fallen off. Trees that still have their colorful display of Autumn leaves are still working on getting ready. This did not work so well when we came across an evergreen shrub on a walk (For some reason the shrubs at her front door do not trigger). I took the opportunity to explain the difference pointing out how thin the leaves were so the snow could fall through without getting caught too much. So now several days later she has added a new category to the mix, those that don't need to get changed. We often collect acorns on our walks so on our most recent walk when we were comparing evergreen with other trees, I showed her a pine cone under the tree This led to an intense need in Froggy to match each tree she knows with the kind of seed it makes. She was slightly distur...