July Learning~

Since July was the 50th anniversary of Appolo mission, we spent the month learning all about it~

We usually call the new school year beginning in July so we drew self portraits and made goals~

We have also begun Writing Workshop with Writing notebooks~

Nature is all around us and if there is a frog to hold, Evie will find it~

Remember EC's swollen hand??? Look nestled in the trees~ 😱A hornet's nest~

We couldn't let it stay there because it was so low and two children had been stung so our exterminators came to spray it... we all watched diligently~

More space fun with chalk pastel art~

After we THOUGHT the hornets were dead, Scott cut it down and we began observing it... then we saw one crawling out!!! YIKES! We ran to get a bin and placed inside for them to finish deceasing~

AND of course, we brought it in to sketch~

Aren't they magnificent?~

EK was out with Mimi and found this Hercules beetle in the parking lot~

We did a beetle drawing tutorial ~

EK wanted the hornet hive for the nature shelf so we found a beautiful container and put it inside~

More chalk pastel painting because we read a beautiful line in a poem: Waterfalls are rivers washing their hair~

SO beautiful~

The girls found a luna moth, ran in to get their sketching bags, sketched~

and released it back into nature!
A wonderful month of learning for sure!!!

Lots of Learning~

Calla got a set of Lola book for her birthday and one morning she woke up wanting to make her own Lola book~

We had such a fun lesson one day with directions and went outside to play a simon says game of walking in a certain direction~

Our hymn gave us the wonderful activity of reading Saint Francis and then writing a biography narration~

Amelia found a dead female cardinal beside the road and brought it to Ella who proceeded to pick the bones for her nature shelf. She amazes me~

This was our very first year ordering a butterfly kit and boy were we blessed by it! 2 cups of caterpillars arrived still as could be but in just a few minutes were crawling all over the place looking for food~

Only about a week later, they began to make their chrysalises on the top of the cups~

So we moved them to stands then placed them inside the butterfly house~

Another week passed and we woke to 10 beautiful Painted Lady butterflies~

It was SO wonderful to have the boys here to expeience this with us!

They were amazed although BC said they did it at school, he was able to see close and hold one~

We took them out to our butterfly bush, put our hands in to allow them to light on our hand, and watched them fly away~

What a gift to witness the miracle of seeing caterpillars to butterflies~

God is SO amazing!!!

We are reading through the Beatrix Potter series so we nature journaled squirrels~

AND one morning Evie was standing at the kitchen sink when all of a sudden a huge bee flew to the window. I assumed it was a Cicada killer but Ella said NO Mom, that's an Eastern Hornet.

After I recovered from the shock of capturing it to protect us (and observe), we spent the whole morning researching and sketching it~

Pretty awesome sketches I think~

We tried to save it but it passed so now it's on our nature shelf in all its beauty~

 Lot of learning here EVEN in the summer!!!