Finally – a Texas Butterfly field trip

 

Miss L has enjoyed butterflies for a long time now. She is known affectionately as the Butterfly Whisperer by many of her friends for her ability to coax butterflies onto her finger and for her patience to be still and wait or to just be still and enjoy watching them.

Yesterday, we went to the Texas State Fair and visited the Texas Discovery Gardens. The Texas Discovery Gardens is a butterfly garden. We were able to get special pricing during the State Fair so it was very reasonably priced. We spent a good hour there, maybe an hour and a half. And the space is not that large but she did enjoy it tremendously. The joy she had just running around and looking at these lovely creatures was wonderful.

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There were volunteers and staff members here and there throughout to offer information and answer questions. But mostly, we just enjoyed observing and watching to see what all we could see. It was wonderfully peaceful in the garden.

The flowers were also something to see. I was fascinated by the beautiful flowers throughout the butterfly house. All sorts of colors, shapes, sizes, and types. I don’t have names for most of them but one that had a name plaque there was the pitcher plant. It was really neat. The plants alone were just lovely.

They also had a bee tree. The bees came into the tree from the outside through a tube and there was a plastic viewing place where we could watch the bees moving around inside the tree/hive. We could watch them and look at the combs. Miss J had a magnifying glass and spent quite a bit of time studying them up close through it. Miss E also seemed to find these pretty fascinating and spent some time viewing and reading about the bees.

From the lovely Blue Morpho to all the others that I don’t have names for, we saw a lot of lovely butterflies. It was definitely an experience worth repeating. If you haven’t gone, it is definitely worth going.

At Home.

Recital (violin) – Blogging Through the Alphabet

A couple of weeks ago, Miss L had her spring recital with her strings class. She has been able to participate in a string class at Baylor. This class has benefitted not only our family (in that the cost is extremely reasonable, even cheap!) but it also benefits the students at Baylor who are learning to teach in classroom settings.

The recital was lovely. She and her class, as well as the two other classes, did a fantastic job. It was lots of fun and it is such a rewarding experience for her to get to show off all of her hard work this year. And it really was.

She started the year (last September) with a little bit of violin knowledge under her belt but not much. So, she began in the Bravo class with other beginners. At semester, they determined that she had made so much progress and was playing well enough to jump up a year and join the Encore class. Now that was huge and she had a big learning curve since they all had a year more experience than she did. But she undertook the challenge, practiced daily, and did really well.

The recital was the culmination of the year. We are hoping to return next year for their 3rd year class, though I can’t remember at this point what that class will be called. She still practices (almost) daily and really enjoys playing. We will encourage this for as long as she will pursue it with a heart.

At Home.

Please visit A Net In Time and Hopkins Homeschool and link up your ABC posts.

My ABC Posts:

A – Always Learning
B – Be A Pearl Seeker

C – Crave

D – Degas books

E – Electrical Circuits

G – Giraffe Party

H – How to let go?

I – Ice Cream

J – Just Sit Still

K – Kids Can

L – Leadership through Lads to Leaders

M – Motivation

N – Nature Research

O – Our God, He Is Alive

P – Prepared

 Q – Quizlet

R – Recital (violin)

S T U V W X Y Z

Origami Paper Dolls

As Miss L continues in her exploration of all things Asian, especially with an origin in China, she has experienced some new and different things. Recently, she was given this origami kit and she LOVES it.

She works diligently on each paper doll until she has folded and fitted and decorated each doll just right.

The results are stunning and absolutely beautiful.

At Home.

My New Cereal

 

My name is Miss L. I am 10 years old. This morning, for my creative writing, I chose to use the writing prompt that told me to make a breakfast cereal that gave the consumer super powers. this is what I wrote on the blank below it:

It would let you talk in all different kinds of languages-Polish, Portuguese, French, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, German, Bulgarian, Swedish, African, Cambodian, Irish, Mexican, Russian, Spanish, Icelandic, Indian, Turkish, Arabian, and even Native American. Everything you can think of-and more! It would taste deliciously fruity, like, really fruity, and not just artificially flavored, with a refreshing taste of mint. I’d come with a pink bowl and spoon to eat it with. And I’d call it Fruity Babble.

 

At Home.

Summer Fresh Drink Choice

A few weeks ago, our blogging friend over at Farm Fresh Adventures asked us to share some of our favorite summer recipes on her blog. When I asked the girls about what some of their favorite recipes were, two of them said “I don’t know.” One of them jumped up and said

“Lemonade!!!! It is so yummy and fun to make!”

So, I asked if L could share her recipe for lemonade. Farm Fresh Adventures was all for it and published her recipe a couple of days ago. I’d love it if you would hope over and check out L’s recipe for this summertime favorite. Then feel free to pop back over here and tell us what you think. We’d love to know if you try her recipe.

L’s Lemonade recipe at Farm Fresh Adventures

She had lots of fun making a test batch to ensure she had the right measurements and she had lots of fun drinking it afterwards. Writing the recipe down was a good exercise in making sure her words match the action she wanted someone to take. She wrote it down and then I described what I would do based on what she said. She didn’t have to rewrite much but there were one or two things that she decided to change based on that exchange. Writing a how-to was a change to our writing activities and I think it was a good one.

At Home.