Botanica Pictures!

I think fall might be upon us!  The leaves are starting to turn, but I would enjoy it if it were in the 60's and 70's rather than the 80's!

Conferences are next week, and I look forward to visiting with everyone.  Thank you so much for signing up - you guys are great!

I thought I would share my pictures from Botanica with you, finally! Speaking of Botanica, our butterflies emerged last week, and we released them on Tuesday.  It was a great experience, as always!

 Our first station was a migration game.  The kids learned that Monarchs migrate from Canada to Mexico each year.  They also learned that many Monarchs don't make it because of natural predators.  These included trucks, birds and spiders.  So, we played a game where the kids got butterfly sticks and some adults were trucks, birds, and spiders.  If the kids were tagged by a predator, they had to give their butterfly to our guide, and get a different color butterfly at each state along the way.  When they finally reached Mexico, they made a human graph so they could see about how many make it to each state/country along the way.

Looking at natural chrysalis'.  

 We learned that Monarchs do not have good eyesight.  Kids looked through fuzzy glasses so they could see the world the way Monarchs do.

   Then we visited the butterfly house.  There were many different kinds of butterflies and the kids really enjoyed seeing if they could "hold" one.

How's that for creative thinking?  Alex didn't want the butterfly on his hand, so he used creative thinking to figure out a way!

All in all, the kids had a great time and learned a lot.  Thank you to all of our parent chaperones!  We couldn't do it without you!