Catocala Micronympha

I have to say that I am enjoying sitting back and watching MB and K in motion. But, I personally would go crazy with an unschooling approach. I keep constantly wanting to check a schedule or sit them down to work on something. At the same time, even though it has only been for a week, I am really starting to see some things.

First of all we have done no phonics lessons out of the 100 Easy Lessons, yet every day or night MB has picked up a story to read to us. Yesterday she even cornered her grandmother and made her sit and listen to her read a couple of stories. The stories have come from childrens' magazines and from a "Dick and Jane" collection that I had. She loves it and has even been reading some of the sentences to me from On the Banks of Plum Creek. These are things that she never did when we had lessons.

I have also found that MB really likes Math workbooks. I thought that she would enjoy Rightstart Math because it woul appeal to her kinesthetic learning, yet she has been very bored with most of it except the fun geometry activities. Several nights she has asked for her math workbook (a cheapie from somewhere) to do before she goes to sleep.

Without some invented schedule to try and keep to I have found that we have more time for science and art activities. Some of which MB has enjoyed inventing on her own.

I don't know what this will mean for our future plan and schedule. But, I feel very optomistic with the observation study so far. I still plan to just 'hang out' until the end of the month. I think there is something healing in it for all of us.

I have been reading The First Year of Homeschooling Your Child and Homeschooling the Early Years Child by Linda Dobson, which has really been reaffirming some of these ideas for me.

Okay, now for those of you that are really into insects or scientific names you may of recognized the title of the post as being "Little Nymph Underwing." This would be the name of our newly found pet/science project.

This morning MB and I found this guy hanging out on our back deck.



Through the wonderful world of the internet we have been able to deduce that it is the caterpillar of the Little Nymph Underwing Moth


So we are going to try to keep it and see what happens. Based on the write-up the timing should be good as it will probably form its cocoon sometime in the next month. It eats oak leaves and was found directly under our White Oak Tree, so we have and available food source. Keep your fingers crossed.

Here it is in its temporary habitat, MB took this picture.


We really are having a lot of fun. I hope your day was also.

Peace,

Amy